The proverbial rabbit

by Dr Hsu 

As the year end approaches, there is still no sign of any election being called. Now it looks like that the GE will only be held after  the automatic dissolution of our Parliament in late April 2013. Another possible date is perhaps March 2013.

Malaysia’s political landscape cannot be more different from that of the United States. Yet the recent Presidential election in USA reinforces one important fact. That even if a person or a party cannot win the majority of the majority ethnic group, the person or the party can still win the election by winning an overwhelming majority of the minorities.

President Obama won because of the votes of the minorities. He carried almost 93% of the African American votes, over 70% of the Asian and Hispanic votes, but got only 39% of the votes of the White majority.  In contrast, his opponent won the majority of the white votes around 59% but still lost the election.

I think it is possible for PR to win the next general election in Malaysia, given that majority of the CHinese Malaysia will vote for opposition. What is needed is to make certain that majority of Indian votes go to PR. Most of the Malay votes (my estimate is over 60%), which form the majority ethnic group, will be for BN.

Bearing this in mind, I think it is politically unwise for PAS members to publicly suggest that should PR win, the Prime Minister should be their president.

The support among the CHinese and Indian Malaysians for PR should not be taken for granted. One of the reasons for the level of support shown is that many of these people believe that even if PR comes into power with little experience, it has at least a very experience leader in Anwar Ibrahim, who is well accepted by all the ethnic groups.

While many Chinese have no qualms in voting for PAS candidates in the last election, it was because they supported a coalition in which PAS is only an equal faction and not the dominant one that would head the group. If PAS president is to be the next PM, the perception is then PAS would  be the dominant force inside the coalition, a prospect which may be similar to having the BIg Brother as the dominant force within BN.  If that is the case, expect less of these people to support PAS next election, thus weakening the prospect of PR becoming the next government.

PKR, on the other hand , is seen to be more moderate and a multiracial party, and as such its leader, Anwar, would have much more appeal and would be better accepted by all groups.

Those PAS members  reminded me of the Taiping Rebellion in which a rebellious group which started as a reform group against the Qing Dynasty degenerated into a  group of leaders fighting more for the spoils of the war, rather than the cause, when that war was not even half won.

I suggest that PAS members put more effort into winning the votes rather than harping on who should be the PM or hudud law. By doing so, they are actually doing a favour to BN; a situation akin to shooting one’s own feet..

I think generally PR should not be too complacent at this stage. By all indication, they have a chance to win, but the prospect is still an uphill battle, even though the uphill slope now is not as steep as before.

Remember the story of the tortoise and the rabbit. The rabbit, while on the way to victory, became too complacent and thus lost the race to the humble tortoise.

This is a lesson which PAS members as well as their president should take to their hearts if they do not want PR to become the proverbial rabbit.