Some trends never fails to amuse everyone during Malaysia general elections – whenever opposition is leading during votes counting, they will always lose towards the end of the process because “courier service” will deliver some magic ballot boxes (*grin*). Equally amusing was the fact that these magic boxes will always save big guns, this round it found its way to MIC President Palanivel, MCA President’s son and Liow Tiong Lai. There were also allegations that more such courier services were on its way to save Gelang Patah’s Abdul Ghani and Lembah Pantai’s Raja Nong Chik but couldn’t reach its destinations (*tongue-in-cheek*).
As expected, BN (Barisan Nasional) retains its power at the federal government while opposition PR (Pakatan Rakyat) is crying fraud over its failure in replacing the 56-year-old corrupt government. Now that official results is out – BN wins 133 parliamentary seats while PR takes home the remaining 89 from the total 222 contested seats – both BN and PR should go back to the drawing board to analyse what had gone wrong. Anwar is right and should challenge the results from between 30 to 40 constituencies due to irregularities such as not given Form 14 by the Election Commission.
If frauds and irregularities are not tackled, the same problems will continue to haunt them in the next 14th general election. Sure, it won’t change a thing since the judiciary is equally bias towards BN but if nothing is done, it will means the current regime will be even bolder in carrying out its frauds. Bersih now has an even bigger role to play – magnify and bring the tainted election process to another level, both domestically and internationally. Thus, Bersih, a coalition for clean and fair elections, should fully utilize the next 4-5 years in educating public (especially ruralites) and to gain international pressures on Malaysia Election Commission.
BN should thank former premier Mahathir simply because without his innovative gerrymandering project during his 22-year-rule, BN would have collapsed today. We have written that Najib Razak’s real battle is his own UMNO election, and not the just concluded 13th general election. Hence, the BN’s win was expected. Of course both BN and PR didn’t expect the surprises in store for them. BN didn’t expect the huge swing of Chinese voters to be of such magnitude. Heck, even DAP was surprised at its own sweet and juicy victory. On the other hand, PR didn’t expect its supposedly tsunami lacked a comprehensive Malay participation.
As much as the newly crowned PM Najib Razak conveniently blames his poorer performance (BN scored 140 parliamentary seats in 2008) on Chinese alone, the fact is this war is between the urbanites and ruralites. That was why PR managed to tighten its grips on two of the most developed states – Penang and Selangor. If that was not enough to convince you, the fact that PR via its DAP partner successfully secured about one-third (18 out of 56) of Johor state seats, the third most developed state, shows that urbanites are ever ready for a change in government. Chinese voters alone, without Malay votes will not be enough to win 89 parliamentary seats.
If PM Najib is sincere about his 1Malaysia transformation and smart about surviving the next general election, he should start building a foundation that is fair to all Malaysians regardless of their race. Racial politics doesn’t work as can be seen by the defeat of his two endorsed racist candidates – Ibrahim Ali and Zulkifli Nordin. Religion politics also doesn’t work as can be seen by Islamic hudud scare tactic carried out excessively by MCA on the Chinese. Considering below figures and the fact that BN lost the popular votes (46.96% votes) as compared to PR (50.48% votes), PM Najib has more reasons to be super cautious in his next policies.
Assuming PM Najib survives his next UMNO party election, he has to deliver all his manifesto’s promises. On top of that, he has to pray there won’t be any similar CowGate scandal to be capitalized by the opposition PR. As a matter of fact, Najib’s future doesn’t looks bright considering his coalition actually lost a whopping 69 state seats nationwide (secured 275 compared to 2008’s 344 seats). If there’s a single reason Mahathir decides to allow Najib keeps his premiership, that reason is none other than Najib’s own popularity that surpasses UMNO. And Najib’s own popularity was primarily due to cash giveaway in the form of BR1M.
Like it or not, BN’s overall poorer performance despite tens of billions of dollars spent shows something is not right somewhere. This general election results also show that BN’s business model of outsourcing its dirty job in playing racial and religion cards to Utusan Malaysia, Perkasa and former premier Mahathir didn’t work, well, at least not to the Chinese voters. It doesn’t matter if MCA or Gerakan were wiped out because to the Chinese, they can survive with or without those so-called Chinese representatives who were more interested in enriching themselves than anything else. Furthermore, PM Najib can always appoint Senators to paint a fake picture that BN is a coalition consists of a fair representatives from multi-racial composition.
What about PR? Is it game over after their fail attempt to wrest the throne from BN? Actually their supporters especially those who took the trouble to travel back from overseas to vote are now very demoralized. Considering this was their best bet and yet they couldn’t kick the corrupt BN government, they may not be optimistic about the overall plan in forming a new government after all. They’re too tired and disappointed about this “Ubah” thingy and may not be coming back again in the next 14th general election. There’s no doubt the Chinese did ran to the finishing line in style. But their Malay comrades were half-hearted about the race with probably half of them took part. The rest of them probably stayed back at home sleeping or gone out shopping.
Compared to 2008 general election, the Malay ruralites did not have the enthusiasms to punish BN regime, primarily due to BR1M. At the most, only the upper middle-class Malay joined their Chinese brothers and sisters in voting out BN, as can be seen in Selangor, Penang and Johor. Some could be frightened by the BN propaganda about Malay losing power. If that was the case, then PR’s PKR and PAS had done a lousy job in educating them since 2008. In short, PKR and PAS have themselves to blame for being complacent about their “invincible” seats won in 2008. PAS also deserves to lose Kedah for not taking immediate remedy despite its former Chief Minister Azizan’s incompetency.
If that was not enough to say about PSM, PAS and PKR’s arrogance and greed, they also lost Kota Damansara and Semenyih which otherwise could be won without 3-corner fights. Example: in Kota Damansara, BN candidate won the seat by garnering 16,387 votes. PSM chairman Nasir Hashim garnered 14,680 votes while PAS’ Ridzuan Ismail garnered 7,312 votes. Without PSM and PAS fighting each other, they would win the seat with a combined 21,992 votes. In Semenyih, BN won the seat by garnering 17,616 votes while PSM secretary general S Arutchelvan obtained 5,568 votes. PKR candidate Hamidi Hasan garnered 13,471 votes. Without PSM and PKR fighting each other, they could add another seat with the total 19,039 votes.
Kelantan, Kedah, Perak and Negeri Sembilan also saw a reduction in state seats won by PAS as compared to 2008. So, it wasn’t Chinese who rejects “Hudud”; instead it were Malays who doesn’t really fancy about PAS’s lethal weapon. At the parliamentary level, all BN, PAS and PKR performed poorly as compared to 2008 with DAP pocketed all their seats. However at the state level, all PAS, PKR and DAP scored better than BN this time. In case PR doesn’t realize the new opportunities given by Johoreans and Sabahans – they gained 12 and 10 new state seats respectively. Considering these are seats from BN’s fixed deposit, PR should start strategizing on how to defend and perform better come next general election.
Terengganu also presents a golden opportunity for PR to prove themselves. There’re tons of thing-to-do in these Terengganu, Sabah and Johor states. Fortunately PR controls Selangor and Penang. They should fully utilize riches from these two most developed states to help educate ruralites especially in Sabah and Sarawak. If they do nothing in educating and servicing state constituencies won in the next 5 years, they would be punished severely. You can bet your last dollar that BN will play the “Malay losing power” card again hence PR has five years to put the ruralites’ mindset on the right track – via constant education. They can start by telling how UMNO’s Utusan lies about Malay-vs-Chinese racial party system that the newspaper is playing now.
PM Najib Razak has two options on the table. He can firmly and sincerely implement policies that is truly 1Malaysia in order to neutralize PR’s strong grip on Chinese voters so that he can perform better in the next general election. Alternatively, he can continue with his previous good-cop-bad-cop drama by extending Perkasa and Mahathir’s contracts to spook the Malay ruralites. He can also continue to import foreign Bangladeshis, Nepalis, Indonesians and whatnot in huge numbers to vote for BN, and to take over the country. BN should use its new mandate wisely while PR should use the next five years to educate the ruralites. Of course, Bersih should continue to pressure Election Commission for a fair and clean election.
Other Articles That May Interest You …
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- PR Manifesto – More Reasons to Change Govt?
- Malaysian Loves Corruption & Can’t Live Without It
- Budget 2013 – What the Govt Doesn’t Want You to Know
- Marcos, Mubarak & Mahathir – Who’s The Richest Man?
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May 7th, 2013 by financetwitter
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Comments
Najib head is on the chopping board comes the mother of all election, UMNO election.
Najib still have time to save himself, just shout the word “talaq”, asap. The Rakyat is not amuse with the shopping dynamic of his better half. The dislike is not only from the Rakyat, but from within team members of UMNO. Some are just envy of the luxury shown and some are just saying, “When is my turn to do shopping?” Nobody likes a show off.
Najib is so angry now that he made the Chinese the scapegoat of his failure to capture 2/3 majority in parliament. He is trying to hoodwink the Malay to believe it, instead of Malaysian rejecting the UMNO regime.
To get 52% popular votes, we need Malay, Chinese, Indian and natives of Sabah & Sarawak to do it. The Chinese cannot do it alone. That is the fact! Hogwash, ‘Chinese Tsunami’.
1Malaysia on May 7, 2013 at 6:48 pm
Will MCA or Gerakan stand up to say something fair about the newspaper article “Apa Lagi Cina Mahu?”
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I think MCA and Gerakan will not even dare to cough but just turn round and round like a whimpered dog wagging its tail.
My conclusion after watching them for so long.
Right now, BN has 133 seats, will 15 PR frogs jump over to give the former 2/3rd majority?
The most touching photo is the one which saw hundreds of Bangsar residents jumping up, surrounded a car that tried to “courier” a yellow bag of pre-marked votes to cause Nurul to lose her seat.
All of you out there, I want to say, it’s really unbelievable.Thank you for saving sweet Nurul. Terima Kasih.
if there were as many pacaba in rural counting center as in lembah pantai, i guess the score would be very different for now.
One thing is absolutely certain: we cannot trust EC even in GE14; bringing in ‘contingency pre-marked votes’ really helped BN win, again & again. Even if EC said they hv ‘reformed’, don’t lean back & relax. Don’t trust them.
I hope PR will list out in detail the fraud involved. Currently the accusation is still very vague. Many people got their info from FB which most of the time sounds more like propaganda. For example, the blackout and extra ballot boxes which I believe was not true if one understand the process of counting votes. Even DAP and Wong Tuck had annouced that these never happen.
Will MCA or Gerakan stand up to say something fair about the newspaper article “Apa Lagi Cina Mahu?”