INDEPENDENT POLITICAL ANALYST OR PARTY SPIN-DOCTOR?

The Kuala Terengganu outstation voters came home to vote in spite of the distance and in spite of the two or three days leave they would have to take but the Teluk Intan outstation voters would not sacrifice even just one weekend? Hence the low 67% voter turnout in Teluk Intan compared to the 80% voter turnout in Kuala Terengganu.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Over the last few days we have been reading many comments by political analysts as to what ‘really happened’ in the Teluk Intan by-election last weekend.

PAS sabotaged the by-election because DAP opposes Hudud.

The DAP Perak leaders sabotaged the by-election because they were not happy with an ‘outsider’ candidate.

The outstation Chinese voters did not come home to vote (hence the voter turnout was only 67%).

The Chinese did not vote DAP because the candidate was Malay and not Chinese.

The DAP candidate was too young and inexperienced.

The DAP candidate’s links with Perkasa upset the Chinese voters.

Gerakan ran a better campaign than DAP.

DAP overplayed the fact that the candidate is Malay and turned the by-election into a Malay versus Chinese contest.

The Election Commission cheated.

Umno used money to win the by-election.

Those are just ten reasons why DAP lost the Teluk Intan by-election and there are probably another ten that I did not mention.

Stephen Ng, in his letter to Free Malaysia Today, also offered his analysis and I will talk about that later. First I wish to address the issue of voter turnout and outstation voters coming home to vote.

The Kuala Terengganu by-election was held on 7th January 2009 after the death of the Umno Member of Parliament for Kuala Terengganu. I, together with a team of Bloggers from Kuala Lumpur, spent ten days campaigning door-to-door in that by-election.

We knew it was a tough seat to win seeing that it was an Umno seat and normally in a by-election it is very difficult to ‘take the seat away’ from the incumbent, in this case Umno.

In the daily meetings we had with PAS they indicated that we might not win the by-election because we had to depend on outstation voters to return home to vote and the feedback we got was that many would probably not come home since Kuala Terengganu is quite a distance from Kuala Lumpur and/or Singapore so they will need at least two or three days leave if they wanted to return to Kuala Terengganu to vote.

Hence PAS was preparing itself to lose that by-election.

We Bloggers were more positive though. We told PAS that we can win that by-election and with a majority of more than 2,500 votes on top of that. Even as the votes were being counted PAS was still predicting a loss while we stood behind our 2,500-vote majority win.

(‘Bangsar Bala’ later told us that some of the PAS leaders commented that how can we ‘outsiders’ forecast a 2,500-vote win when they ‘insiders’ feel that PAS is going to lose?)

Anyway, PAS did win the Kuala Terengganu by-election, and with a 2,631 vote-majority on top of that. Most importantly, though, the voter turnout was 80%, which was why PAS won — because many Malays from Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and so on, came home to vote in spite of the distance and the two or three days leave required for them to travel to Kuala Terengganu and back.

Sad to say, though, not many outstation Chinese voters came home to vote (they were ‘reserving’ their leave for Chinese New Year, according to the parents we spoke to) and most of the Chinese who voted were from the older generation (I saw that with my own eyes) with very few young voters. And that was why PAS did not do well in the Kampung Cina polling station compared to the Malay-majority polling stations.

Now let me comment on Stephen Ng’s assumptions and observations below.

Most people, especially those who are working and living in Singapore, are reluctant to take all the hassles to return to their hometown just for the weekend so that they could vote for Dyana Sofya.

The Kuala Terengganu outstation voters came home to vote in spite of the distance and in spite of the two or three days leave they would have to take but the Teluk Intan outstation voters would not sacrifice even just one weekend? Hence the low 67% voter turnout in Teluk Intan compared to the 80% voter turnout in Kuala Terengganu.

Why is that? The next point Stephen Ng made was:

The trip from Singapore to Teluk Intan is easily seven hours, and to fro is a total of 14 hours over one weekend just to cast a vote in a by-election. If I were a Teluk Intan voter, I, too, would consider twice before making the trip back.

The interesting point he made was ‘If I were a Teluk Intan voter, I, too, would consider twice before making the trip back.’

Why? What happened to the spirit of korban (sacrifice) and perjuangan (struggle)? Are you telling me that a small inconvenience like travelling home to vote over a weekend is too much of a sacrifice and too much a struggle? Is this the level of commitment the Teluk Intan voters demonstrated?

The rest of Stephen Ng’s analysis is merely innuendoes, assumptions, conjecture, questions, and whatnot. And the reason for this is because no one conducted an exit poll to find out whom the voters voted for and why they voted so. And even if the exit poll was done would the respondents have given an honest answer or would they have replied what they think the person conducting the poll would like to hear?

Hence in the absence of a ‘scientific’ study everything becomes just assumptions and conjecture.

Furthermore, some of Stephen Ng’s facts are wrong. For example, he said:

Umno has always been an extremist party, which explains why the moderates like Tunku Abdul Rahman Petra Al-Haj, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Musa Hitam and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and even Saifuddin Abdullah, are unable to survive in Umno. Umno’s founder, Onn Jaafar had to leave the party when he saw that the party that he established was moving in the wrong direction.

Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tengku Razaleigh and Musa Hitam were not opposed to Umno. They were opposed to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad. And they made it very clear that they opposed Dr Mahathir because of their love for Umno.

Saifuddin Abdullah lost to PAS’s Nasruddin Hassan by just 1,000 votes because only 70% of the Temerloh population is Malay while the rest is non-Malay. So, while just over half the Malays voted for Umno, 80-90% of the Chinese voted against Umno. So it was the Chinese and not Umno that brought Saifuddin down.

Onn Jaafar left Umno because he wanted the party to open its doors to non-Malays and when the party rejected that idea he decided to leave Umno to form a multi-racial party. However, Malaysians of Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnicity did not support his multi-racial party. They still supported race-based parties like Umno, MCA and MIC. So Onn Jaafar and his multi-racial ideas faded into the sunset.

“However, there are three things I wish to state as my observations here,” said Stephen Ng. I’m afraid Stephen Ng’s observation are not quite spot on and he sounds more like a DAP apologist than a political analyst.

And his observation as follows demonstrates this:

Thirdly, I think Dyana Sofya did well with a huge majority who voted for her. By comparison, Mah is twice her age, and with more years of experience, but that was never translated in terms of votes. If not for a small margin, Dyana could have easily beaten Mah.

What about the fact that Mah took back the 7,313-vote majority from DAP that they had just a year ago?

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Teluk Intan lost because of apathy

FMT LETTER: From Stephen Ng, via e-mail

Much has been written about why DAP’s popular candidate, Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud, lost to Gerakan’s Mah Siew Keong. However, there are three things I wish to state as my observations here.

First, despite losing the race, DAP did not resort to dirty or abusive tactics that have become synonymous with Umno today. Neither Dyana nor DAP supremo, Lim Kit Siang blamed the Malays, Indians or the Chinese for being ingrates, instead, they accepted defeat gracefully.

Therefore, for us to believe Umno’s version of May 13, 1969 is like believing that there are earthlings living on Mars. It is unlikely that DAP was the cause of the May 13 riots. Instead, it was more likely caused by the likes of Umno judging from the behaviour that it has consistently exhibited.

Umno has always been an extremist party, which explains why the moderates like Tunku Abdul Rahman Petra Al-Haj, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Musa Hitam and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and even Saifuddin Abdullah, are unable to survive in Umno. Umno’s founder, Onn Jaafar had to leave the party when he saw that the party that he established was moving in the wrong direction.

Secondly, all throughout the entire counting process, the DAP was in the lead, but suddenly, there was a shift as counting was coming to a close. It is also suspicious that in one counting, all 40 votes were for Barisan Nasional, not even a single vote was for the DAP. I just wonder.

This brings back memories of several incidents during the 13th General Election, where Pakatan was in the lead, but suddenly the next morning, we hear that Barisan Nasional won the constituency.

I cannot help but think of these controversial results as those where key BN leaders were contesting or their failure to win the seat could spell doom to the entire ruling party. For example, the Cameron Highland seat which fell into the hands of MIC president, G Palanivel at the 11th hour, Bentong, where BN candidate, Liow Tiong Lai also won at the very last minute. In Johor, Chua Tee Yong (son of Chua Soi Lek) also won by a small margin at the end of the count.

When I think back again, I believe even Nurul Izzah Anwar would have lost in Bangsar if not for the vigilance of the people to stop any attempts of cheating at the 11th hour. The Election Commission has always denied that there was any form of foul play but its actions over the years are more than suspicious, especially where gerrymandering and malapportionment is concerned.

Thirdly, I think Dyana Sofya did well with a huge majority who voted for her. By comparison, Mah is twice her age, and with more years of experience, but that was never translated in terms of votes. If not for a small margin, Dyana could have easily beaten Mah.

One major reason why Dyana Sofya lost is because of the poor turnout by voters. Compared to the general election, where voters feel that their votes count, in a by-election, it is a matter of replacing one parliamentarian. Most people, especially those who are working and living in Singapore, are reluctant to take all the hassles to return to their hometown just for the weekend so that they could vote for Dyana Sofya.

The trip from Singapore to Teluk Intan is easily seven hours, and to fro is a total of 14 hours over one weekend just to cast a vote in a by-election. If I were a Teluk Intan voter, I, too, would consider twice before making the trip back.

We have to remember that in GE13, the turnout was a record high. A big number of this unusual voters’ turnout was sympathetic towards Pakatan. The absence of this sudden surge of voters has contributed to Dyana Sofya’s loss. Had she represented the DAP in GE13, I believe Dyana would have enjoyed the same level of support as the former MP, Seah Leong Chan.

We also should not discount the fact that in a country where money politics and harassment is still used to influence the results of an election, such a thing could have been the cause to swing the outcome of the by-election in favour of Mah.

I take note the voters’ turnout during early election. In the first half of the day, the turnout was poor, but subsequently in the afternoon, the numbers picked up suddenly. Could the civil servants have been warned or harassed by their superiors that if they did not vote for BN, the Minister of Home Affairs would know about it?

Anything is possible! Given the circumstances, I believe Dyana Sofya has made big inroads in the hearts of Malaysians. Perhaps, her mother Yammy Sammat should also consider joining the DAP and help her daughter’s political career in return.