Top university professor KS Jomo today warned of dire consequences if the opposition was badly routed by the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition in Sunday's general elections.

"If (opposition party) Keadilan gets wiped out, this could well mean the end of Keadilan and will finish (jailed ex-deputy premier) Anwar (Ibrahim). This will mean a permanently polarised opposition incapable of offering Malaysians an alternative.

"This will mean the end of parliamentary checks and balances, and will give the crooks hiding behind the prime minister blank cheques to do whatever they please to enhance their bank balances," he said.

Jomo, who is a lecturer at the Universiti Malaya's faculty of economics and administration, lamented that Parliament had been rendered increasingly irrelevant by Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his 22 years at the helm.

"(State-owned television) RTM no longer even bothered to broadcast daily parliamentary reports when the Dewan Rakyat sat," he told malaysiakini .

"Let's be clear. The BN is going to win, and by all indications, they are going to win big - that is, they are going to increase their majority in parliament.

"Some are even talking about whether their majority will be bigger than in 1995 when the DAP almost got wiped out and PAS almost lost Kelantan. That election basically meant the end of the Semangat 46 and drove them back into Umno," he added.

Three key opposition parties - Keadilan and PAS, which are part of the Barisan Alternatif alliance, and DAP - are challenging the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition in the March 21 polls.

Keep Pak Lah on his toes

Jomo said that it is crucial for Malaysians to ensure a "meaningful and effective" opposition presence in Parliament.

"In this way, the pressure will be on the PM (Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) to do better, to be bolder in dealing with corruption, cronyism, crime and all the other BN abuses which have not gone away.

"Without effective opposition pressure, forget it, the crooks will take over and rip off the country, the people. They have already been nominated, and are poised to take over."

However, he conceded that it would be difficult for the disunited opposition to break the ruling coalition's much coveted two-thirds majority in Parliament.

"There is little likelihood that the opposition can break the BN's two-thirds majority, or even save its share of seats in the parliament," said Jomo.

He attributed this to the "old 3M" problems - money, machinery and media.

"The BN has so much more money, and the Election Commission (EC) is not paying any attention to the candidates' spending limits and has never really checked if reported spending has any basis in reality," he said.

Jomo said that although the BN claims to be a clean government, the ruling parties have not shown any intention to stop abusing its misuse of government machinery and resources for electoral advantage.

"Also, with its financial and other resources, it generally has superior party electoral machineries. With the even shorter campaign period, this advantage has become decisive."

The campaigning period for the 2004 polls is no more than eight days - the shortest in Malaysian electoral history.

BN media the decisive factor

According to Jomo, the most decisive factor in the ruling coalition's arsenals is its control of the media.

"In recent years, MCA has secured direct control of Nanyang ( Siang Pau ) and China Press . So the BN control of the broadcast and daily print media is now complete. The opposition only has its biweekly party papers, which cannot be sold to non-members."

He added that the withdrawal of the DAP from the opposition BA coalition and the unnecessarily publicly acrimonious negotiations on seat allocations only made things worse.

"The BN-controlled media have been quick to take advantage of the opposition's own goals," he said.

Jomo believed that BA, and especially its dominent component Islamic party PAS, is simply not in a position to form an alternative government.

"Outside of Kelantan and Terengganu, where the political dynamics are different, and the BN has failed to offer a credible alternative leadership, the opposition is in very serious trouble.

"This is clear in Sabah and Sarawak although there is a great deal of unhappiness there, especially among the non-Muslim bumiputeras, and even among the Muslims and ordinary Chinese, especially in Sarawak.

"But the Peninsular-based opposition parties have had limited success in winning their confidence in providing a credible alternative."

Cuts in education, health

The academician also expressed his disappointment that since 1998, little has been done to support the promised transition in Malaysia to the services and knowledge-based economy.

"Instead, early this year, the government implemented cutbacks in the education and health budgets, without announcing them, perhaps until after the elections. This will only worsen the ICT (information and communication technology) mess in the schools and continue to undermine education," said Jomo, who is one of the country's top economists.

He said that instead of improving salary and work conditions for teachers, the classroom is being undermined by encouraging teachers and pupils to rely on after-class tuition, referring to the government's offer of RM20 a month for students to obtain additional coaching.

"Such cuts in government spending are going to adversely affect the people as well as future development prospects. Cut wasteful government spending by all means, especially contracts for cronies, but not social spending for goodness sake.

"How to 'feel good' about the declining quality and standard of education? How to 'feel good' when they continue to insist on politics regulating education, including of teaching and learning, of student activity and independence?"

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