By Niza Shimi
October will be a frightening month for some as ghouls will roam during Halloween and beer will flow for Oktoberfest. Some may be even more unsettled if Parliament is dissolved this month and the 15th general elections (GE15) season begins.
It will be interesting to see if there will be a Malay voters uprising for GE15 inspired by the Malaysian blockbuster movie of all time, Mat Kilau: Kebangkitan Pahlawan by Studio Kembara. The movie still tops Netflix Malaysia for two weeks running.
Interestingly, the lead actor who portrays Mat Kilau in the movie Dato’ Muhummad Hadi Putra Halim, better known as Adi Putra, was just appointed as the Selangor Barisan Nasional (BN) icon and will campaign for the party.
As reported by The Sun Daily on September 28, 2022 BN youth chief Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki said that Adi Putra was ready to assist BN Youth ahead of GE15.
Asyraf added, the explosive wisdom of Mat Kilau’s film has opened the eyes of many young people to study the history of their land with full appreciation.
Many will recall that GE13 held in May 2013 was dubbed the “Chinese Tsunami” when the Chinese voters rejected the power-sharing formula of BN.
In the Astro Awani report on May 7, 2013 former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad put the blame on Democratic Action Party (DAP) advisor Lim Kit Siang for his 'Malaysian Malaysia' concept aimed at creating Chinese hatred towards the Malays; that they (the Malays) purportedly gained everything after independence.
To everyone’s great surprise, Tun Mahathir and his Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) later joined forces with Lim and the DAP in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition that eventually won GE14 in May 2018 in what some referred to as the Malay Tsunami.
However, former and now jailed PM Najib Razak believed BN lost the election because the Malays were divided. (Malaysiakini August 23, 2018), not because of a Malay Tsunami. Considering the number of new political parties and coalitions that have sprung up since GE14, Malays must be even more divided.
But a Malay Mail report (September 7, 2022) showed that an analysis by research firm Politweet showed that Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) secured most of the votes from Malay voters aged 21-30 that swung away from BN as well as PH and Parti Warisan (PHW) in GE14.
According to Politweet, the Islamist party (PAS) technically saw a 30.83 percentage point swing in its favour for the age group. Its analysis showed that BN lost young Malay votes in all states and federal territories in the election that saw the coalition defeated for the first time in its history.
With the voting age of Malaysian now lowered to 18 years, it will be a race for the young voters. Will icons such as Adi Putra make an impact in the campaign for BN by riding on the popularity of the Mat Kilau movie? Can the BN coalition reclaim the Malay vote? That remains to be seen.
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