Ketuanan Melayu is of the utmost importance for the Malays.

The special privileges accorded to them, they want maintained and continued. Forever.

The Malays have always wanted the prime minister post to belong to a Malay. So too the deputy prime minister post, and other ministerial spots deemed crucial and important like finance, and for obvious reasons, rural development where all Malay-centric agencies are put under.

Then there’s the position of Inspector-General of Police and armed forces chief. The Attorney-General naturally.

To Malays, these posts must be filled by “orang Melayu kita”, not non-Malays. Never mind their credentials and qualifications.

There are many other positions and many other demands. No need to outline on things everybody already knows about.

So far, the Malays have got what they wanted. So, it’s the question of keeping it and keep it going.

Political parties which Malays “believe” could give what they want, they will support. Parties which can’t or want to change will be rejected.

Are there Malays who do not subscribe to all that? Yes, there are, including yours truly I must admit. But there’s not enough of us.

Most of the 50 percent of voters who turned up at the polling stations for the Johor state election on Saturday March 12 obviously believed Umno would be their “savior”, hence the big BN victory.

As for the other 50 percent voters, we can’t say which way they would have voted, but that’s immaterial now.

The fact is, Umno/BN won big. Never mind the hows and whys, because a win is a win.

Umno calling for the election was a brilliant idea I must say, knowing very well people are tired and suffering from political fatigue the voter turnout would be low.

Umno somehow knew the folks who would turn up would be their supporters, sympathizers and what not, predominantly Malay who believe in the Ketuanan Melayu psyche.

But MCA and MIC won comfortably also you say? Indeed they did.

Dr Oh Ei Sun, political analyst puts it this way: MCA was able to win a number of seats primarily due to several factors, in particular Umno riding high on Malay votes helped mobilize Malay support for MCA in constituencies contested by the Chinese party.

And it’s the same with the MIC.

“MIC contested in Malay-majority constituencies and like the MCA, benefited from Umno support,” according to Oh.

But now that they have won, can MCA and MIC be counted on to check the Ketuanan Melayu rhetoric and take care of non-Malay interests?

“Under the circumstances it could be said that the MCA and MIC are ever more beholden to Umno and therefore would have to do Umno’s bidding more now than ever, of course with the occasional staged tantrums meant for superficial standing up only,” said Oh.

Going by what the analyst said, is there hope then for the non-Malays and the “liberal” Malays (bear in mind “liberal” is a dirty word among certain sections of the Malay society) who do not subscribe to the Ketuanan Melayu political concept?

Can the opposition be depended on? We know they too are in a mess. In a sorry state.

Is there hope then? Definitely there is. We can always hope. Whether we would be successful or doomed for failure is another matter. But hope we surely can.

And yes, hope alone is not enough. It comes with whole lot of things.

(Mohsin Abdullah is a veteran journalist and now a freelancer who writes about this, that and everything else.)