A GENERATIONAL divide has opened up in the country’s 317 Felda settlements that will decide who wins the all-important rural Malay vote in the next elections.

On one side are the first-generation settlers above 65 years old. Pakatan Harapan activists believe almost 80% of them will vote for Barisan Nasional.

On the flip side are their children and grandchildren who are collectively known as Felda’s second and third generation. PH believes it is making significant inroads with this younger crop.  

What excites Zakaria Hamid, a Pahang PH leader and second-generation settler, is that the second and third generation outnumber their parents by two to one.

It is this fact and the agency’s management problems that makes PH optimistic that it can rock the Felda vote – which has for the past 13 general elections been a BN fixed deposit.

The shifting sentiments are being felt by settlers themselves, such as Yahya Saat, who is in his 70s, from Felda Kg Awah, a 30-minute drive from Temerloh, Pahang.

Yahya said it was older settlers like him, who for decades, ensured that the Felda vote went to the ruling BN coalition.

But he admits that his children’s generation will be different.

“I don’t mind (who they choose). They have a right to choose who they want. Whatever happens politically, our routine here will be the same.

“There will be aid from the government and the opposition will still visit us,” he told The Malaysian Insight.  

Grateful to BN

Mounting debts from a contentious replanting scheme and several years of inconsistent harvest payments have sparked anger among more than 110,000 settlers and their families.

About 54 parliamentary seats, the bulk of them in Pahang and Johor, have Felda settlements and their votes have helped BN win these seats.

Felda’s 1.2 million settlers collectively comprise 5% of all voters nationwide.  

Realising this anger, PH has made numerous forays into Felda schemes and the turnouts at the ceramah have been encouraging, especially when coalition chairman and prime minister-designate Dr Mahathir Mohamad is the main speaker.

PH party Bersatu will contest 27 seats which have large settlements. PKR will stand in 13, Amanah (8), and DAP (5).

BN has attempted to soothe settlers’ frustrations with special bonuses and debt-relief programmes.

The Najib administration has also launched the Felda 2.0 initiative to upgrade the settlements with entrepreneurship, eco-tourism and infrastructure projects.

The attention towards them has cemented support for BN among many first-generation settlers who equate the ruling coalition with the government.

Many old-timers still feel a sense of gratitude for being chosen to be in scheme where they were given 4ha of land to plant either oil palm or rubber and another 4ha to build their houses.  

The scheme, which was started in 1958 by then prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein, who is also father of Prime Minister Najib Razak, received international accolades for a being successful at reducing rural poverty.

“Who else is going to give us 10 acres and a title with our names on it if not BN?” said Hasnah Dollah of Felda Sg Tengi in Selangor.

Only government can solve problems

The belief that BN and the government are one and the same is also shared by some second-generation settlers, such as Kamaruzzam Sohot of Felda Soeharto in Selangor.  

The 55-year-old is upset with Felda’s replanting and management of his mother’s holdings, which he claimed piled on debt but decreased harvests and yields.

It is a common complaint made of Felda’s programmes to replant and management settlers’ holdings under subsidiary Felda Technoplant Sdn Bhd.

But the disappointment is unlikely to lead to a vote for the opposition in GE14.

“We need the government’s help to solve this. If we don’t support the government, how are we supposed to ask for their help? What can the opposition do? They can only come out with resolutions.

“We can’t solve these problems through the political system. If you do, you can’t solve them. You want to ask Pakatan Harapan for help also they are not unified.”

On the other side of the coin is Azmi Mohamad Rauf, who hails from a settlement close to the “Felda town” of Jengka.

He said the government only started paying serious attention to Felda after the opposition championed its problems.

“So now we see BN racing to pitch better policies for us as they are competing against the opposition. In the end, it’s the voters who profit,” said the second-generation settler. – February 12, 2018.