Pakatan’s shaky hold on Selangor

With some of the mud sticking, Anwar Ibrahim – the ‘Selangor economic adviser’ paid a RM1 token salary – will not be an attractive vote-getter this time around.

COMMENT

An “oracle”, former finance minister Daim Zainudin, predicts it will be a close fight for Selangor with a 50-50 chance for either side in the imminent general election. The outcome will be determined by votes cast in the Malay heartland, and therefore the key deciding factor rests on how PAS and PKR perform.

There are 56 state seats up for grabs. In 2008, the opposition won 36 (PKR 15, DAP 13, PAS 8) and Barisan Nasional 20 (Umno 18, MCA 2). Ten of the seats were taken with a majority of less than 10%. These are the marginal ones that could experience a pendulum swing in the next round.

Assuming a constant for the urban, Chinese-majority seats, let’s examine a few others while discounting those won with large majorities.

It is important to remember that not every vote is equal. Some are worth far less. For example, DAP gobbled Damansara Utama and Subang Jaya through whopping majorities of 15,355 and 13,851 respectively. Damansara Utama is an 82.9% Chinese constituency where DAP’s Cheah Wing Yin obtained almost 25,000 votes in total.

(All statistics cited in this article are from the 12th general election.)

These tens of thousands of redundant Chinese votes are really a “waste” as even a slim edge of 50 or 100 votes still translates into a victory. Due to weightage in favour of the more sparsely populated rural areas, BN’s current focus is logically on persuading the crucial Malay and kingmaker Indian electorate in those seats with the smallest number of registered voters.

Although Pakatan Rakyat held an unassailable 36 seats immediately after March 8, the political pact – hastily cobbled after GE12 – today finds itself a few short. Badrul Hisham Abdullah (Pelabuhan Klang) had early departed from PKR and more recently, Hasan Ali (Gombak Setia) was sacked from PAS.

DAP’s Edward Lee (Bukit Gasing) passed away not too long ago, and as we learned from the Perak constitutional crisis, a seat, according to law, “belongs” to the man and not to his party. So Pakatan is now left with 33 seats. In a 56-seat State Legislative Assembly, a simple majority is pegged at 29 seats. Pakatan is today only four seats above the magic number of 29.

It is BN that has the advantage should allegiances sway and fence-sitters tilt. The overwhelming popularity of DAP among the Chinese will not play any important role. Should even up to 80% of the Chinese rally behind the opposition, this stratospheric percentage point does not infer a direct correlation in terms of impact on the final result.

Recall that Al Gore lost the presidential election to George W Bush in 2000 notwithstanding that the former garnered 51 million votes to the latter’s 50.5 million; that is, in popular votes, Gore was actually 543,895 up on Bush. Nonetheless, the American electoral college system gave Bush 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266… tough luck Al.

Drifting back to BN

The seats that Umno won by a whisker were Sungai Air Tawar, Sabak and Morib which are between 60% and 85% Malay as well as Sri Serdang which is a mixed constituency.

On the other side of the fence and going by the numbers, Sekinchan held by DAP’s Ng Suee Lim for two consecutive terms looks to be under threat. Ng won with a 190-vote majority but there were 317 spoilt votes recorded. Sekinchan is a rural seat with 41% Malay voters.

Another shaky DAP rural seat is Teluk Datuk with 33% Malay voters and a significant cache of Indian voters – 22%. DAP’s Phillip Tan won it with a majority 698 votes but the number of spoilt votes was comparatively high at 493. Teluk Datuk went to MCA in 2004 with a comfortable margin.

The GE12 turnout in Sekinchan was 80.5% and Teluk Datuk, 82.2%. In 2008, hardly anyone expected the tsunami whereas in the coming general election, most Malaysians will surely make their way to the polling booth come flood or fire.

With DAP’s Chinese vote bank reaching saturation level, the question then is how many more Selangor-shattering votes can DAP gain over what it already got in 2008? In parallel, how many Malay and Indian votes would BN manage to recover?

A third unsafe seat for Pakatan is Bukit Melawati where PKR’s Muthiah Maria Pillay beat MIC’s K Partiban by 297 votes. The number of spoilt votes was 484 and turnout relatively low at 75%. Bukit Melawati has 57% Malay voters, 13% Chinese and 30% Indian.

Hindraf, which is targeting Selangor for the GE13, has indicated an interest in contesting here due to its Indian composition. If Hindraf does, there is a strong possibility PKR will be unable to defend the seat as split votes from a three-cornered fight will hurt Pakatan.

The Indians were the biggest swingers in 2008 but have been steadily drifting back to BN now that the anger has somewhat abated.

Backlash from neglected Indians

PKR and PAS should not be confident of the four seats they won with a below-10% majority. They are: Selat Kelang (Halimah Ali-PAS), Hulu Kelang (Saari Sungib-PAS), Bukit Antarabangsa (Azmin Ali-PKR) and Kota Anggerik (Yaakob Sapari-PKR).

Of PAS’ two marginal seats, Hulu Kelang is very much a Malay affair (81.3%) and where the 14.8% staunchly pro-opposition Chinese votes will not be decisive.

Meanwhile, disgruntled Indians choosing to abstain from the balloting could cost PAS its Selat Kelang seat which is 9.3% Indian – enough leverage to upset the apple cart.

According to Hindraf’s analysis, 72.4% of the Indian votes went to BN in 2004 but this figure was drastically reduced – with catastrophic consequences for MIC – to 8.3% in 2008.

Among ordinary Indians, the consensus appears to be that Pakatan leaders are nowadays only concentrating on massaging the Malay and Chinese population and not paying any attention to Indian woes. On the other hand, the prime minister “is seen feverishly trying to win back the BN’s traditional loyal supporters”, stated the Hindraf analyst.

Almost identical to PKR’s Kota Anggerik with its 13.4% Indian voters, PAS’s Selat Kelang was won on the back of the Indian seismic shift. Will the Indians now proceed to punish Pakatan in 2012/3? Yes, deservedly so.

Hindraf’s complaint is valid since in 2008, for the first time, Malay and Chinese opposition candidates benefited tremendously from the Makkal Sakti fever and Indian defection from BN. Over the last four years, the disillusioned Indians have been told off by DAP that they’re “racists” for raising Indian issues and seeking an ethnic-focused remedy to their deep-rooted and pervasive social deprivation.

The people to watch

A more conciliatory signal is sent by BN chairman Najib Tun Razak who has been on the stump wooing Indians, including at Batu Caves during Thaipusam. On that visit, he even allowed himself and the missus to be smothered by a humongous garland – a hilarious Kodak moment but nonetheless allowing the prime minister a chance to display his sporting spirit (especially if one is allergic to pollen considering the literally tons of flowers).

Najib’s approval rating has climbed a steep 10% from last August and is currently hitting 69%, according to a Merdeka Center survey released a few days ago. The wave of personal popularity buoying Najib is a contrast to the quagmire bogging his predecessor when Abdullah Ahmad Badawi led the incumbents to the polls.

Apart from the difference in preparedness for battle between a “war general’”like Najib and the over-complacent Abdullah, another sea change is the Mahathir factor. In 2008, the former premier was actively undermining the sitting prime minister and eroding Malay support for Umno. Dr Mahathir Mohamad has, however, openly declared his backing for Najib, to Umno’s intense relief.

Other pivotal personalities in the GE13 are Dr Mohd Khir Toyo, more for his absence thereof, and Hasan. As Selangor Menteri Besar in 2008, Khir incurred the anger of the civil service by presenting a broom to the head of department of a state agency. This public humiliation of a senior civil servant bleached votes from the Umno fixed deposit.

But Khir is most likely to be out of the picture in GE13 after his conviction for corruption (the show trial a sop to alleviating the corruption perception index).

In another court case, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim has had his reputation dented by the long-drawn sodomy trial despite his acquittal. Among the more conservative kampung Malays, sexual morality remains an issue. Even if the orthodox Malay may disbelieve the homosexuality charge, there was also the sex video screened by the Datuk T trio which cast doubt on the people’s mind.

With some of the mud sticking, Anwar – the “Selangor economic adviser” paid a RM1 token salary – will not be an attractive vote-getter this time around.

Then there is Hasan. The Muslim issues he plays up, such as apostasy, the Damansara Utama Methodist Church episode and the Christian hijack of the “Allah” word, will siphon away Malay fundamentalist support from his former party to some degree. For this, it’s possible that he may be allowed to keep Gombak Setia standing as a BN-friendly representative.

PAS is also hurt by the internal dissension between the ulama and the so-called “Erdogan” factions, and the Kedah exco infighting as well as the related fallout when former deputy president ustaz Nasharudin Mat Isa was put in cold storage. More serious than the power struggle is the disenchantment of its own grassroots that PAS has deviated from the party’s Islamic bearings.

Of sentiments and Malays besieged

It is well known that the PKR machinery was weak on the ground in 2008 and its membership roll hyper inflated. Hence the votes PKR obtained in the semi-rural areas it contested were derived from the PAS faithful.

In 2008, PKR was the most successful of the three Pakatan parties in Selangor. It won 20.4% of the overall votes cast, PAS 18.8% and DAP 17.3%. Come GE13, it will be the weakest link.

PKR is not anticipated to reprise its achievement and PAS must expect to concede ground to Umno while DAP can only hope to maintain an even keel as it’s already maxed out on all the available Chinese takings (in terms of ethnic-majority seats, not absolute headcount).

What will set BN back are the escalating cost of living, financial scandals such as Cowgate and the Kinrara-Damansara Expressway deal among numerous examples, and the fact that the coalition smells Jurassic to the young and new voters.

Back in 2008, PKR-DAP-PAS took to the hustings with more or less a clean slate as neither PKR nor DAP had ever held power before and PAS was perceived as being uncorrupt in Kelantan. After four years, these parties can no longer lay claim to a reputation that is beyond reproach like Caesar’s proverbial wife.

The DAP-led Penang government is due in court over a civil litigation demanding full disclosure on the RM300 million sPICE project, and there are calls on Umno to file a same suit for the RM1.1 billion Bayan Mutiara land transaction.

During the short period that Pakatan was ruling Perak, DAP secretary Nga Kor Ming was involved in Tailorgate, for which the party disciplinary committee quite conveniently absolved him of any blame.

DAP’s “No Further Action” contrasts with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and police investigation on Umno minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil’s family for a similar situation of cronyism. The DAP “NFL” does not inspire confidence that Pakatan is sincere about belling the CAT (Competency, Accountability, Transparency).

Pakatan hypocrisy and double standard are compounded by the strongly negative reaction to maverick blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin’s allegation of corruption in the Selangor state government. When Raja Petra was blowing the whistle all those years on BN, he always received resounding cheers. The minute he dared to imply that Pakatan had its own share of dodgy politicians, he sparked a piranha feeding frenzy… with him as the morsel of fish food.

Lately in his Malaysia Today columns, Raja Petra has been warning that the Malays are appraising the Chinese aggressive behaviour with increasing alarm. Nowhere, it seems, is safe from the DAP invasion. Not even the suraus and mosques.

Pakatan’s supporters are themselves providing the ammunition to BN. It’s not difficult to deploy the Chinese bogey under present circumstances, especially to constituents for whom the main sources of information are terrestrial TV, Malay newspapers and word of mouth.

If the Malay sentiment goes against Umno, the party could lose some of the seats it won in 2008 on the narrowest of margins in Selangor. If the Malay sentiment is with Umno, some of Pakatan’s rural and semi-rural seats could revert and return to form.

The direction in which Malays in the state’s outskirts will move is much influenced by how they see (a view nudged along by the Malay media agenda-setting) rival Chinese using and abusing power, such as the DAP stamp on the anti-Lynas protests, the “Rocket Express” monopoly of Selangor Times and not to mention the local council brouhaha and generous allocations to Pakatan state assemblymen.

A most fitting adage to describe the Selangor scenario is “pride comes before a fall”. That was what happened to BN the last time.

The writer blogs at http://helenang.wordpress.com