IN a mounting campaign to sway public opinion, government-owned media groups are targeting undecided Malay voters in their attacks against Pakatan Harapan chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Newspapers and televisions affiliated to the ruling Umno party have been reminding voters of the controversies during Dr Mahathir’s reign as prime minister 30 years ago – from a bid to manipulate global tin prices to a currency exchange (forex) scandal that may have cost the country billions of ringgit. 

The level of attacks, which were once reserved for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, are unprecedented in their frequency against a former prime minister. 

Nottingham University communications and media studies professor Zaharom Nain believes these attacks reflected Umno’s and BN’s fear of Dr Mahathir’s increasing influence.

“Public opinion is still shifting.

“There is a very real fear that Dr Mahathir will shift the Malay sentiment on the ground, especially in the much-valued rural Malay heartland,” Zaharom told The Malaysian Insight.

Zaharom, however, pointed out that one could not really tell where the wind blew politically until one has spoken with the different segments of Malaysian society.

“I think a more valid question is: Do these relentless media attacks on Dr Mahathir signify that the 92-year-old man is swaying people away from Umno?”

With stories highlighting mega projects gone awry, crony politics and billions lost in scandals while he was prime minister from 1981 to 2003, the media attacks are specifically meant to influence the opinions of Malays, who make up just over half of the country’s population of 32 million, say analysts.  

“It is not surprising that mainstream media attacks recently have been on Dr Mahathir, whose party has joined the opposition pact,” said Mustafa K. Anuar, a media analyst and fellow at Penang Institute.

He said the Dr Mahathir-led Pakatan Harapan coalition was trying to make inroads into the Malay heartland, where traditional mainstream media outlets, such as Utusan Malaysia and TV3, were the main sources of news. 

“In this context, it is conceivable that the story of Dr Mahathir’s alleged mismanagement would gain traction with certain segments of the Malay heartland in the rural sector,” Mustafa said. 

TV3’s prime-time news segment Buletin Utama averaged 2.2 million viewers nightly in the first quarter of 2017, according to Media Prima Bhd’s website. 

Utusan Malaysia, a Malay-language newspaper, saw an average daily circulation of 123,575 copies in the second half of last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Malaysia. 

Media Prima is a publicly traded government-linked company, which also owns 8TV, ntv7 and TV9, as well as three newspapers, The New Straits Times, Berita Harian and Harian Metro.

Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd, which publishes Utusan Malaysia, is 49.77% owned by Umno or its nominee companies, according to an annual report from 2012. 

Mustafa said the media were selective in their attacks on Dr Mahathir, in particular, the forex losses of Bank Negara almost 30 years ago. 

Last week, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) headed by Petronas chairman Mohd Sidek Hassan would investigate a multi-billion-dollar foreign exchange scandal involving Bank Negara in the 1980s and 1990s.

“Any media organisation worth its salt should be excited about financial mismanagement and bad governance by the government concerned. But this journalistic excitement should not be selective. 

“If the concern is with the apparent forex losses under the Dr Mahathir administration, then the mainstream media should be equally, if not more, excited about the humongous 1MDB scandal. And yet, they’ve been relatively quiet about the latter,” Mustafa said. 

Mustafa does not expect the middle-class voters, who have easier access to uncensored alternative media, to be “vastly influenced by the forex story as far as their votes are concerned”. 

“Moreover, most of them appear to have already decided whom to vote for,” he said. 

During his 22 years in power, financial losses, including unrecorded write-offs, may have amounted to RM100 billion, according to Australian journalist Barry Wain in his book, ‘Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times’.

Wain, a former editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal, alleged that much of the losses stemmed from a government attempt to manipulate international tin prices and Bank Negara speculation on global currency markets in the 1980s. 

Another scandal being resurrected concerns Bumiputera Malaysia Finance Limited (BMF), involving almost US$1 billion in the early 1980s. 

Malaysian government-owned Bank Bumiputera and its offshore subsidiary, BMF, had issued billions in bad loans to numerous Hong Kong property speculators, including the Carrian Investment Limited (Carrian Group) between 1979 and 1983.  

Hundreds of millions of dollars were lost when the Carrian group collapsed in 1983, making it Hong Kong’s largest bankruptcy case then. 

Political analyst Wong Chin Huat believes that most Malaysians believe Dr Mahathir was culpable for the scandals. 

“We can disregard the partisans who have made their conclusions, regardless of evidence. As for the independent middle-ground voters, Mahathir’s role in these scandals is beyond doubt,” said Wong, who heads the Penang Institute political and social analysis section.

“However, the question is whether Malaysia’s past under Dr Mahathir is more important than Malaysia’s future under Najib (Prime Minister Najib Razak). And Najib’s attack has one fatal flaw – he was very much a part of Dr Mahathir’s system,” Wong said. 

Najib served as defence minister under Dr Mahathir for eight years. 

“How many scandals involving defence was he (Najib)... implicated in?” 

“Najib’s parrots may be able to caution voters about Dr Mahathir’s track record, but repetition of these allegations will only have a diminishing effect, as the public is also reminded of Najib’s involvement and hypocrisy,” he added.

The 13-party Barisan Nasional coalition currently has 132 of the 222 seats in Parliament. Umno alone controls 88 seats, 54 of which comprise Felda settlements in the Malay heartlands. 

In the last election, BN only managed to secure 48% of the popular vote, while the opposition retained control of three states it won in the 2008 polls. The next general elections must called by next June. – July 28, 2017