BN's landslide victory in Tanjung Piai will likely cause both BN and Pakatan Harapan to become more moderate in the future, according to several political analysts.
"This is a crushing blow for Harapan. It signals that they cannot take non-Malay votes for granted and that these voters can go out of their way to send a strong protest over their unhappiness with the government.
"It also means that the more moderate positioning taken by BN has paid off and this will likely reinforce a more centrist positioning for them.
"This will present them as a direct competitor to Harapan, by appealing to all Malaysians instead of just Malays," said Merdeka Center executive director Ibrahim Suffian (photo) to Malaysiakini today.
Yesterday, BN's Wee Jeck Seng, who is from MCA, won in the Tanjung Piai by-election by a landslide, securing his old parliamentary seat with a 15,086-vote majority. He lost the seat last year by only 524 votes.
With 25,466 votes, Wee secured 65.6 percent of the vote share compared to Harapan's candidate Karmaine Sardini, who came in second with only 26.7 percent of the votes.
Malaysiakini reported earlier today that Chinese-majority polling districts were abandoning Harapan at a rate more than double than that of Malay-majority polling districts.
Ilham Centre chief executive Azlan Zainal said the by-election results were the people's "referendum" against Harapan, especially among the Chinese voters who were previously seen as a "fixed deposit" vote for the ruling coalition.
"This shift in votes is a great slap to Harapan with an element of protest against the service and policies of the state and federal level government.
"However, it is not an endorsement of the 'national cooperation' (Umno-PAS cooperation) among the voters of Tanjung Piai but merely a show of the increasing level of dissatisfaction of the people towards Harapan's performance," Azlan said to Malaysiakini.
He said non-Muslim voters, especially the Chinese, still cannot accept this national cooperation which includes PAS as the Islamist party is seen as extreme and does not keep to its promises.
Hence, he agreed that BN will not lean towards an extremist platform and will choose to be more moderate.
"They will only use PAS to garner the important Malay votes as part of that is cornered by PAS, specifically the Islamist Malays," Azlan said.
Meanwhile, he said, Harapan needs to go back to focusing on the main issues, that is fulfilling its election manifesto from the 14th general election (GE14).
They need to prioritise developing the economy and the rakyat's wellbeing especially over bread and butter issues, he said.
"There should be less internal politicking, the instability of the component parties should be resolved in a mature manner which does not involve racial perception.
"Harapan has lost the war on perception and is vague on conveying information.
"There are all sorts of unmanaged issues which have forced Harapan to scramble to provide explanations.
"I do not doubt that there are many changes prioritised (by the Harapan government) but Harapan continues to be plagued by 'unneeded wars' such as the Rome Statute, Jawi calligraphy, smoking ban, UEC and others which is seen to represent segments of the voters and is not strategic to Harapan," Azlan said.
Harapan needs to strike a balance
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak professor Jeniri Amir (below) agreed with Azlan, saying that Harapan needs to stay on course as a moderate coalition after Tanjung Piai.
Harapan, he said, needs to be able to strike a balance in trying to convince the non-Malays and also at the same time, not be seen as marginalising the Malay-Muslim voters.
"Of course (they have to be moderate after Tanjung Piai), in order to be accepted by the people, because Harapan not only failed to fulfil their promises but also perceived as not taking care of the Malays.
"So the bottom line is to try to fulfil the aspirations of the people," he added.
Similarly, the Umno-PAS cooperation also has to take into account that in order to attract more non-Muslim voters, they need to be moderate as well.
"The only way to win the hearts and minds of the non-Muslim voters is to be moderate, otherwise it is very difficult to convince the non-Muslims.
"This has to be taken into account, especially by Umno-PAS, if they want to be supported by non-Muslims voters in the coming elections.
"The way forward is to set aside any form of political extremism in approach and ideologies because this is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic country and only then can you ensure the support of non-Muslims," Jeniri said.
The Tanjung Piai by-election is the ninth by-election since GE14. It is the fourth by-election since then which saw Harapan defeated, after Cameron Highlands, Semenyih and Rantau.
It is the first by-election since Umno and PAS formalised their cooperation though it is unclear how significant a role PAS' backing of BN had in Tanjung Piai.
Gerakan's Tanjung Piai candidate Wendy Subramaniam came in third with 1,707 votes, Berjasa’s Badhrulhisham Abd Aziz bagged 850 votes in fourth place, and independent candidates Ang Chuan Lock and Faridah Aryani Abd Ghaffar received 380 and 32 votes respectively.
- Mkini
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