Not too bad, not too good

BN has put in place a system to enable them to stay in power forever and the only way to beat this system is for all the races to be united enough to vote them out.

COMMENT

Although many urban voters had opted for change, the mood in the rural areas was to stick to the status quo.

Still at the end of the day, the two-party system is here to stay with Pakatan Rakyat (PR) as the opposition providing check-and-balance. This is not too bad in itself. However, those who want to see BN as the opposition will feel sorely disappointed.

Therefore the opposition’s slogan of ‘Ini Kali lah’ will have to be changed to ‘Lain Kali lah’ but some pessimists have opted to phrase it as ‘Lupakan saja lah’.

This is because as long as the constituency boundaries are still drawn-up in a crazy manner, PR will never win. Below are a few examples why this is so:

1. Puchong: DAP’s Gobind Singh Deo won by a majority of 32,802

2. Petaling Jaya Utara: DAP’s Tony Pua won by a majority of 44,672

3. Cheras: DAP’s Tan Kok Wai won by a majority of 37,409

4. Kepong: DAP’s Tan Seng Giaw won by a majority of 40,307

5. Segambut: DAP’s Lim Lip Eng won by a majority of 19,199

6. Bukit Bintang: DAP’s Fong Kui Lun won by a majority of 19,399

7. Seputeh: DAP’s Teresa Kok won by a majority of 51,552

8. Batu: PKR’s Tian Chua won by a majority of 13,284

Add up those majorities and you have more than 258,000 votes. This can be carved up to give PR more than 45 rural seats and put PR in Putrajaya. But then PR has only eight seats from the above victories!

Thus this crazy electoral system is definitely designed to help BN stay in power unless the rural folks wake up en masse to vote for Pakatan.

On the other hand, there were shenanigans such as Bangladeshis being brought in to vote and power outages during the vote-count process, the most famous being the case of the Bentong blackout wherein MCA’s Liow Tiong Lai emerged the victor over DAP’s Wong Tack.

Earlier a BN leader had mentioned that he would cut off his ears should MCA lose in Bentong. Therefore, you can make your own conclusion from this incident.

Foreign voters

Pictures of foreign nationals being brought in to vote have been captured on camera-phones and loaded aplenty on Facebook. This extremely irresponsible tactic will now result in all these foreign nationals crawling around in our towns and cities.

Once they run out of cash, you can be sure that they will resort to crime and endanger the lives of the rakyat.

Although one can surmise that PR lost to BN due to crazy boundaries, blackout and Bangladeshis, it cannot be denied that the call for change has not inspired the rural folks that much especially those in the rural areas of Sarawak who are in a world of their own.

On the other hand, many rural folks in Selangor who are able to obtain information through their children in the cities had played a big part in helping Pakatan to hold on to Selangor for without their help, Selangor would have fallen to BN.

Their role in helping Pakatan in this matter must be lauded.

From the results of the 13th general election, sad to say that MCA has achieved some success in scaring the Johor Chinese in regard to hudud law while Umno has succeeded in convincing the Malays in other rural areas that if PR wins the general election, the prime minister will be a Chinese. This shows that communal politics have influenced the results.

Now you can bet your bottom dollar that the mainstream media will highlight the Chinese swing to the opposition with the emphasis on the word ‘Chinese’.

In actual fact, there is nothing race-based in it as the Chinese have the dare to go for a change in government.

It also shows that the Chinese prefer Anwar Ibrahim as the prime minister. Anwar is also Malay and the Chinese merely prefers one Malay over another (Najib). This fact will be conveniently forgotten by the mainstream media.

In the same vein, it is more an urban swing for without the votes of the Malays and the Indians, Pakatan will never be able to win many of the seats in KL and Selangor.

Therefore it is not a Chinese swing and one should not label it as such. To classify these results as a ‘Chinese tsunami’ or a ‘two-race system’ is an extremely irresponsible move by those who do so – it does nothing for racial harmony.

Although Pakatan gained a few more parliamentary seats overall, it is indeed a great pity that PAS’ Dzulkefly Ahmad failed to defend his Kuala Selangor parliamentary seat. This is sad because he is a moderate Islamic democrat and an intellectual who is well-versed in economics.

To sum up, the results of the 13th general election were not that bad for Pakatan but not that good either.

Still, Pakatan has won the popular vote with 52% which means that more people voted for Pakatan. Yes, Pakatan has more votes but less seats. Malaysia Boleh!

Truly, BN has put in place a system to enable them to stay in power forever and the only way to beat this system is for all the races to be united enough to vote them out. From here it shows that the citizens are clearly not ready to do that yet.

Selena Tay is a DAP member and a FMT columnist.