Malaysia adopts ethnic-based budget amid tensions

Malaysian Finance Minister Zafrul Aziz during the presentation of the 2022 budget in Kuala Lumpur on October 29, 2021. AP - Famer Roheni

Text by: Gabrielle Maréchaux Follow

3 min

The Malaysian Parliament voted on Tuesday, December 14, a 2022 budget of unprecedented magnitude.

In this multi-ethnic Southeast Asian country, fiscal policies are often made on the basis of the ethnicity of the citizens and are supposed to benefit the majority Malay ethnicity.

This sizeable budget is yet another example.

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From our correspondent in Kuala Lumpur,

It is dressed in

has declared in Parliament his willingness to promote in the budget for the coming year the

Bumiputeras.

Behind this expression, which means “son of the soil” in Malaysian, are the country's majority Malay ethnicity and the country's indigenous peoples.

That is to say a total of 70% of the population, favored by

" 

," thus assured the minister on October 29th.

.

"

Immediately, these remarks add fuel to the fire and certain criticisms do not take long to emerge, such as

coming from a former minister now in the opposition, and which is ironic about the situation: " 

 "

Minorities 2.3 times fewer, making 38 times less money

A war of numbers then begins. In the

, the said minister justified himself by arguing that 70% of Malaysians are Bumiputeras and that it is therefore normal that they are the ones who receive the most aid. This by presenting the figures for the median income of Bumiputeras households (5,420 ringgits, or 1,138 euros) against 7,391 (1,551 euros) for Malaysians of Chinese origin, and 5,981 (1,255 euros) for Malaysians of Indian origin.

But Dr Lim Teck Ghee, an economist working for the World Bank, also cited other figures to give another analysis, in particular in

 : if the ethnic minorities of Chinese or Indian origin are 2,3 times less numerous than the Bumiputeras, they also receive 38 times less money in the 2022 budget, he explains in particular.

But if Dr Lim deplores this ethnic distribution of state aid and more generally the absence of ambitious reforms in the 2022 budget, mainly financed by the loan, he has little hope that things will change.

In particular because elections are approaching in Malaysia, and because the Bumiputeras also represent 70% of the voters:

The government will do everything to win the next election.

And what we see in the budget, it is also a carrot to attract the electorate of the Malay ethnic group, the Malay rural classes and also the civil servants, very favored by the budget and in

.

Frequent ethnic controversies

But if the criticisms of these measures of positive discrimination

in Malaysia, where they are regularly accused of scaring away brains like foreign investors, or of increasing inequalities within the population but also among Bumiputeras.

The current context is more novel.

After almost

, superimposed on the global pandemic and a few months of new elections, controversies around ethnic minorities are more and more frequent: 

targeting this week Malaysians of Chinese origin , ensuring that it was not possible to be Malaysian if you still ate with chopsticks.

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