Internationally, Malaysia is widely regarded as a model in terms of addressing the issue of social exclusion.

Olivier de Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, for instance observes that the incidence of aggregate Malaysian poverty was reduced from 8.9 percent to 1.7 percent and urban poverty reduced from 3.7 percent and 1 percent.

Most significantly, rural poverty saw a reduction from 15.3 percent to 3.4 percent over the same period.

Impressive , to say the least.

And many would be quick to attribute the success to the New Economic Policy (NEP) unveiled in the aftermath of the 1969 ‘ethnic’ riots, through which a variety of anti-poverty measures were introduced to promote rural development and extend social services.

Malaysians in general do enjoy a better standard of living as compared to the Filipinos, Thais and Indonesians, but there is no denying that, after more than four decades, the NEP can now hardly respond to a larger challenge: unequal wealth distribution.

Since about six years ago, I have been monitoring Malaysia’s widening income gap, only to become more concerned by the government’s failure to halt it.

The Gini coefficient is a globally recognized measure of income inequality that condenses the entire income distribution for a country into a single number between 0 and 1: the higher the number, the greater the degree of income inequality.

Once the single number for a particular country rises to and over 0.4, the government must take it seriously because it means the country’s distribution of wealth is highly unequal.

In 2010, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway have an average Gini index of 0.2632, while that of the United States stood at 0.388. In other words, the US is a more unequal society vis a vis its welfare-centric European partners.

No doubt, posh cars and grandiose houses are aplenty in Germany, but the successive German governments have also ensured quality public health care, housing and transport, making life affordable to the ordinary folk.

Not so in Malaysia, where the Gini index has averaged around 0.45 since 2005, and what it basically means is that our wealth is far more unequally distributed than the European countries and the US.

No indication of political will?

Although Second Finance Minister Ahmad Husni Mohamad Hanadzlah ( right ) conceded Malaysia’s Gini coefficient index remains high at 0.431 at the end of 2012, there is practically no indication that the powers-that-be have the political will to narrow it.

Instead, the government is now bent on implementing the goods and services tax (GST) which will only hit the working classes the hardest.

While up to 900 basic items such as rice and local meat may be exempted from GST, housing continues to be one area that the government has overlooked. Just ask a fresh graduate with a salary of RM2,500 if he/she would dream of buying a flat in five years time, and you’ll understand what I mean.

If a Malaysian does not want to own a car because its price is disproportionately high, would he or she have an alternative, such as a comprehensive subway system or reliable bus service?

No, so own a car he or she must, and that eats into his or her savings and salaries.

Next comes the challenge of unaffordable housing. According to a US-based urban development researcher Demographia, Malaysia has a “severely unaffordable residential homes market, with housing even more out of reach for its residents than in Singapore, Japan and the US”.

I am totally not surprised at all, neither should you be.

The Umno government will not want the public to be more aware of economic inequality simply because the home truth will undermine its claim to represent and care for the ‘poor’ Malays. How is it to explain the total wealth of Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary, the Mahathir Mohamad family and other Umno bigwigs combined would perhaps shock the entire Malay community?

Rather, it would prefer to highlight the ‘success stories’ of YTL, Ananda Krishnan, Lim Kok Thay and Robert Kuok so as to deepen the siege mentality of the Malays. The truth is, not all Indian Malaysians live like Ananda and not many Chinese Malaysians are filthy rich as the tycoons.

The concentration of wealth into the hands of a select few and those closely connected to the ruling elites will have long-term implications for Malaysia. With political power also increasingly concentrated in the upper echelons of the Umno leadership, there is virtually no chance for the country to have a rational and proper dialogue on the issue of income disparity, for to do so will not serve Umno’s interests at all.

Struggling to make ends meet

Umno cannot and will not accept the fact that it has failed the Malays who struggle to make ends meet on a daily basis, and Umno cannot and will not face up to the reality that, well-meaning the NEP may have been, it has left out a large portion of the Indian community. The Hindraf protest seven years ago has yet to wake it up.

And because the NEP is condition-driven, ie being contingent on Umno’s continued rule, and because Umno is authoritarian by nature, Malaysia will never be able to tackle the issues of poverty and income disparity in a substantive manner.

While the NEP did narrow differentials, itself no small achievement, the so-called ‘communal peace’ that followed is anything but. It is nothing but an illusion because the moment when the people start to question its implementation, abuse and current ineffectiveness, they are invariably slapped with the charges of ingratitude, sedition and, worse, treachery.

And because Umno cannot bring itself to tell the Malays that the country is facing rising radicalism and income disparity, its leaders are now busy telling the non-Malays to speak better Malay, as if all of them send their children to a national school without fail.

So now you know why Isma and Perkasa are in cahoots with Umno? They are all in it together.

JOSH HONG studied politics at London Metropolitan University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. A keen watcher of domestic and international politics, he longs for a day when Malaysians will learn and master the art of self-mockery, and enjoy life to the full in spite of politicians.