The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| The MILF-PRON GE13 post-mortem analysis: We were saved! Posted: 09 May 2013 05:30 PM PDT
MAY 10 — Now that the 13th general election is over, and the winners and losers have been declared, the Malaysian Institute of Learning Foundation for Political Research On Nationalism (MILF-PRON) would like to provide its incisive, unbiased and completely fact-based, post-mortem analysis for the consumption of the right and good citizens of Malaysia, as well as the politicians. When it was announced that the ruling coalition had gathered enough seats to form a government, it was the moment in which the country was saved. Had it gone the other way, then today Malaysia would be governed by a communist-controlled, Islamo-fundamentalist coalition led by a prime minister who is allegedly a supporter of gay rights and same-sex marriages. Thankfully though, Barisan Nasional kept its vice-like grip on the knobs, buttons as well as the till of the federal government with a handsome total of 133 seats, against 89 to the troublemaking opposition parties. The number of seats won in this election compares favourably to the 140 won in the previous election, thus showing what a strong and determined leadership by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak can achieve compared to the weak and indecisive coalition led by Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in 2008. However, in spite of this crushing victory, BN had suffered some setbacks, when a few of their stalwarts suffered very close defeats in the seats that they contested. For example, the Perkasa duo, Datuk Ibrahim Ali and Datuk Zulkifli Noordin, were both unlucky to have been defeated. In Pasir Mas, Ibrahim proved that his appeal to the masses remained strong by convincing 25,000 voters to vote for him in spite of not being officially supported by BN, or even his previous backers, a member of the opposition. Had either BN or his previous backers supported him, Ibrahim would surely have been able to continue defending the rights, privileges and entitlements of Perkasa members without fear or favour, inside and outside of Parliament and probably even in Pasir Mas itself. In Shah Alam, it must be said that fielding Zulkifli as a BN candidate, in spite of the fact that he is not a member of any of the coalition parties, was a risk that should not have been taken. Granted, since his defection from the opposition, Zulkifli had acknowledged the error of his ways and repented to become a strong defender of everything that BN stands for. However, it was not like Selangor, especially Shah Alam, was entirely bereft of capable Umno leaders. In fact, the Selangor BN chief, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, could have instead fielded a very strong candidate in the shape of the previous mentri besar, Datuk Mohd Khir Toyo, or even his predecessor to the post (and former Umno vice-president), Tan Sri Muhammad Mohd Taib. The latter, especially, would have been a formidable candidate, given that he was Umno's information chief for the 12th general election in 2008, and was surely partially responsible for stemming the tide of losses due to Abdullah's flailing leadership during that election. Keeping with Selangor, the failure to wrest the state from the Chinese-dominated, centre-left, conservative opposition must surely indicate that the Selangor BN chief did not perform up to expectations, and in fact, delivered a worse result compared to 2008. As such, we would recommend to the national-level BN chairman, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, that he remove the current Selangor BN chief and have him replaced with someone more capable for the next general election. Someone like, say, the aforementioned Tan Sri Muhammad Mohd Taib. Another great loss to BN was the unexpected defeat of Datuk Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi, to the neo-liberal opposition candidate in Batu Pahat. While the data available is inconclusive, it is plausible to assume that Puad was defeated with the help of the so-called "pink vote." Puad's vigorous defence of the right of schoolchildren to live a life free from the insidious influence of LGBT lifestyle practitioners must have galvanised those deviants, who would have worked to convince the voters in Batu Pahat to instead plump for the other candidate, who had remained silent on his own opinions regarding alternative lifestyle choices. As the result of the loss of these three candidates, BN must now find from within itself replacement champions such that the struggle to keep the country from falling to adherents of pluralism, liberalism, communism, socialism and LGBT-ism can continue as strenuously as before. These setbacks aside, there were many positives that could be taken from BN's performance in this election. As an example, it was clear that Sarawak remains a strong state for the ruling coalition, and that its chief minister, Tan Sri Taib Mahmud, can always be counted on to deliver when it matters. A few weeks before the elections, a foreign NGO, likely funded by those who want to see the government fall, had released a video of, allegedly, Taib's cousins and their lawyer talking about buying and selling some land. The implication being that those alleged cousins were given land by Taib and therefore they were in fact selling someone else's land, which may or may not have belonged to Taib. Or some such. There was even talk of Taib being called up by the MACC, to which he responded by refusing to donate even a solitary copulation to the rumours, or indeed, to MACC. As such, he was able to remain in the vanguard of BN's defence of the state, thus ensuring that losses were kept to a minimum. Other than Taib's sterling performance in Sarawak, there were also other great demonstrations of leadership in BN, especially by the component parties MCA, Gerakan and SUPP, where their presidents showed their support and confidence in the ruling coalition and their own parties by not contesting in the election. Their supreme sacrifices meant that opportunities were given to a younger crop of potential leaders, while they themselves were able to concentrate on being metaphorical armchair generals directing their troops on the field of battle. All in all, we can surely conclude that in spite of what seemed to be a strong opposition, BN remained the coalition of choice to lead the country to ever greater heights. We can also conclude that the opposition was only flattering to deceive, and that in spite of every effort by the opposition to shake the conviction of the people, they remain staunch supporters of BN's policies and governance. Indeed, if we were to look at the raw numbers, in 2008, BN obtained 4.1 million votes, whereas in 2013 it was 5.2 million votes. That represents an increase of 25 per cent, totalling 1.1 million votes. Proof, surely, that there are now more supporters of BN than ever before. Now, while victory has been secured, convincingly and resoundingly, there remains room for improvement. In order for BN to continue its upwards trajectory, its chairman must surely make some changes in the coalition make-up. For example, if we were to analyse the individual parties' performance within the coalition, we can make the conclusion that BN should give even more seats to Umno for the next general election and to also consider having the east Malaysian members contesting in Peninsular Malaysia. After all, the Sabah and Sarawak component parties had proven themselves, once again, to be able to deliver what was asked of them whereas the coalition members in the peninsular were either content to lose or to give their seats to Umno. Further, in order to give due respect to tradition and the concept of power-sharing between the main races, Umno's equal partner in the coalition, the MCA, should be given extremely safe seats to contest — such as Pekan, Kepala Batas, Kuala Kangsar or Kubang Pasu — so that they could once again have a few members in the Cabinet. Likewise, the other equal partner MIC should also be accorded the same treatment. Finally, to end our post-mortem analysis of the 13th general election, we would like to congratulate BN in this dominating victory, thus ensuring that its hold on Putrajaya remains as it has always been since 1998. This victory is a vindication of the prime minister's unique and unparalleled campaign strategy which, among others, involved displaying posters exhorting the people to vote for him personally even outside of Pekan. We would also like to thank, once again, BN for saving the country from being ruled by a secularist, Islamist, liberal-conservative coalition that would surely have turned the country into a Chinese-controlled, hudud-imposing nation which allows gays to be married. We now look forward to another thrilling five years (plus a few months) of effective, performance-based, people-first, governance from our representatives who have been chosen by the majority of the nation. * This is the personal opinion of the columnist. | |
| Posted: 09 May 2013 05:13 PM PDT
MAY 10 — The race factor definitely played a role in the voter swing in the recent GE13. No doubt about it. So when Umno-owned newspaper Utusan published the front-page story "Apa lagi Cina mahu?" last Tuesday in response to the voter swing, it couldn't have been a surprise. Barisan Nasional consists of many component parties and most of these parties (if not all of them) are all race-based. And, of course, the three main parties that make up the coalition are Umno (Malay), the MCA (Chinese) and MIC (Indian). The logic to it is that Umno will attract the Malay voters, the MCA will attract the Chinese and MIC, the Indians. Hence, they should have it all covered in Malaysia. Then we look at Pakatan Rakyat, who is constantly preaching multiracial politics, claiming that they aren't race-based. Honestly, I can identify with them when they say that they are, especially when it comes from their younger (those close to my age) leaders and representatives. But look at it closer and you will notice that the DAP is really a Chinese party and PAS is a Malay party (yeah, yeah… Islam equals Malay!). PKR, on the other hand, has a multiracial make-up when it comes to its members and leaders. But, seriously, it is still majority Malay. So when we talk about politics in Malaysia, it is impossible to run away from the race and ethnicity factor. Now let's take a look at BN's win in the recent general election. Most of the seats that it won were contested by Umno members. The MCA didn't perform. It lost so many seats and did worst than the last election. It currently only has seven parliamentary seats, out of 37 that it contested. The MIC also did badly. It only won four parliamentary seats out of the nine it contested this year. So at the end of the day, BN's win was really mainly due to the support of the Malays for Umno. That would mean that the MCA and MIC really did nothing or contributed nothing towards the coalition and its win. That would make the MCA and MIC quite irrelevant. Where did the Chinese and Indians go then? Well, they went to Pakatan Rakyat of course. That is quite obvious. So does that mean that Malaysia is now racially polarised and that we are all clustering in our own race and ethnic group? Not really. The Malays voted for Pakatan Rakyat too. And it was not an insignificant number of them. It was a pretty large group that did so. But then again, we can also look at and analyse the breakdown for Pakatan Rakyat's results just as we did for BN's. The DAP won the most number of seats in the PR coalition. It now has 38 of its members in Parliament. PKR is in second place with 30 parliamentary seats. The component party that had the worst showing was PAS. It only managed to win 21 seats. However, this is still more than the MCA and MIC combined! This clearly shows that although there is a race factor to the voter swing, it does not mean that it is a major factor and that the country is so polarised. If you compare BN and PR, the latter obviously managed to garner a wider and balanced voter demographic in terms of race and ethnicity. So I'm not worried about the country breaking apart as far as all the races are concerned. It shows in the results that a majority of Malaysians are really united. So I strongly believe that BN has got it wrong when they try to explain to the rakyat that the reason they did badly in the election is because there is no racial harmony. Realise the fact that 5,623,984 people of different races banded together to vote for PR as opposed to 5,237,699 of mainly Malay people voting for BN (or Umno). So there is no need for reconciliation, recuperation and rehabilitation (or whatever words you want to use) to happen to make things better for the country. What is really needed is for BN to look at themselves and realise that they can't play the blame game, and worse, the race card, for their bad showing. The majority has spoken and if BN doesn't listen, the next general election might not just see them losing only the popular vote. * This is the personal opinion of the columnist. |
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