12th General Elections - Top News On World Radio Broadcasts

World Radio Stations On Our Recent General Elections

Top world news

By ANTHONY THANASAYAN

The winds of change that swept across the country, which shocked and awed the entire nation last weekend, was also strongly felt by many radio broadcasters around the globe.

“Badawi fails to get a two-thirds majority” was the top world news bulletin on All India Radio (AIR).

The New Delhi broadcaster made the announcement last Sunday, a day after Malaysians went to the polls to pick a new government.

Describing the 12th General Elections as one of Malaysia’s ruling coalition’s worst electoral performances, AIR told its worldwide audience that the Barisan Nasional had “lost control of four state governments and failed to win a two-thirds majority in Parliament for the first time since 1969”.

AIR pointed out that the polls results had even “raised questions about the political future of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi”.

It also mentioned Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu’s parliamentary seat loss, describing him as “Malaysia’s lone ethnic Tamil Minister”.

“The elections were held amidst complaints of racial inequality by ethnic Indians and rise in crime and corruption”, concluded the South Asia broadcaster.

China Radio International (CRI) from Beijing called the poll outcome “a setback for the BN”.

Radio Australia (RA) commented that “Malaysia’s opposition parties had pulled off a historic election performance posing the first challenge to the BN in five decades”.

The Melbourne-based broadcaster added that while “Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s coalition government will stay on in office, for the first time since independence in 1957 there will be a sizeable opposition in Parliament”.

RA said former Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim described the phenomenal event as a ”defining moment in Malaysia’s history, and a big success for the opposition”.

The Australian radio station also quoted Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s accusation of the Prime Minister of “destroying” the coalition, and suggesting that Badawi quit his post.

Washington DC’s Voice of America broadcast’s Luis Ramirez from Kuala Lumpur – speaking to local analysts in Malaysia – narrowed down the BN’s shocking poor performance to complaints of complacency and corruption.

Quoting James Chin, a politics professor at Kuala Lumpur’s Monash University, Ramirez said that the BN ought to look for pragmatic ways to rebuild support or face extinction.

“The BN government has heard the message loud and clear,” Chin told the VOA. “(Now) they (must) do something about it (if) they (want) to win the next election,” he concluded.

Note: This article appeared on Friday. Air Raves will resume on Wednesdays from next week.