Boasting a fast-growing economy and riding a US$2.6 billion (S$3.2 billion) deluge of government handouts to poorer voters, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak would seem to have the recipe for electoral success on Sunday.
Instead he faces what some say is a class war between aspiring young Malays and ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities against the rich, powerful and long-ruling Malay elite.
The paradox of Malaysia's election is how Mr Najib's Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition is struggling to turn growth and cash into votes, giving the opposition real hope for the first time as it taps into concerns that an elite few have gained at the expense of the masses.
Mr Najib came to power in 2009 promising reforms to promote more inclusive growth, a year after millions of formerly loyal voters handed BN its worst electoral result.
Malaysia's already wide income gap has grown since then, despite progress Mr Najib's government has made towards its goal of doubling incomes by 2020.
"I don't feel this big economic growth," said Mr Wan Mohamad Yusof, a 49-year-old office clerk in Kuala Lumpur, a beneficiary of Mr Najib's two rounds of handouts of RM500 (S$202) to Malaysia's 4.3 million poorest families.
"This RM500 bribe from the government seems a bit insincere to me," said the long-time supporter of the BN as he smoked a cigarette outside his small house.
Rising living costs and concern over inequality risk being particular problems for the government among ethnic Malays like Mr Wan Mohamad, despite robust economic growth of 5.6 per cent last year.
They make up 62 per cent of the population and are the bedrock of Mr Najib's United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) that heads the BN. Ethnic Chinese make up about 25 per cent of the 28 million population, with ethnic Indians accounting for about 8 per cent.
In the past, Malays could be counted on to vote for UMNO and the BN, seen as the guardian of an "affirmative action" policy that gives them privileges in government contracts, housing and education.
Yet in recent years poorer Malays have come to share a common grievance with the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities over the perception that the policies have fostered corruption and favouritism, benefiting a well-connected few.
In 2008, about 10 per cent of the ethnic Malay vote swung to the opposition, with the BN losing its two-thirds parliamentary majority for the first time and the opposition making record gains.
"It is no longer about ethnicity. It is a class war in Malaysia," said Dr Terence Gomez, professor of administrative studies and politics at Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur.
"We are seeing conflict within the Malays and within other races that is class based."
Dual risk for Najib
The BN is widely expected to win the election, but could end up with a smaller parliamentary majority that would weaken the next government and put Mr Najib's job at risk.
There are mixed signs on Malay support for Mr Najib.
An April survey by University Malaya's Centre for Democracy showed that 54 per cent of the Malay respondents favoured opposition leader and former finance minister Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister, compared with 28 per cent for Mr Najib.
Other surveys have shown a rebound in Malay support for the government.
The BN needs just a 2 per cent swing in the overall Malay vote to win 153 out of 222 parliament seats, regaining the two-thirds majority that allows it to change the constitution, according to a poll simulator programme by online news portal Malaysiakini.
The opposition has a tougher task, needing a 10 per cent swing in the overall Malay vote to win more than 112 parliament seats and form its first government, the simulator showed.
Mr Najib pledged to reform the affirmative action policy to make it more needs-based and inclusive. He unveiled an Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) to draw in US$444 billion in investment and create millions of jobs that helped drive last year's strong growth.
The government says gross national income per capita rose nearly 50 per cent from 2009 to just under US$10,000 last year, but critics say that figure is misleading because it does not take into account inflation and the uneven distribution of wealth.
Mind the gap
Malaysia has the third-highest level of income inequality in South-east Asia after Thailand and Singapore.
Data from the government's statistics department shows the mean household income gap widened between the top 20 per cent of the households and the bottom 40 per cent from 2009 to 2012.
Among ethnic Malays, who are referred to as bumiputra, or "sons of the soil", the gap has widened the most - by nearly 17 per cent to RM8,980.
Mr Idris Jala, the government minister spearheading the ETP, acknowledged in a commentary in the Star newspaper that the gap between the rich and poor was too high.
"We are taking measures to deal with this," he said, referring to cash handouts and the imposition of a national minimum wage last year. "Sometimes, the best way to help the poor, especially the very poor, is to simply give them money to alleviate their suffering."
The first RM500 handout in 2012 added 2.4 per cent to the annual household income of a Malay family in the bottom 40 per cent. That just outpaced inflation of 1.7 per cent last year but followed 5.4 per cent inflation in 2008.
Critics of the government say that favoured businessmen get far juicier handouts. The opposition has singled out ethnic Malay tycoon Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary as benefiting from a government programme to divest stakes in state-linked firms.
Revenue in the nine months to December 2012 for Syed Mokhtar's DRB-Hicom conglomerate doubled to 9.7 billion ringgit (US$3.2 billion) from the previous year after it bought national carmaker Proton for US$411.9 million in early 2012 in a closed bidding process.
Mr Syed Mokhtar, who holds a monopoly on sugar and rice in Malaysia and remains close to Mr Najib and former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, denies he is favoured by the government.
Smaller ethnic Malay businessmen also fear being left out.
The influential Malay Chamber of Commerce has criticised developers of a 36 billion ringgit Kuala Lumpur rail project for favouring a few firms, including MMC, owned by Mr Syed Mokhtar, and Gamuda.
The chamber, which has 10,000 professional members, said none of its members won the smaller contracts on offer. MRT Corp, the developer under the Ministry of Finance, said it awarded more than 40 per cent of the jobs to Malay firms.
'Deserving' Malays
A Reuters survey of 16 Malay companies shortlisted for the civil works portion of the rail job shows a majority with strong links to UMNO, with half listed on the Kuala Lumpur exchange.
Mr Najib told Reuters in March he had made progress in improving transparency, but said there were certain federal government tenders carved out for "deserving" Malay companies.
But Mr Hanafee Yusoff, secretary general of the Malay Chamber of Commerce, said: "We need a government that helps all Malay entrepreneurs. The current government has the intention, but the problem is with the delivery."
UMNO is relying on the feel-good effect of its cash gifts to extend the BN's 56-year rule, especially in rural areas where living costs are lower. Its confidence stems from a heavy weighting of parliamentary seat allocations in favour of rural constituencies that tend to favour UMNO.
But election results from 1995 to 2008 show support for UMNO and the BN see-sawing in the ethnic Malay rural heartlands. In 2008, there was a swing of 5.8 per cent among rural Malays in favour of the opposition.
"We are seeing some return in support from the rural Malays because of the cash handouts, but we are not taking it easy," said a senior UMNO politician.
The opposition concedes it is difficult to make inroads in the Malay heartland and is counting on younger Malays, especially urban dwellers who go back to their villages to vote.
"Our best campaigners are the young, working-class Malays in the city," said Rafizi Ramli, strategic director for Anwar's Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR).
"They are going through the difficulties of living in a city. They can tell their parents about the unfairness and the growing class divide."
Source: Reuters