What did your third-party vote accomplish?

 I ran for the recent Selangor state elections as the PSM candidate for Dengkil. We received 1,782 votes, while the Perikatan Nasional-Bersatu candidate received 33,587 votes and the BN-Umno candidate received 33,154 votes, for a majority of 407.

It is thus likely that I was a “spoiler candidate” - my candidacy resulted in PN winning the Dengkil state seat.

I am proud of the efforts of our campaign team, they worked hard and were very dedicated. Some of our volunteers travelled from as far as Perak and Johor!

Given that this was the first time PSM stood in Dengkil, I think this was a solid performance on our part. I am really happy that the people of Dengkil had the opportunity to voice out their desire for a new kind of politics that PSM espouses, a politics that favours the poor and working-class people over the rich and well-connected.

But, understandably, many others are sceptical. We were nowhere close to winning, we lost our deposit, and Bersatu ended up gaining our seat. So what exactly did our efforts accomplish? What exactly did the support of our 1,782 voters accomplish?

In my opinion, we accomplished a great deal. I am not perturbed that we were possibly a spoiler.

If BN had won the Dengkil seat, the composition of the Selangor state assembly would be Pakatan Harapan-BN (35) and Perikatan Nasional (21). There is no practical difference between Harapan-BN winning the Selangor state assembly with 34-22 or 35-21.

Taking supporters for granted

However, PSM and our friends in Muda have shown that while we do not have enough support to win seats on our own, we do have enough support that Harapan-BN will lose seats if they ignore the concerns of reform-minded voters.

This is significant because Harapan-BN has thus far been taking for granted the concerns of Malaysians who desire reform. Key promised reforms that Harapan-BN have ignored include the return of local government elections, the abolishment of oppressive laws like Sosma, and applying needs-based rather than raced-based policies in government assistance.

Consider the arrogance that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim showed to the student in Kolej Matrikulasi Pulau Pinang, who questioned the race-based quota system.

This event reveals the Madani government’s expectation that their core constituencies will be forced to vote for Harapan and BN out of fear of PN, even if none of the promised reforms have been delivered.

The Harapan-BN government has also been pandering to conservatives with ludicrous and damaging measures like banning rainbow-coloured Swatch watches.

The reason they do this is that they calculate that they may gain some votes from PN’s base while upsetting progressive voters will make no difference because fear of PN will force them to vote for Harapan-BN anyway.

The third-party vote in the recent elections proved that their calculation is wrong. There is a significant segment of the Malaysian electorate whose desire for reform is strong enough that they are willing to vote for third parties and risk Harapan-BN losing seats.

These voters have sent a clear message, that if Harapan-BN wants to gain back those seats, they have to implement the policies that PSM and Muda have championed. These are policies that Harapan themselves have promised in the past but have now ignored.

The performance of PSM and Muda also shows that there is a danger if Harapan-BN goes overboard in pandering to the conservative electorate. Pander to them too much, and you will lose more votes to third parties.

The Brexit effect

In the United Kingdom, there was a small party known as the UK Independence Party (UKIP), a right-wing party that wanted the UK to leave the European Union.

They were a small mosquito party, never having more than one or two seats in parliament and frequently losing deposits in elections.

However, UKIP won enough votes that the ruling Conservative Party was forced to adopt their platform because they feared the spoiler effect - enough Conservative voters were voting UKIP that the opposition Labour party might win in some seats.

This resulted in Conservative Party Prime Minister David Cameron approving a referendum to leave the European Union, which was successful. In this way, UKIP, a small third party was able to implement its policies for Britain.

UKIP’s example gives us a roadmap to fight for reforms in Malaysia. The lesson for supporters of PSM and Muda is to keep fighting. Our performance in the state elections has served as a wake-up call to the Harapan-BN government.

Hopefully, they will take heed and implement the reforms that Malaysia so badly needs. If they do not, this will only ensure that the third-party vote will be larger next time when we run again in the next elections. - Mkini

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DARREN ONG was PSM’s candidate for Dengkil in the recent Selangor state election

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.