Malaysia

By The Star/ANN, 3/10/2011

Malaysia may ban electric bicyclesPutrajaya (The Star/ANN) - Electric bicycles may be taken off the road in Malaysia if the Cabinet accepts a recommendation from the Transport Ministry.

Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha said he will be presenting a paper during Friday's Cabinet meeting to recommend disallowing electric bicycles, citing safety reasons.

He said continuing to allow electric bicycles, which have battery-powered motors, could result in a higher risk of injury or death.

"Electric bicycles do not meet the performance specifications of motorcycles.

"It is more than a bicycle but less than a motorcycle," he told The Star.

While Kong acknowledged that electric bicycles were good for the environment, he stressed that the higher risk of death and injury from collision did not warrant their usage.

"If you want to talk about being environmentally-friendly, using a normal bicycle is still the best," he pointed out.

He added that an electric bicycle could not be classified as an electric motorcycle.

"Anyone can use it as there are no restrictions on who can use a bicycle," he said.

"There is no need to register an electric bicycle or obtain a driving licence, road tax, insurance or registration number.

"Any young child will be able to use the electric bicycle without a crash helmet and that means a much higher risk of accidents," he cautioned.

Kong said the paper to be presented to the Cabinet would reveal all the facts involving electric bicycles.

Road Transport Department director-general Datuk Solah Mat Hassan said in a statement that electric bicycles currently being sold were designed to travel more than 40km per hour.

"According to road safety studies, bicycles that move at more than 20km per hour pose a much higher risk of injury to pedestrians, especially when both share the same lane," he said.

Solah added that facilities for cyclists like special lanes were currently limited to residential and recreational parks.

"Cyclists, who use routes other than designated ones, will be exposed to the risk of traffic accidents and contribute to the overall number of accidents," he cautioned.

Ideological differences

Initially all appeared well. However, both nations developed different ideological lines on racial issues, especially concerning the Chinese race and the Malay race, mainly marked by UMNO's belief in the bumiputera policy of helping Malays as the original settlers of Malaya that were mostly poor during post independence and it was thought by PAP as a positive racial discrimination.

UMNO saw this as much needed affirmative action for Malays, who had supposedly been put at a disadvantage due to the heavy presence of immigrants mainly Chinese, that had entered the Malay Archipelago during colonial rule where many of them had the opportunities to be a businessman while living in the city but Malays were left as coolies by the British at rural areas. The PAP staunchly opposed this as unjustified and racist. The PAP, along with several other Malaysian minority parties, epitomised this view with the cry of a "Malaysian Malaysia!", a policy to serve the entire Malaysian nationality, which Singapore at that time was included in, as opposed to just the Malay race. This was driven by the fact that Singaporean Chinese were facing increasing political, legal, and economic discrimination. One of the initial solutions proposed was to have the PAP join UMNO and later on participate in the federal government, but the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) feared that the PAP would replace them, and opposed the PAP, seeing it as a radical socialist movement. The MCA urged the UMNO to prevent the PAP from being too influential in the federal government. From this point on the relationship between the UMNO and the PAP became increasingly cold, falling little short of hostile.

Both parties continued to escalate the tension with scathing verbal attacks on each other, accusing each other of being the cause of the riots. Earlier, in what was seen by the PAP as a violation of previous agreements, UMNO backed and formed the Singapore Alliance Party, which ran for the 1963 state elections in Singapore on 21 September 1963, but failed to win any seats, even in Malay constituencies. Despite this failure, it was seen as an attack on the PAP's power base.

Eventually, the PAP decided to challenge the policies of the Central Government directly, both as a retaliatory measure and to further its ideological grounds. It ran in the April 1964 Malaysian federal elections in coalition with other parties under the Malaysian Solidarity Council. The PAP was now a legitimate opposition party in the federal elections, and campaigned on a platform of eliminating racialism and a Malaysian Malaysia. Their rallies attracted large crowds. They decided to contest a minority of the seats however, to avoid any perception that they were trying to undermine the ruling party or being seen as agents of instability. The PAP only won one seat and 7% of the vote.

UMNO saw this as spite, and felt threatened by the fact that the PAP had even contested any seats at all, and was alarmed by the seat the PAP managed to win. Dr. Tan Siew Sin, the finance minister at this time, demeaningly commented, "How can these kachang puteh parties pose a threat?" The sharp highlight of the degenerating situation was a vow by UMNO to oust the PAP from the Singapore government when the next set of state elections occurred, perhaps before the PAP could do likewise at the next federal election.

In addition to racial unrest, thorny issues concerning Singapore's rights as an autonomous state further put a dent in relations, such as the failure of a common market to be set up between the Federation and Singapore, and the heavy tax burden placed on Singapore, which was seen as unfair. Such issues catalysed the impending secession: On 7 August 1965, Tunku Abdul Rahman announced to the Malaysian Parliament in Kuala Lumpur that the Parliament should vote yes on the resolution to have Singapore to leave the Federation, choosing to "sever all ties with a State Government that showed no measure of loyalty to its Central Government" as opposed to the undesirable method of suppressing the PAP for its actions. Singapore's secession and independence became official on 9 August 1965.

De jure, Singapore withdrew of its own accord. De facto, however, the PAP had no true authority to influence whether Singapore should leave or not, despite having pressured Tunku Abdul Rahman not to take such a course of action. The separation agreement was signed to maintain friendly relations, trade agreements, and mutual defence ties. These were left intact, although federal ties to Singapore as a state were cut off.