The Truth About GE14 In May 2018

No longer can one party rule or form the government on its own. The future is a government of partnerships. The faster we accept this, the faster we can get down to business. It is no longer whether we want partners or not. It is who we want as partners. Embrace that or get left behind.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I keep seeing comments posted by Pakatan Harapan supporters, in particular the Chinese, about Pakatan Harapan winning 62% of the popular votes in the 14th general election or GE14 in May 2018.

That is not true. PKR and DAP won 2 million votes each while PPBM won 718,648 votes and PAN won 655,528 votes.

The total the four parties won was 5.5 million of the 12 million votes cast or 45.68%.

Umno on its own won 2.5 million votes while Barisan Nasional won 4 million votes. That came to 20.9% and 33.77% respectively.

PAS won 2 million votes or 16.82%. Warisan won 280,520 votes or 2.32%. PBB won 220,479 or 1.83%.

If you add the PAS votes to the Barisan Nasional votes (what would now be called Muafakat Nasional) then the total votes would be slightly over 6 million or 50.59% of the 12 million votes.

If you add the PPBM votes to the Muafakat Nasional votes (or what we now call Perikatan Nasional), then it would be 6.7 million votes or 56.54% of the 12 million votes.

Dr Mahathir’s coalition won only 45.68% of the popular votes, not 62% as Pakatan Harapan claims

The Pakatan Harapan people are distorting the truth. They keep saying Pakatan Harapan won 62% of the votes and hence Perikatan Nasional is not the legal government.

The truth is, Perikatan Nasional needs 50% plus one seat from the 222 seats in Parliament to rule. In other words, 111 seats plus one. It does not matter whether they have only 30% or 60% of the votes. It is the number of seats that matters. That is the system Malaysia has adopted.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s party won only 5.95% of the votes and only 13 seats, or 5.86% of the seats. Najib Tun Razak’s party won the largest at 20.9% of the votes and 54 seats, or 24.32% of the seats.

How come Mahathir and not Najib became the Prime Minister? If votes count, then Najib and not Mahathir should have been the prime minister.

So, when Pakatan Harapan people argue that votes are what matters, it does not make sense that Mahathir and not Najib became the prime minister. This shows it is seats and not votes which decides who gets to form the government and gets to become the prime minister.

Hence Pakatan Harapan’s argument is silly.

Mahathir became prime minister not because his party won the largest number of seats in Parliament or his party won more than 50% of the popular votes. It is because more than 112 members of parliament agreed that Mahathir become the prime minister. If it was less than 112, then Mahathir could not have become the prime minister.

Muhyiddin became prime minister because more than 112 members of parliament want him to be prime minister

Today, more than 112 members of parliament agree for Muhyiddin Yassin to become prime minister. So Muhyiddin and not Mahathir is the prime minister. If tomorrow more than 112 members of parliament decide that someone else should be prime minister, then that person becomes the prime minister.

That is how it works. And votes garnered in the May 2018 general election do not matter as long as the 112 members of parliament decide who should be the prime minister.

So, this so-called “people’s mandate” is utter nonsense.

The people no longer have any mandate. They have already “serah” this mandate to the 222 members of parliament when they cast their votes at the ballot box. The 222 members of parliament now hold that mandate on behalf of 32 million Malaysians, 12 million who voted in GE14 in May 2018.

It is time Malaysians understood this and not get fooled by Pakatan Harapan’s lies and propaganda, especially the Chinese and Indians.

Anyway, Umno is a Malay party, PAS is an Islamic party, and Bersatu will now become a multi-racial party. That would bring synergy to Muafakat Nasional — or Perikatan Nasional if you include MCA and MIC. Maybe that is the way to move forward in multi-racial Malaysia.

But change is never easy and Umno and PAS (plus MCA and MIC as well) need to ponder on this change and see how to embrace change. The entire world is changing, especially in light of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. We now live in a “new normal” era. Gone are the old ways and in with the new ways. And that may include our politics as well.

No longer can one party rule or form the government on its own. The future is a government of partnerships. The faster we accept this, the faster we can get down to business. It is no longer whether we want partners or not. It is who we want as partners. Embrace that or get left behind.