Pakatan Harapan stalwart Rafizi Ramli pens open letter urging Malaysia's ruling coalition to shape up

"Judging from online comments at major news portals, it is obvious that the country is highly polarised," says former Parti Keadilan Rakyat vice-president Rafizi Ramli. PHOTO: FACEBOOK / RAFIZI RAMLI

Mr Rafizi Ramli, a former vice-president of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), one of the four parties of the Pakatan Harapan (PH), has published a letter urging the Malaysia's ruling coalition to buckle down on its mission to improve people's lives instead of politicking amid "plunging" approval ratings.

Here is his commentary as it appeared in The Star Online on Wednesday (Dec 19):

"After 61 years, Malaysia finally managed a successful democratic change. Whether or not the democratic change meets our expectation, no one should take the credit away from the Malaysian people.

The dust takes a bit longer to settle. In the early months of the PH administration, whenever I raised an issue that seemed to puncture the euphoria, I got attacked viciously. I thought it was only natural because of the euphoria; sooner or later the dust would eventually settle, and we could get on with bringing change to the country.

Unfortunately, the euphoria seems to derail the focus of the PH administration a bit. The deflation - from the euphoria to disillusionment - can be severe, if not appropriately managed. There are signs that the euphoria has gone somewhat sour.

Plunging approval rating

I continue to follow the pulse on the ground through surveys and analytical profiling, a discipline I maintain from the campaign towards GE14.

Judging from online comments at major news portals, it is obvious that the country is highly polarised. Each community lives in our own bubble. We are not aware of the undercurrent that is fast developing in the other community, because we hardly interact with each other.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but someone must bell the cat.

The approval rating of the Federal Government since PH took over in May 2018 has been plunging, rather rapidly.

In June 2018, when asked to rate Tun Mahathir Mohamad's performance as the Prime Minister, 72 per cent Malaysians approved his performance. The Chinese rated him highest at 87 per cent approval, followed by the Indians at 84 per cent. Even the Malay respondents gave him a high 66 per cent approval rating (given that PH did poorly with Malay voters during GE14).

In a similar survey conducted two weeks ago, Tun Mahathir's approval rating as the Prime Minister has plunged to 53 per cent. There is a consistent ~20 per cent drop across all races - Malays (from 66 per cent to 45 per cent), Chinese (from 87 per cent to 65 per cent) and Indians (from 84 per cent to 64 per cent).

In some states, the newly elected Menteri Besar, whom some of the sampled respondents could not name correctly, got a higher approval rating than the Prime Minister.

The Malay votes deficit

I notice of the most often repeated justifications for the plunging approval rating was PH's failure to win a sizeable chunk of the Malay votes in GE14.

Proponents of this theory went on to theorise that to defend the PH administration; the Prime Minister must be given a free hand to do what is necessary to strengthen PH's Malay votes.

This includes the efforts to bring in ex-Umno MPs to shore up Bersatu's (Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia) number in Parliament. The Prime Minister seems to argue today that the ex-Umno MPs will bring the rural Malay support with them. This is good for PH in the battle for Malay's hearts and minds.

The percentage of Malay voters who voted for PH vary from state to state and party to party.

Nationally, PH achieved less than 30 per cent of the share of Malay votes. Broken down by parties, PKR achieved a 31 per cent share of Malay votes (calculated against the seats it contested), followed by Amanah (Parti Amanah Negara) at 26 per cent and Bersatu at 21 per cent.

The share of Malay votes that PH obtained also vary by states and can be broken down roughly into four categories:

1. The share of Malay votes exceeded 40 per cent - Selangor, Wilayah Persekutuan (Federal Territories) and Penang

2. The share of Malay votes between 30 per cent to 40 per cent - Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan and Kedah

3. The share of Malay votes between 20 per cent to 30 per cent - Perak, Pahang and Perlis

4. The share of Malay votes less than 20 per cent - Kelantan and Terengganu

Out of the 97 seats that PH won in Semenanjung (Peninsular Malaysia), only 42 are in the states where PH's share of Malay votes exceeded 40 per cent.

Fifty-five seats are in danger of going to other parties in the next general election if there is a significant shift among Malay voters.

PH won on an economic platform

You may ask me by now - what's with these numbers? What's the relevance of approval ratings and the share of Malay votes in GE14?

It is true that we did not win enough Malay votes in GE14.

But we still won the majority in Parliament because enough swing Malay voters in the marginal seats across the country voted for PH. They voted for PH primarily due to our economic promises to make their life better, not because PH has somewhat convinced them that we are more "Malay" than Umno or PAS (Parti Islam SeMalaysia).

I have argued all along that the racial and religious dimensions will always exist in our society. There are still ethnic and religious considerations among the Malays, the Chinese, the Indians (maybe less in Sabah and Sarawak).

As political parties, what we can do is to articulate middle grounds and focus on policies, so that the public discourse revolves around voters' livelihood. I repeated during the GE14 that PH could only win if we convinced enough Malays that a change of government could lower down prices, create more jobs and increase wages.

We can never become more Malay than Umno or more politically Islamic than PAS. Race and religion are Umno's and PAS' strength; the economic platform is our platform.

True enough, the results of GE14 validated this.

In spite of all the efforts to show Bersatu carried the Malay torch within PH (highest seats were given to Bersatu, Bersatu was given prominence in state PH chairmanship despite its relatively new presence), that gestures did not bring significant Malay votes to PH. Bersatu got the lowest share of Malay votes among all the PH parties.

Thankfully, PH still managed to win enough parliamentary seats because there were enough Malay economic voters who were ready to give it a chance, which explains the rapidly plunging approval rating for the Federal Government.

Losing economic focus

It is not that I do not understand the financial predicament that the Federal Government found itself in, having inherited the economic mess from Najib Razak's administration. It is precisely because the public appreciates the degree of financial ruin that they took chances with PH in GE14.

But our key constituents are economic voters across the races. From the first post-GE14 survey until this month's poll, reducing higher cost of living and fulfilling election promises tops the key concern of the voters across the board.

After a while, the public is losing patience with what is seen as mere excuses on the part of the PH administration. We can't fulfil all the promises immediately within the 100 days (trust me, the public does not even expect that), yet at the very least the PH administration must be seen to be solely focused on laying the groundwork to fulfil them (election promises) at some point in the future.

It is understandably a work-in-progress, but we do need to see some progress. After a while, it is no longer enough to charge former government leaders with cases of corruption because so long as there is no marked improvement (concerning economic livelihood) on the ground, the restlessness will continue.

In some areas, things did get worse after we took over.

Late payments of living allowances to Felda settlers is a regular feature of our administration. Not only we are not able to write off their debts that were questionably piled on them by the previous administration; we could not help making things better for them when the commodity prices plunged.

While reducing prices will take a while, any sudden removal of aids previously provided by the government, when implemented without a more effective substitute programme, helps the opposition builds a negative narrative against the Federal Government.

We will take some time to restructure PTPTN (Editor's note: PTPTN is a government body that provides study loans to Malaysian university students), but why resort to the opposite of our election pledge, when we have not heard anything about any efforts to refinance PTPTN bonds to lower the financing cost? Can we not use the Prime Minister's good standing with the Japanese to refinance these bonds? The annual saving of 2-3 per cent of interest on bonds worth of RM40 billion (S$13 billion) easily translates to RM1 billion.

The public does not expect a miracle; they expect efforts. They need to see our focus is fixated on making their lives better.

Instead, more often than not, we give excuses why we could not deliver.

Distractions

Unfortunately, we also have been serving the public with one political drama after another. We are all guilty of that, but the public looks up to the Cabinet for a steady direction in this turbulent time.

We can't afford too much distraction because we need to deliver economically. We were elected mainly because of our economic promises.

But if there is one thing that the PH administration can be most proud of in the last seven months, it is our penchant for unnecessary distractions.

I can't for the life of me understand why our Cabinet ministers went on to focus on ratifying ICERD (International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination), without weighing in the sentiments on the ground.

We could achieve more if we focus on making sure the multiracial Malaysians get a fair treatment in every sphere of their life, regardless of race and religion. We don't need to make noisy political statements to honour non-Malay top achievers who deserve scholarships, as much as we don't need to make a fuss when we extend assistance to deserving Malay graduates to increase their job marketability.

The distraction handed on a silver platter the opposition's best cause to rally Malay voters against PH, especially when more and more swing voters (as shown by the plunging approval rating) feel that PH is dishonest with its election pledges.

A week before the rally, a friend asked me: Do you think they will get 5,000 people because Umno no longer has money to ship these people?

I told him: Don't give them a cause.

Electoral reform, anti-corruption and better livelihood were among the main causes that galvanised PH supporters to join Bersih rallies. We came down because we believed in the cause.

The moment you give the racially oriented segments of our society a cause, people who are galvanised by the cause do not need free buses or pocket money to join more anti-PH rallies. They participate because they genuinely believe that either PH is bad for the Malays, or because they feel cheated that their life got worse since PH took over.

True enough, the number of people who joined anti-ICERD rally this month should give us a point or two to ponder.

Focus on delivery

In that same context, I wish to caution the PH leadership that the public is disgusted with the recent wave of Umno MPs switching side.

To swing voters, it is yet another evidence that the PH administration is more focused on internal power dynamics, rather than focusing on delivering on our election promises. We also dilute our reform credentials in the eyes of PH hardcore supporters.

To those who argue that the orchestrated mass migration of Umno MPs is necessary for strengthening PH's grip on Malay voters, there is no indication this is happening. In fact, it provokes angrier sentiment against PH among the Umno-PAS supporters.

Instead of winning them over with economic narratives and delivery, we are pushing them further and further away (much in the same way the engineered defection that toppled the Perak government did not endear the PH supporters to BN then).

My biggest concern is this: The recent exodus of Umno MPs, instead of weakening Umno, strengthens PAS as the biggest Malay party (now that Umno has been weakened). If more and more Malay fence-sitters become disillusioned with PH's lackadaisical economic delivery, they will readily swing to PAS in the next general election.

The only way that is achievable and responsible for forging a united and moderate Malaysia is to focus on our economic platform.

PH must go back to our election pledges.

We need to demonstrate seriousness in making life better for the ordinary Malaysians, not to be dragged by endless cloak-and-dagger political manoeuvres of the old Malaysia.

I urge the PH leadership to take stock of the developments and urgently refocus our efforts.

And it must begin with the PH Presidential Council sending a clear signal that we will stop the cloak-and-dagger orchestration of more Umno MPs crossing over."

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