ONE big reason Pakatan Harapan (PH) supporters abandoned the coalition in the recent Tg Piai by-election was its U-turn on the Lynas rare earth refinery in Pahang, said analysts.

They warned that if the administration went ahead to dig up rare earth minerals in Perak, it will be punished in the 15th general election in a state where it already holds tenuous control.

PH lawmaker Wong Tack told The Malaysian Insight the government will face stiff resistance over any plan to mine rare earth in Perak due to the trauma residents experienced with a similar venture in the 1980s.

“We are not over the Lynas issue yet and now we want to mine rare earth in Perak. The people will not allow this as they already suffered a bad experience.”

Before he joined PH in 2018, Wong spearheaded the popular movement called Himpunan Hijau to shut down the Lynas facility in Gebeng.

Wong continues to push the government to shut down Lynas on the grounds that the firm did not fulfil its promise to ship its radioactive waste back to Australia.

The Lynas plant was approved and built during the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration before the 13th general election in 2013.

Political analyst Lim Hong Siang said Himpunan Hijau was highly popular and effective in channelling support from environmentally-conscious Malaysians towards PH, particularly to its component party DAP.

“When Himpunan Hijau organised a march from Gebeng to Kuala Lumpur in 2012, scores of housewives joined in,” said Lim, executive director of think-tank Saudara.

“They walked for miles under the hot sun in solidarity for the cause,” he said, adding that the campaign captured the imagination of voters who rarely participated in civil society actions.

Support for shutting down Lynas was seen as part of a struggle to preserve the environment for future generations and this translated into votes for PH in the 13th and 14th general elections.

“If Pakatan does what BN had did before, which was to mine for rare earth, their supporters will feel like they’ve been duped. That Pakatan is just as bad as BN.”

Research as cover

The Water, Land and Natural Resources Ministry said the Perak government had only started a “research” venture with Chinese firm Chinalco GXNF Rare Earth Development to identify rare earth minerals in the state.

The ministry refuted suggestions that mining operations will begin soon.

Opposition party MCA, however, has hit back, saying under cover of “research”, rare earth could still be mined.

“If ‘research’ is really the main intention, why sign an agreement with a commercial firm, and not with non-profit academic or government organisations specialised in geology?” said MCA deputy president Mah Hang Soon.

“No private firm will enter into any transboundary agreement or MoU with a foreign body without expecting to earn any income in return.”

A rare earth mine in Perak would spark painful memories as scores were poisoned by radiation from the Asian Rare Earth Sdn Bhd (ARE) plant that operated in Bukit Merah in the 1980s.

The plant was forced to shut down while the radioactive waste has been entombed in a facility in Bukit Klebang.

In the recent Tg Piai by-election, PH suffered a crushing defeat when tens of thousands of its core supporters, especially from the Chinese community, voted for the MCA candidate, giving the win to BN.

Among the issues voters punished PH for was its foot-dragging over vernacular education issues, tolerance of rising Malay nationalism and the U-turn on Lynas, said Lim.

Another analyst Ooi Heng said environmentally conscious voters usually supported PH because the coalition claims to be a proponent of sustainability.

“Younger voters tend to care more about environmental issues than older ones,” said Ooi of the think-tank Political Studies for Change.

“A reversal on its environmental policies will damage the coalition.” – November 29, 2019.