WITH the general response to the coming general election reportedly “very cold” as the outrage over holding it during the flood season has yet to subside, a political analyst nonetheless predicts that the polls will turn into “a very hot” one. 

“A lot of people have claimed they don’t care,” University of Tasmania’s Asian governance expert Professor James Chin said. 

“I don’t think that is true.” 

He said that at the moment, Malaysians were just switched off. 

He added that once the campaign got going, they would realise that a lot of things were at stake. 

“The economy is at stake. Political stability is at stake.” 

Chin said the realisation could even sink in right after nomination day. 

He said that the country was just coming out of the pandemic and who they chose to lead the country back to normality was crucial. 

“Many people don’t realise that this Covid had really, really affected the country right down to its core.”

Chin said “a lot of misreporting” of the damage done by the pandemic to the economy gave a skewed sense of the situation. 

To better understand what the pandemic had done to the economy, Chin said the “simplest way” was to take a look at the income groups affected.  

He said that before the pandemic, 20% of the population belonged to the T20 group with the highest income. Next came the middle 40%, known as the M40, and finally there was the B40, the group with the lowest earnings.  

 “The Covid19 has changed that entire scenario.” 

He said that while the T20 remained unaffected by the pandemic, the biggest change was in the M40, which had shrunk by 10% to what is now considered the M30. 

That, Chin said, had put 50% of Malaysians earning an income in the B40. – October 15, 2022.