ST: Close polls' impact on S'pore
Soh Yi Da
Close polls' impact on S'pore
After the intense Malaysian GE, what are the ramifications for bilateral relations between Singapore and its northern neighbour and on its own domestic politics? Jeremy Au Yong reports
RARELY has there been an election campaign up north that has drawn so much attention from Singaporeans.
Both online and off, in coffee shops and offices, Malaysia's general election has proved to be quite a talking point.
Part of it was simply due to the fact that the Barisan Nasional (BN) stronghold of Johor - Singapore's closest neighbour - was in play for the first time in decades.
Suddenly, the Malaysians who live in Singapore or who commute here for work became an important constituency. Johor chief minister Abdul Ghani Othman even spent half a day visiting Singapore during the campaign.
The other, bigger reason, was the possibility of a regime change.
Heading into Election Day on Sunday, opinion polls showed the ruling BN slipping, with its message of continuity and stability seemingly failing to resonate with urban voters.
The opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) ran on a platform of change, pushing the message that its large electoral gains in 2008 were the start of something bigger, not a fluke event.
As it transpired, BN won. But while there is no need to forge relations with a new party or renegotiate joint projects, questions are inevitably being raised on whether Singapore-Malaysia ties will remain on track and continue from where they left off.
The inroads the opposition made into Johor, especially the defeat of Mr Abdul Ghani by opposition icon Lim Kit Siang, have prompted a few murmurings on the future of Singapore's considerable interest in Iskandar Malaysia.
While BN has retained power, its showing nationwide was poorer than in 2008 - it ceded a further seven seats and also saw its share of the popular vote fall to 47 per cent. This raises the question of whether a weakened coalition will have the political will to see through agreements such as the iconic joint projects in Singapore, or the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur high-speed link.
Then there is the problem of Singapore being cast as a bogeyman during the elections.
While this is par for the course during hustings in Malaysia, the deeply polarised atmosphere surrounding the election results means there is a risk the anti-Singapore rhetoric might resurface with increasing frequency, making bilateral ties that much more delicate to manage.
Some are also wondering if Prime Minister Najib Razak will be able to withstand party pressure to abandon a more centrist agenda for a right-wing one. There is talk in Malaysia that he could be challenged by others wanting to take over. If that scenario bears out, what would be the impact on Singapore-Malaysia relations?
Warming ties
BILATERAL ties are regarded as having reached a high-water mark during Mr Najib's tenure as PM.
Although the often unpredictable - and at times rocky - relationship had begun to stabilise after the combative Dr Mahathir Mohamad stepped down as prime minister in 2003, it was only under Mr Najib's watch that many of the landmark bilateral breakthroughs were delivered.
Mr Najib took office in April 2009. Just one month later, he met PM Lee Hsien Loong in Singapore for a leaders' retreat. They initiated discussions on the long-contested issue of Malayan railway land in Singapore which led to a landmark agreement a year later.
The deal involved a land swop agreement as Singapore took control of the 40km stretch of railway land that dated from colonial times in return for Malaysia entering into joint development projects on three parcels of prime land here.
More than just removing a thorn in the side of bilateral relations, the process also served to reaffirm the commitment from both sides to accept international arbitration as the method to settle disagreements.
Mr Najib's predecessor Abdullah Badawi had also agreed to turn to the International Court of Justice when Singapore and Malaysia had competing claims over the island of Pedra Branca.
Then, in the lead-up to the latest Malaysian polls, there was further affirmation of ties, not just between the countries, but personally between PM Lee and PM Najib.
In February this year, the two agreed to set up a high-speed rail link between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and they also undertook ground-breaking on several major joint projects, both in Singapore and in Iskandar Malaysia.
Now that the election is over, will an electorally weakened Mr Najib still have the political will to press on with the projects?
And will the opposition try and scupper or review deals if they feel such deals are against the public interest?
Singapore's former high commissioner to Malaysia, Mr K. Kesavapany, says that it is unlikely that past Singapore-Malaysia agreements will be under threat post-General Election 2013.
"The BN does have a working majority in Parliament so the opposition will not be able to try and ask for a review of the deals in Parliament. They might not be able to get it through," he says.
Similarly, Dr Ooi Kee Beng, the deputy director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, does not think ties between the leaders would have soured regardless of who had won the election.
"Both coalitions in Malaysia are primarily concerned with domestic issues," he says. "I also don't think the voters also were concerned about external relations. Malaysian politics, in a sense, is quite introverted. They will largely be caught up with their own problems."
Yet, the government-opposition tension is only one part of the equation. There are concerns that an internal power struggle within BN's main party, Umno, could cause some Singapore-Malaysia projects to be used as political footballs.
Dr Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman, the coordinator of the Malaysia Programme at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), says that though Umno, like the opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), has been taking a more conservative, nationalist turn, he does not think it will endanger bilateral ties.
"My take is that any fighting within Umno will not likely involve Singapore. If they are going to attack Najib, it may be focused on issues like how he was too focused on trying to win the Chinese ground and losing the popular vote. Even if there is a change of leadership, I think the BN knows politics is politics and business is business," he says.
Turning to Singapore's involvement in the Iskandar region, observers similarly feel that conditions will change only minimally now that the 2,217 sq km zone has an opposition MP.
Says economist Tan Khee Giap of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy: "The matter was being handled at the federal level, so I don't think there is going to be an impact locally."
He adds that if there would be any difference, it would be that dealings would become more political with Mr Lim Kit Siang scrutinising closely any further deals between the Malaysian and Singapore governments.
Mr Kesavapany agrees: "Lim is not an ideologue. He knows people will need the jobs, the investments, I don't think he is inclined to do something that could jeopardise that."
Professor Joseph Liow, the associate dean of RSIS, says: "PR didn't win the state government, nor did it deny BN two-thirds majority for the state. The opposition will have a larger say on Johor policy and those in relation to Singapore, as they have representation within the state legislature.
"But in the larger scheme of things I don't think that DAP (Democratic Action Party) or PR had alluded to the notion that they would revamp the relationship between Johor and Singapore."
Direct comparisons difficult
ON WEDNESDAY night, some 200 Malaysians gathered in Singapore's Marina Bay area dressed in black to show solidarity with the mass rally that was taking place in the Malaysian state of Selangor at the same time. The Selangor rally was held by the opposition to protest against what they said were fraudulent election practices.
For Sunday, a separate event is being organised at Hong Lim Park for Singaporeans to show their support for the Malaysians calling for fair elections. Some 100 people have indicated on Facebook that they would attend.
The two events in Singapore show that there would be some importing of Malaysian politics but it is not clear to what extent it would spill over into Singapore's domestic politics.
The temptation to compare the countries is always there, given the many parallels. The people are culturally similar and both have longstanding, entrenched ruling parties that have been in power since independence.
Yet observers say direct comparisons are difficult.
Says Dr Ooi: "There are some similarities, but most people know that the issues in both countries are very different. In Singapore, I get the sense that people think there is too much state intervention, while in Malaysia it's about race-based politics, corruption and things like that."
The election campaigns in both countries bear out this difference. While the push for a more liberal democracy is evident on both sides, it is clear the Malaysians are focused on cleaning up corruption and pushing for free and fair elections. It is these causes that draw tens of thousands to mass rallies like those organised by the electoral reform group Bersih.
In Singapore, the message that resonates with opposition supporters is having more checks and balances on government.
Dr Ooi says the Singapore opposition members looking at Malaysia can take away only a limited amount of encouragement.
"You can talk about it as a wind of change, although there is nothing tangible about this. Yet, it is not nonsense either. Things do capture the imagination."
It is the threat of racial polarisation that has emerged post-election which most point to as a cause for concern, albeit not because of a perception that racial tensions across the border might raise similar tensions here.
Says Prof Liow: "The perception that whatever happens in Malaysia will affect ethnic communities here is outdated. We have our own problems without getting drawn into other people's problems. We are concerned not because of spillover, but because we have our own experience and understand how deleterious the breakdown of race relations can be."
A more worrying danger is how racial polarisation there might mix with the anti-Singapore rhetoric. Examples whipped out this time around were accusations that Singaporeans entering Johor were pushing up prices of food and property and, more uncomfortably, that the opposition DAP was a proxy for Singapore's People's Action Party.
Dr Mahathir, for instance, said DAP's "Malaysian Malaysia" slogan was the same one used by the PAP when Singapore was part of Malaysia between 1963 and 1965.
He wrote in Malaysian daily New Straits Times that this slogan pits Chinese against Malays and threatens longstanding Sino-Malay cooperation.
"Singapore and its chauvinistic meritocrats had to leave Malaysia. But a trojan horse was left behind in the form of a political party named DAP," he said.
Such accusations are not new, and most note that they are used purely for politicking during the campaign.
Dr Ooi is unperturbed, saying that negative mentions of Singapore during the campaign period were "half-hearted".
Still, post-election, Malaysian government leaders and newspapers played up the argument that the BN's poor performance was due to a large swing in the Chinese vote. The DAP - which is deemed Chinese-centric - was the best-performing party in the PR coalition, while the Chinese party within BN, the Malaysian Chinese Association, was decimated at the polls.
Many instantly objected to the characterisation that the Chinese were the key players trying to effect regime change. Opposition leaders denounced it and a Facebook page was soon started featuring Malay and Chinese Malaysians having their pictures taken together as a sign of unity.
And the anti-Singapore rhetoric has not been exclusive to the BN. Dr Nawab notes that the opposition PAS has long included such rhetoric in its writings, including portrayals of Singapore as a neo-colonial power challenging Malaysia's sovereignty through its involvement in Iskandar.
The danger then lies in what happens if the moderate agenda gets overrun either because of changes within Umno or changes within the larger dynamic of a divided majority constituency.
Prof Liow, though, remains optimistic about the resilience of Malaysia-Singapore ties, saying: "No matter how anti-Singaporean Malaysians are, they will realise that at the end of the day, it's a mutually beneficial relationship. We should sit down to iron out differences. It is not the interest of any party, including the Malaysian opposition, to see this relationship break down."
Looking beyond GE2013
MOST agree the election result has no adverse impact on Singapore-Malaysia ties. Relations are likely to remain strong and deals will continue to be fulfilled.
Yet, the political situation there is still evolving.
One key issue is whether the centrist agenda can remain the dominant one in Malaysia. Intertwined with this is the matter of whether Mr Najib can resist right-wing pressures from within Umno, when it holds its own elections later this year.
The 1Malaysia slogan of unity put forward by Mr Najib does not have unanimous support within Umno.
Another is how GE2013 raised fundamental questions about where Malaysia goes from here and what sort of country it will be. How that is answered is something Singapore will be watching with much interest.