Greatest GE14 challenge - re-igniting hopes for change

MP SPEAKS The country is in unchartered waters with unprecedented fracture and fragmentation on both sides of the political divide – both with the Umno-led coalition of Barisan Nasional and the splintered Opposition.

The gravity of the political situation in the governing coalition is best illustrated by the warning by the Umno deputy president and former deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin at a gathering of 1,000 BN leaders in Pagoh on Sunday: that Malay support for Umno has dwindled to 30 percent, while 78 percent of Malaysians are dissatisfied with how the government is handling the economy.

Muhyiddin said the level of Chinese support for the government has also dwindled, from 13 percent in the last general election to only five percent at present.

Muhyiddin blamed Umno’s woes primarily on Umno president and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s RM50 billion 1MDB and RM2.6 billion “donation” twin mega-scandals and warned that if the Umno decline is not corrected within the next two years, it may lose in the 14th general election (GE14).

As Muhyiddin rightly pointed out, this is the first time that approval for the government among Malays has fallen below 50 percent since Merdeka Center began recording the data in February 2012.

These data were from an August poll by Merdeka Center in Peninsular Malaysia, which found that that only 31 percent of Malay voters were satisfied with the government - which is a drastic fall among Malay voters, as it had stood at 52 percent in a peninsula survey in January.

The government’s overall approval rating also plummeted to 23 percent, the worst since the Merdeka Center surveys on this started in 2012. In January this year, the Umno/BN coalition government’s approval rating remained at 38 percent, the same as the previous poll last October.

As for Chinese voters, only five percent approved of the government, compared to 11 percent this January.

The survey found only 17 percent of respondents were satisfied with how the government was handling the economy, compared with 78 percent who were dissatisfied.

What Muhyiddin did not say was that these data were from a Merdeka Center survey in August and that the results today, after more than three months, could be even more dismal, as public confidence in Najib as prime minister and the Umno/BN coalition government had plunged further in the interval – and the prime minister’s popularity rating even among Malay voters could have fallen well below 25 percent!

But does this mean that the Opposition is on the verge of taking over Putrajaya in GE14?

Far from it, for the Opposition has it own woes of crisis of confidence after the heyday of its hopes in GE13.

Highest watermark of hopes

GE13 in May 2013 was the highest watermark of hopes of Malaysians for political change and the end of Umno rule since Merdeka in 1957 and the beginning of a new Pakatan Rakyat federal government with a new prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim.

Although Pakatan Rakyat comprising DAP, PKR and PAS won the majority of 53 percent of the popular votes, Najib continued as the first minority prime minister, with the Umno/BN coalition winning 60 percent of the parliamentary seats despite getting only 47 percent of the popular votes.

The two years after the nationwide disappointment at missing the opportunity for political change in Putrajaya on the GE13 polling day of May 5, 2013, because of gerrymandering and unfair, unjust and undemocratic redelineation of parliamentary constituencies can be likened to a roller-coaster ride by Malaysians of high hopes for political change and virtual despair that such political change is possible because of an increasingly divided Pakatan.

After GE13, Pakatan existed only in name – as PAS decided to renege on its commitment to adhere to the Pakatan Rakyat Common Policy Framework as well as the Pakatan Rakyat operational principle of consensus.

PAS' refusal to accept Anwar

In retrospect, if Pakatan had captured the majority of the parliamentary seats and the mandate to form the federal government in Putrajaya in GE13, Pakatan would have been confronted with it first crisis even before the its federal government was formed, as the PAS president had refused to accept Anwar as the prime minister candidate.

With the history of the PAS president refusing not only to accept Anwar as the prime minister of Malaysia, but also PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as the mentri besar of Selangor, as well as his decision to renege from the Pakatan Common Policy Framework, particularly on the hudud and local government election issues, what is the basis to hope that there could be a revival of Pakatan Rakyat cooperation and unity for GE14?

There is no doubt that Malaysians who had rooted for political change in GE13 went into the deepest and darkest despair at the demise of Pakatan Rakyat, for they see the hopes of political change being destroyed completely, at a time when the Umno/BN government has proved to be such a national liability and disaster.

However, the formation of Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) and establishment of Pakatan Harapan comprising DAP, PKR and Amanah have saved the political situation, filling the political vacuum and void caused by despair and seeming hopelessness for political change, with the country inundated by so many political, economic, good governance and nation-building scandals under the Najib premiership.

With the vigorous and vibrant advent of Amanah and Pakatan Harapan, Malaysians can dare to hope again that the goal of political change in Putrajaya is still possible and achievable in GE14.

My Ipoh friend, Koon Yew Yin, philanthropist and Malaysian social conscience, wrote an article in Malaysiakini on “How the opposition can win the next election”, suggesting that the winning formula is to ensure a “one-to-one” electoral contest in GE14.

After the failed Pakatan Rakyat experiment, electoral politics is not as simple and straightforward as it was in GE12 anf GE13.

I had previously said that if hudud had been a hot controversial issue in GE13, the BN would not only have regained its two-thirds parliamentary majority to redelineate electoral constituencies at will to consolidate its power hold in Putrajaya in GE12, Pakatan might have also lost Selangor apart from Kedah, and Johor would have reverted as an invincible BN “fixed-deposit” state.

The hudud issue has never been, and never will, be a vote winner in plural Malaysia based on past electoral evidence.

The issue is good governance

As an example, PAS and PKR won all the eight parliamentary seats and 28 out of 32 state seats in Terengganu in GE10 in 1999 because of the backlash against Umno, arising from Anwar’s arrest and the Reformasi movement.

But despite passing the state hudud enactment in 2001 (which DAP opposed), PAS and PKR only managed to retain one out of eight Parliament seats and four out of 28 state seats in GE11 in 2004.

With hudud as a hot, controversial issue in GE13, the damage for Pakatan in terms of non-Malay support would have been very decisive.

The total number of 89 parliamentary and 229 state assembly seats won by the three parties in Pakatan - DAP, PKR and PAS - in GE13 could have been slashed as much as to leave Pakatan only with 46 parliamentary seats (i.e. 23 DAP, 16 PAS and seven PKR) and 134 state assembly seats (i.e. PAS 62, DAP 57 and PKR 15).

In GE14, would the voters forget about the hudud and local government elections controversies raised by PAS, the PAS leadership’s refusal to endorse Anwar as the Pakatan candidate for prime minister and Wan Azizah as Selangor mentri besar? And the most recent developments, including the PAS president’s readiness to be Umno’s adviser and refusal of the PAS leadership to direct the PAS MPs to vote against Najib’s 2016 Budget?

We must not overlook the adage “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. We may be making a fatal error of judgment if we expect Malaysian voters to forget these bitter lessons of the past that caused the demise of Pakatan Rakyat, if the offer we can give the voters in GE14 is only an opportunistic alliance to topple the Umno-led coalition.

The great issue in Malaysian politics is good governance and an end to all the economic and political scandals, and if before GE14 the Umno-led coalition can promise to reform to focus on good governance, an opportunistic Opposition alliance just to ensure “one-to-one” electoral fight against BN could suffer a severe electoral debacle.

For these same reasons, the model of a two-opposition front formula used in 1990, when there was Gagasan Rakyat and Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah with Parti Semangat 46 as the one party in both alliances cannot be replicated.

The greatest challenge in the run-up to GE14 is how to re-ignite hopes of Malaysians for meaningful change in Putrajaya after the failure of the seven-year Pakatan Rakyat experiment.

In other words, how, in GE14, can Pakatan Harapan fully play the role that Pakatan Rakyat took in GE14.

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LIM KIT SIANG is the MP for Gelang Patah and DAP Parliamentary Leader. -Mkini