The social gap between the younger generation of Malays and Chinese has widened over the years, as indicated in the different ways they conceptualise what it means to be a Malaysian, a survey had suggested recently.

A total of 75 percent of Malays respondents had ranked Islam as the first criterion in shaping their identity as Malaysians but more than half of the Chinese respondents picked "religious and cultural diversity".

The survey was conducted among 501 students from four local institutes of higher learning in early 2000 by Dr Heng Pek Koon, an assistant professor at the School of International Service, American University in Washington DC.

Part of her findings were presented at a seminar entitled "The challenges of the Mahathir era", organised by Chinese daily Sin Chew Jit Poh on Tuesday night.

The ethnic Malays comprise just under half of the 21.8 million population of Malaysia, the ethnic Chinese constitute one-third, Indians one-tenth and indigenous tribes make up the rest.

Based on the social gap between the young Malays and Chinese, Heng argued that there is "a long way to go" in fostering a sense of solidarity among the rakyat as Bangsa Malaysia or the Malaysian people.

"There will be a lot of conflicts and disagreements before we can truly become a Bangsa Malaysia ," she said.

BN losing support

The academician also noted that according to her survey, support for Barisan Nasional was weakening as PAS, which advocates an Islamisation agenda, continued to gain footing at the expense of Umno.

"Though the survey was done two years ago and things have changed a lot since then, but the results of the recent by-elections in Anak Bukit and Pendang have shown that PAS is still going strong," she said.

"I think the reason why PAS won and continues to appeal to younger Malays is not just because of the hudud laws and Islamic state. More importantly, they want a government that distributes wealth more equally," she added.

In the by-elections, BN wrested the Pendang parliamentary seat from PAS with a slim majority of 283 votes, while PAS retained the Anak Bukit state seat with a majority reduced by 1,332 votes from the last national poll.

Both seats were formerly held by the late PAS president Fadzil Noor who passed away in June.

It is estimated that at least one million young voters, many of whom are students or fresh graduates, will be voting for the first time in the next general election.

In Heng's survey, about 50 percent of the Malay students said they would vote for PAS in the next general election, some 25 percent opted for Umno, while the rest were undecided.

She noted that many of those who preferred PAS, when asked for reasons, said it was for "a cleaner government and less money politics in Umno" rather than an Islamic state.

Surprisingly, many Malay respondents felt "unhappy" with the New Economic Policy (NEP), an affirmative action scheme that was introduced by the government in 1970 to narrow the economic gap between the bumiputra and non-bumiputra following the racial riots a year before.

This is in contrast with the Chinese respondents who, unlike their elders, "came to accept the NEP as a price to pay for political stability. There is less frustration among them," she said.

Chinese key role

As for the voting pattern of the Chinese respondents, 46 percent of them gave the nod to the BN, 25 percent to the opposition mostly DAP while 30 percent were undecided.

Extrapolating these figures, Heng said the Chinese vote will again play a key role in deciding whether the ruling coalition will be able to retain its two-third majority in Parliament for the next term.

She said this figure should serve as "a little warning" to the Chinese-based political parties that they "cannot take the Chinese vote for granted".

When the Chinese respondents were asked to rank political parties which best represent their interest, MCA came out tops with 72 percent of them.

Ironically, while MCA may appear to be a significant political entity, none of its leaders or anyone from other Chinese-based political parties came into the students' minds when they were asked to choose the leaders they admire most.

Sixty percent chose Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, with DAP national chairperson Lim Kit Siang a far second (three percent), and "other Chinese leaders" whose identities were not revealed.

"The younger Chinese feel that they cannot relate to their political leaders," said Heng who has written numerous books on ethnicity, business and politics, particularly those of the Chinese community in Malaysia.

As for the Malay respondents, most of them chose former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, followed by Mahathir, PAS spiritual leader Nik Aziz Nik Mat and the late PAS president Fadzil.

However, the percentage of support for each of these leaders was not disclosed.

At the question-and-answer session later, Heng was questioned on the sample size and the rationale behind her choice of the four institutes of higher learning for the survey Universiti Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman College, and HELP Institute.

She conceded that there were weaknesses in her survey due to financial and time constraints and expressed her hope that more researchers will continue to study the subject and improve her methodology.