Sole polls win no ‘kiss of life’ for ailing Gerakan

 

Loss of PAS support caused Gerakan president Dominic Lau’s defeat in the Bayan Lepas seat, according to a political analyst. (Facebook pic)

PETALING JAYA: Does winning one seat from nothing and not losing most of their deposits unlike before suggest a comeback for Gerakan? Not really, according to two analysts.

They said any party that represented Perikatan Nasional (PN) in the Chinese-majority seats in the state elections would have got the votes Gerakan garnered as they were mostly protest votes from Umno supporters.

James Chin of the University of Tasmania said the results of the six state elections cannot be used as a barometer to conclude that it is a “kiss of life” for the party which was wiped out in the last two general elections.

“Gerakan is obviously riding on the PN wave. So, I suppose a lot of vote transfer came from those who used to back Umno in the past by voting for MCA or MIC. Since there was no one else this time, they voted for Gerakan.

“Besides this, there were local factors involved, and all the Gerakan candidates also had substantial support from the PN election machinery,” he told FMT.

Gerakan’s Wong Chia Zhen won the Kulim seat in Kedah, which is a Malay-majority seat.

Of the remaining 36 seats the party contested, only 10 of its candidates lost their deposits, an improvement from the 15th general election where all Gerakan candidates lost their deposits.

Commenting on whether Gerakan is slowly becoming to PN what MCA and MIC were to Barisan Nasional, Chin said it is already the token non-Malay party in the Malay-dominated coalition.

“People who voted for Gerakan are those Chinese who used to believe that non-Malays must have a voice in the government. That is why MCA could survive for so long. Whether this ground will hold until the next general election is hard to say.

“If there had been no strong green wave in the state elections, I doubt Gerakan would have won that one seat. They would have been wiped out. The wave was so huge that they were spared,” he said.

Political analyst Azmi Hassan agreed that Gerakan won a “fairly decent” number of votes compared to its thrashing in GE15.

However, it did not get the Chinese support – which should be their main role in the PN coalition – and should not have to depend on Malay votes to win, he said.

“PN can be strong at the state level, but nationally, the coalition needs the Chinese votes. Gerakan is not capable of getting them. Many of its candidates lost their deposits but not as badly as in GE15.

“Yes, they are becoming to PN what MCA and MIC were to BN. But these two parties were helped quite a bit by BN those days, which was why they were able to survive for so long,” Azmi said.

However, he said, PAS does not appear to be giving much help, as could be seen in the Malay-majority seat of Bayan Lepas in Penang where Gerakan president Dominic Lau lost.

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When Lau was named as the candidate for the seat last month, the Bayan Lepas PAS division had protested as they expected a local party leader to have been chosen instead.

“This does not bode well for Gerakan in PN. PAS is demonstrating that they are the kings in PN.

“They seem to decide if a Bersatu or Gerakan candidate should win or lose. However, Gerakan simply has no choice but to remain in PN to remain relevant,” he said. - FMT