Will new Malaysia have same old racial divide? Ethnic Chinese Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng seeks post-election unity
In a racialised political system where the Malay majority has always felt threatened by the Chinese minority, the transfer of the finance portfolio to Lim is remarkable. But can the country come together to move forward?
When Lim Guan Eng walks into his office in Putrajaya – with its oak shelves barren of books and glass cabinets glaringly empty – a group stands up to extend him deferential greetings. All the women are clad in hijab and almost all the men are Malay, the majority race of Malaysia.
Lim, 57, is Malaysia’s new finance minister. It is a post that has been entrusted to an ethnic Chinese Malaysian for the first time in 44 years. Lim takes over from former premier Najib Razak who held the finance portfolio before a historic election pushed him from the centre of power and into the middle of a multibillion-dollar corruption investigation.
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In a highly racialised political system where the Malay majority has always felt threatened by the Chinese minority’s disproportionate economic power, the transfer of Najib’s powerful finance portfolio to Lim is in itself remarkable. But then there is very little that hasn’t been, in the days and weeks following the May 9 election that saw the only ruling alliance independent Malaysia has ever known toppled after 61 years in power.
“We can differ strongly and yet we can work together as one team and that’s the most important element. If this country is to move forward, we got to act in concert, we have to move together as one team. One person cannot save the country, we need every single one of our 31 million Malaysians to help us save Malaysia,” Lim says.
Malays and other indigenous people are accorded special protections in the country’s constitution, and Islam, the religion of almost all Malays, is the country’s official religion. While these basic principles, collectively called bumiputra (“sons of the soil”) policies, are widely accepted as non-negotiable, there has been growing unhappiness over how they have come to be applied in ways that have turned ethnic and religious minorities into second-class citizens.