Although a majority of Malaysians still say that issues about race and religion concern them, such issues are losing their salience in elections, according to International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) associate professor Marzuki Mohamad.

Instead, he said issues related to cost of living are climbing to the top of the list of people’s concerns, which would have implications for BN’s electoral strategy.

“In the 1990s and the 1980s, BN could score on delivering development. They called it ‘performance legitimacy’ – at least the BN government performs.

“But lately, because of all the problems with cost-of-living issues, they can no longer rely on performance. The economy is bad, so you as a voter - why would you vote for BN, for example.

“So, you can see now that the emphasis is more on race and religion […] Race and religion are being played up more extensively to counter the fact that they are not performing.

“But the real thing people are feeling – they are not concerned about race and religion. They are more concerned about bread and butter (issues),” he told reporters in Petaling Jaya today.

The social scientist was addressing reporters after speaking on a panel about political freedom at the Malaysia Freedom Summit, together with former University of Malaysia Sarawak politics lecturer Andrew Aeria (photo).

During the panel, Marzuki presented the findings of a survey conducted by his IIUM colleagues in July, which comprised face-to-face interviews with 2,440 respondents nationwide.

It found that 76 percent of respondents had expressed concern about racial issues. Nevertheless, it was still at the bottom of the list of concerns presented.

Topping the list at 94.1 percent was the rising cost of goods, followed by crime (92.9 percent), social ills such as drug abuse (92.5 percent), the declining value of the Malaysian ringgit (92.5 percent), and corruption (92.3 percent).

Marzuki noted that corruption had only recently begun appearing among the top issues of concern.

Also on the list were rising house prices (90.7 percent), insufficient income (89.0 percent), fearing loss of employment (88.8 percent), foreign workers (87.5 percent), GST (85.8 percent), the rising cost of public healthcare services (84.2 percent), and the government’s move to abolish subsidies (84.2 percent).

“It will not be futile (to resort to the race card) in the contest for votes in certain ethnic communities. The issue of race and religion will be played up by politicians on both sides of the political divide.

“But I’m saying that there are other issues as well. So when voters go to the polling station, when they want to vote, all these issues will come on the back of their minds,” he said.