Pakatan’s black sheep to blame

Bickering coalition partners, nevertheless, continue to ride on the one man who fought tooth and nail to give young Malaysians a better future.

COMMENT

The Malaysian electorate is a tricky one and elections in Malaysia have evolved into a complex organ, but it is quite easy to discern the real culprits in the people’s defeat on May 5.

Allegations of fraudulent practices marred the election process, with blackouts that suddenly resulted in knife-edge victories for BN in several parliamentary seats.

There is no way the absence of crowds at the BN rallies contributed to its victory as much as there is little doubt that blackouts and voter buying accusations on polling day were not true.

Real time indicators showed Pakatan was leading in six states and had 96 parliamentary seats within reach and heading for a victory. It was a dream. No way at all.

Exit polls (not a practice in Malaysia) would have concurred with the mood on polling day, and confirmed the solid support for by Pakatan during its short campaign leading to the polls.

There is no doubt also that a majority of Malaysians did not want BN to lead the country, thanks to the impossible-to-cheat figures that showed Pakatan had won the majority of votes.

Many are saying that winning popular votes does not mean winning the election but remember this, ruling with a lack of popular support means the government could lose its legitimacy and this is where Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Guan Eng are absolutely right.

There is also the fact that smaller parliamentary seats (with a lower voter bank) won by BN contributed largely to their victory, while the popular vote was against the ruling coalition.

One of the culprits in Pakatan’s failure to conquer Putrajaya can be seen in voter patterns across the country, and it is safe to say that in Peninsular Malaysia, Pakatan failed to garner more Malay votes while it lost a damaging percentage of Indian voters.

On the other hand, reaping the Chinese voter bank almost in full did not help it defeat BN, at least that is what the final tally of the 13th general election has us believe.

In my analysis of the potential results that could give Pakatan a victory, I did mention that a 35% shift of the Indian voter bank to BN would result in it to win massively.

A quick check of the possible results with a 18% Indian vote shift towards BN on undi.info showed BN grabbing 135 seats, if this was coupled with a 10% shift Chinese votes to Pakatan.

While it’s a generalisation of voter pattern, it does show that there was a slide in Indian voter patterns in most seats lost by Pakatan, and this should be redressed by the Pakatan machinery.

There was a 2% to 3% Malay vote swing to Pakatan and this would have been even bigger had the squabbles about hudud and who will be PM were not played out by PAS and the DAP leaders.

There was indeed a larger shift of Malay votes towards Pakatan but this was annihilated by the shift in Malay voters in several Selangor seats where PAS lost to BN.

Inwardly, there was a shift of Malay voter pattern both in favour of BN and Pakatan. Thus Malay voters remained practically stagnant though a percentage did shift towards Pakatan than BN.

If there was cheating, it was in the number of smaller Parliamentary seats since it is to be considered undemocratic that some these seats are less populated while others are too large.

Pakatan must focus its efforts to have a freer and fairer elections by getting the Election Commission to be made up of civil forces, if not it should then be composed of all major political formations as its members in order to get justice out of the system.

The opposition must also keep up its momentum on fighting against the government controlled media. One of the reasons that aided BN was surely the fact that the Malay heartland failed to understand Pakatan’s policies since they were absent from television.

The BN used this unfair advantage, which is yet another form of cheating, in blasting the anti-Anwar rhetoric day and night to the village dwellers and they ended choosing BN.

However, Pakatan’s failure is not really because BN and PM Najib Tun Razak were too smart. It had a lot to do with the divisions and last minute squabbles among opposition member parties.

From PSM to PAS, and at times with DAP joining the morass of divisive politics, the chances of the Pakatan were dimmed by their own hands.

Remember the DAP in Johor said the electorate should not vote for PAS, resulting in PAS Ulama chief responding with the threat of leaving Pakatan after the elections.

Dissent in Pakatan

Prior to that, Haron Din lambasted leader Anwar Ibrahim, calling him not Islamic enough to lead Pakatan or to be prime minister if Pakatan wins power. Haron Din bit the dust in GE13.

The dissent from PAS towards Pakatan leaders, showed up the fragile unity in the opposition, and BN exploited it, using its propaganda machinery to influence the Malay voters.

PAS and DAP played the issue of the hudud as if they were the winners of the elections even before polls took place. This too, diminished Pakatan in the eyes of the fringe electorate, thus probably leading to Pakatan not gaining on the fence-sitters.

Hudud has been used by BN to frighten the non-Muslims. It could have been a turning point for the Indian voters but it did not influence the Chinese voters at all.

The DAP too insisted not long ago that a non-Muslim can become PM of Malaysia, a sensitive issue to the Malay community since this would have meant handing over political power – the ultimate tool in the hands of the Malay majority – to the non-Muslims.

PAS insisted that a PAS member should become PM. All these show a lack of unity among Pakatan, the disarray in their thoughts and the greed of many who probably thought they could overtake Anwar as candidate for PM.

The squabble for the PM post dragged on for weeks prior to the polls and was again mooted during the days leading to the elections, and I suspect it was at the behest of BN.

Putting all this mess on top of the ‘black’ GE13, we still have the facts that the results of the elections did not reflect the reality in the country.

There is no doubt that the opposition has to persist in its demand for answers from both the PM and the EC on the perceived fraudulent manner the elections were conducted.

The point of the matter being the need for the regime to know that a majority of the Malaysians did not vote for them – and that means a lot for the morality of a government ruling with minority support.

I did warn that come the end of the PRU13, the PAS should be blamed if the Pakatan did not win and that is the whole point today.

PAS failed Pakatan, failed Anwar and continues to ride on the grace of the one man who really fought tooth and nail to give young Malaysians a better future.

Ali Cordoba writes extensively on local politics.