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Malaysia’s fight for Malay votes becomes a multiparty scrum
Five Malay parties, one electorate. Strip away ‘the logos and personalities’ and is there really any difference between them?
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For much of Malaysia’s post-independence history, Malay voters largely faced a binary choice: Umno, the oldest Malay nationalist political party that governed the country for more than six decades until 2018, or the Islamist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS).
But with two state elections fast approaching, a bevy of breakaway parties flying variations of the same nationalist flag are all chasing those same 13 million or so Malay votes.
The newest entrant arrived on Saturday, when former home minister Hamzah Zainudin announced Parti Wawasan Negara (the National Vision Party) as the vehicle for his “Reset” movement, made up largely of politicians expelled or sidelined by Malay-nationalist Bersatu amid a bitter internal feud.
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The launch adds yet another Malay-oriented party to a field already occupied by the United Malays National Organisation, PAS, Bersatu and former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad’s Homeland Fighters’ Party (Pejuang).
Once we strip away the logos and personalities, there is not much difference between them
“Once we strip away the logos and personalities, there is not much difference between them,” Syaza Shukri, an associate professor of political science at the International Islamic University Malaysia, told This Week in Asia.
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