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Some 250 people turned up at the Catholic Church in Pulau Tikus in Penang tonight to listen to Dr Francis Loh presenting a talk on election issues that should concern Malaysians.

Though the crowd might seem small, a similar talk at the same church in 1999, at the height of the reformasi period, drew only about 150.

Meanwhile, I spoke to a few working class Muslims in Penang, picked out at random, and asked them their views about the elections. A simple straw poll: a taxi driver (who turned out to be a PKR supporter), a security guard and a petrol pump attendant. They each told me that there was a mood for change, people have opened their eyes, the prices of essential items was too high etc. Umno might still be a formidable force, the taxi driver said, but there is a slight shift in support among the Malays towards the opposition. The petrol pump attendant told me something similar.

A retired police personnel, for his part, informed me he heard some “influential” grapevine people in the Weld Quay area have been telling Chinese Malaysians that even if the Opposition were to put up a monkey as a candidate in their area, vote for the monkey! Such is the sentiment in some circles.

Many Indian Malaysians already appear to have swung to the Opposition, riding on the Makkal Sakthi fervour. Everyday, I receive SMSes from Indian Malaysians urging people to vote for the Opposition. These SMSes come from the most unlikely sources, from people you would not normally think as being politically concerned or awakened.

Meanwhile, other SMSes have been flying around in Penang informing people that Anwar and Guan Eng are speaking tomorrow (Saturday) night at the Han Chiang indoor stadium in Penang, which apparently can accommodate only 1,000 people. That ceramah should see a huge, overflowing crowd. At this time of the night, I have no way of verifying if the event is actually taking place, so better check before you head out there.

Still, it’s hard to predict the outcome - the illegal bookies seem to know better - so I won’t even try. But I think its safe to say that a string of seats are going to fall into Opposition hands, compared to their present tally of just two out of 40 state assembly seats.

I am just back from Singapore, where I took part in a forum on the Malaysian general election with some old friends.

The forum on Tuesday was organised by the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in the island republic. I was delighted to meet my friend, Farish Noor, one of the organisers, and other friends on the same panel, namely Hermen Shastri of the Council of Churches Malaysia (CCM) and Zaharom Nain of USM. Also on the same panel was Yang Razali, Senior Fellow at the School and Editor of the RSIS commentaries.

Farish, a prolific analyst and commentator, has just taken up a new position as Senior Fellow at RSIS and he seemed happy that his new job would allow him to travel and spend time on his research interests. He spoke on the Hindraf factor, Hermen touched on the Christian minorities’ concerns, Yang Razali on the possible election outcome scenarios, Zaharom on the mainstream media’s coverage heavily tilted in the ruling coalition’s favour. I zoomed in on the electoral battle in Penang, one of the “frontline” states.

On the way to Singapore, I had pored over the Singapore Straits Times and the Today paper and noticed that they had given wide coverage - page after page - to the Malaysian general election. Most of the Singapore media including those under Singapore MediaCorp and Channel News Asia have a string of correspondents covering the campaigning in Malaysia ahead of the polls. The coverage of Nomination Day proceedings was impressive, with the campaigns of both the BN and the opposition given lots of space. The key points of the BN’s and opposition parties’ manifestos were also listed.

I wondered to myself if Singapore’s opposition parties would receive fair media coverage in their own election campaigns. For one thing, I know that pictures of the massive crowds at opposition rallies in the last Singapore general election were largely not shown in the island republic’s press, as revealed in Singaporean activist Dana Lam’s excellent book “Days of Being Wild” (mainly reporting impressions of the opposition side of the Singapore election campaign that received little mainstream coverage).

Even though we had seen the prominent coverage of the Malaysian general election in the Singapore papers, the visiting Malaysian panel speakers including me were somewhat taken aback to see the Singapore media, including television stations, turning out in full force at the RSIS forum. All of us were deluged with journalists asking us for our contact details and requesting newspaper and television interviews, which we were happy to oblige. We each received a pile of call cards from the various journalists, who said they would be in touch with us.

As a Singaporean relative of mine told me, Malaysian politics is far more interesting, intriguing and entertaining than Singaporean politics, which by comparison is frankly, well, kinda dull and predictable…

One of the hot topics in Singapore now is inflation, which has reached the highest level for I-can’t-remember-how-many-years. Looks like Singapore and Malaysia still have a lot in common.

Before my arrival in Singapore, I had glanced through a full-page BN ad in theSun (25 February) titled “Proven: Stretching the Ringgit”. It showed a comparison table of the prices of flour, sugar, cooking oil and petrol in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Singapore (see table on left). Of course, the Malaysian prices were the lowest. But aren’t these all controlled items? Well, yes, because the ad also stated that RM43.5 billion was spent on subsidies “on essential items so that all Malaysians enjoy lower prices and have more money in their pockets”.

This appears to be an attempt to counter public concerns in Malaysia over the rising prices of essential food items such as staples, meat, fish, vegetable and fruit while preparing the ground for a future oil price hike. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t eat much sugar and flour(!) and I try to avoid food which has been cooked with a lot of oil. What about the prices of bread, fruit, fish and vegetables?

Over in Singapore, similar regional comparisons have been made to allay public concerns over price hikes. The Today newspaper (26 February) carried a report mentioning that the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) had done a comparison of food prices in Singapore with those in neighbouring countries. The paper noted that the MTI “has lately released more inflation-related data, such as a table on how food prices here (in Singapore) have not risen as much as in Malaysia, America or Hong Kong”.

Eh, food prices in Singapore have not risen as much as in Malaysia? Whom to believe? The BN or the Singapore MTI? But then again, the BN advert only showed the prices of controlled items such as sugar, cooking oil and flour…

What I would like to see in the mainstream media is some attempt to analyse why food prices are rising. Could it be due to:

• the destruction of vegetable farms to make way for development (so that most vegetables supplied in Penang for instance now have to come all the way from Cameron Highlands)?
• the shift to corporate agriculture and its emphasis on the cultivation of cash crops for export instead of essential food items to promote food security and self-sufficiency?
• higher oil prices leading to a rise in fuel, transport, fertiliser and pesticide costs, the increased use of which is the result of the shift away from traditional farming practices?
• the conversion of land for biofuel cultivation, which has reduced the availability of land for farming?

Instead of looking at these factors to explain the rising price of food, the media here act as if the problem is inevitable, when it could be partly due to the government’s own policies.

It is important for the opposition parties to study the factors leading to rising food prices and to suggest alternative farming, financial and economic policies that they would implement to keep food prices affordable if they come to power. (I know that is a big if - but still…) These policies could include promoting organic farming while curbing the use of harmful - and expensive - pesticides and encouraging the opening up of more vegetable farms and fruit orchards near urban centres (to cut down on transport costs). We can’t survive on microchips alone, you know…

Well, well, well, what do we have here?

Pas is fielding a non-Muslim Indian Malaysian woman as a candidate for the Tiram state seat in Johor: 29-year-old law graduate Kumutha Rahman.

Okay, it might be a gimmick to attract non-Muslim votes. After all, even Hishamuddin “the keris man” Hussein has agreed to re-open the original Damansara Chinese school in Petaling Jaya, which was closed in 2001. Amazing what elections can do!

It remains to be seen if this Pas move is just tokenism or the start of a journey to reach out to “The Other”.

But all said and done, it is a breakthrough. This is exactly the sort of “out-of-the-box” thinking that we need to shape a new political landscape in our land, breaking down ethnic, religious and mental barriers.

Check out this NST report:

ELECTION 2008: Pas breaks own taboo to field first non-Muslim candidate
By : Syed Umar Ariff

JOHOR BARU, Thurs:

Kumutha Rahman looked nervous as pressmen, armed with notebooks and recorders, jostled through the crowd for an interview with her. The 29-year-old law graduate, who had just been named as the first non-Muslim candidate to be fielded by Pas, listened attentively to the questions hurled at her when Johor Pas announced their candidates at their headquarters in Batu Pahat.

KUMUTHA Rahman looked nervous as pressmen, armed with notebooks and recorders, jostled through the crowd for an interview with her.
The 29-year-old law graduate, who had just been named as the first non-Muslim candidate to be fielded by Pas, listened attentively to the questions hurled at her when Johor Pas announced their candidates at their headquarters in Batu Pahat.
She is contesting the Tiram state seat. But knowing the realities perhaps, Pas is fielding her under the Parti Keadilan Rakyat symbol based on the electoral pact the two parties have entered into.

Still, is she in for a culture shock? Will she be able to speak the language of Pas where Arabic phrases and Quranic verses matter most? Will she have to physically cover herself more than ever?

“I know I won’t feel alienated because I believe voters nowadays are open-minded,” she said. “I also know that Muslims and non-Muslims will be able to accept me.”
A member of the one-month old Unity Bureau under the Johor non-Muslim Pas Supporters Club, Kumutha may be oblivious to the fact that she had broken the conservative Islamic party’s 61-year-old tradition of only fielding Muslims as candidates.

“I joined the club because I see that Pas is not bent on racialism. To me all races be they Malays, Chinese or Indians are all the same.”

Making the announcement was Johor Pas commissioner Datuk Mahfodz Mohamed, returning to contest for the Bukit Serampang state seat, said the move signified Pas’ tolerance towards other races.

The move to field a non-Muslim candidate comes hot on the heels of another shock announcement reported in the AP agency yesterday but hardly given a mention anywhere else in the local press: the party has dropped from its electoral platform its pledge to create an Islamic state. Instead, its slogan will be “a nation of care and opportunity”.

“We offer equal justice to all, justice in economy opportunities and freedom of religion,” Abdul Hadi said. “We promise a government that is trustworthy, just and clean which will be able to give the people a better life.”

Can’t argue with that!

What is even more interesting to me is that Pas has borrowed a key idea from civil society groups. The party has unveiled a plan to use the country’s oil profits to pay for health care and retain oil subsidies.

Now, the health care financing bit comes straight out of the Coalition Against Health Care Privatisation’s People’s Proposal - and it is certainly do-able, instead of wasting our oil profits on mega projects that do not benefit the ordinary people. Think of how much our general hospitals could be improved if we used our oil profits to benefit the people. Why, our general hospitals could be on par with - or even better than - any private hospital in the land! At present, the government is spending only 2 per cent of GDP on public health care when it should be spending 5 per cent or more.

It’s about time political parties took this proposal seriously. Like you, I know of too many people who have suffered tremendously because of long waiting lists and a critical shortage of specialists and doctors in our general hospitals.

This is what the Coalition had proposed two years ago (bear in mind that Petronas’ profit is now two or three times higher than what it was in 2004):

“National Health Fund

We therefore propose a new funding formula to safeguard the health of all Malaysians. It could be called the National Health Fund, but it should not be financed from the pockets of individual Malaysians. There are plenty of viable and present alternatives. They include: