P44: Post Election Analysis

The by-election of the century is just over with the landslide victory for Anwar bin Ibrahim. Anwar secured 31,195 votes with higher majority compared to the 12 GE. He was out of the main stream political circle for past ten years and no one from rulings coalition even from opposition have thought he will return back to the house after a long period. In normal circumstance the precedents was, the moment a politicians is out of the main stream then the chances for he/she to return back almost zero percent except in Anwar Ibrahim case. Out of 110 streams (saluran) Anwar win in 108 and Arif Shah only 2 streams and postal votes from government servant's. My analysis will concentrate on the reason on why Arif Shah lost, even at his own ground. 1. Umno / BN strategy was based on “racism strategy” to create fears among the voters. BN strategist believed by creating the insecurity environment, voters will cast to BN candidates to secure their safety but the idea has backfired. The racism strategy will not work any more and umno will not be able to stand sentinel to Malay community by over reacting in racial strategy. The GE12 result was a good precedent. For past number of years the voters believe the country will go to chaos if BN 2/3 parliament majority denied but after the 12 GE, the administration of the country still move well without any untoward incidents. This has created a confidence among the voters to take a daring decision to push for a change. 2. The idea to create the fears among the voters from various race and religion failed because the PR coalition was in a full gear to explain to the voters on the “New Malaysia” concept. The concept explanation was consistent and the tone was same in any stage despite the audience was from various group of community. The “New Malaysia” which care for all the Malaysians was most attractive promises given to the voters and this was totally different with the BN’s policy. Umno was telling the kampong folks, “non-malays will take over the country administration if Anwar win” and telling the different story to Chinese and Indian voters. The present of Open Space policy and power of information communication technology has eased the spread of information. The umno’s negative propaganda statement easily will even go to the graveyard in a seconds and the news spread to non-malays which up-sad them. MCA and MIC was put in dilemma and definitely they couldn’t sell the BN policy to their supporters due to the racism strategy.

3. Candidates played a bigger role too. Arif Shah was a good friend for the local people especially in his Seberang Jaya constituency but then they look at him as a local candidate without a vision. This is totally different when they compare with Anwar Ibrahim. The voters look at him as a victim and a fighter to defend the justice not only for him but for the Malaysians in general. Friend of mine said, we have leaders for Malays, leaders for Chinese and same goes to Indian but we don’t have a leader for Malaysian. He believed Anwar Ibrahim is a leader for Malaysian’s. Feedback’s from Indian community in Seberang Jaya says, Arif Shah did not serve Indians as Seberang Jaya representatives. They were up-sad and the by-election was time to show their dissatisfaction for second time. The dissatisfactions have come to the corner and may be coincidence with the PKR’s theme, “MERDEKA” which has given a big impact among the voters. 4. Internal bickering among the local BN leaders has contributed to the defeat. I was shocked to read, BN have appointed the present State assemblyman as a candidate. It’s really shocked news for me because I see Umno/BN as a giant with millions membership. It’s unacceptable if the giant party have no capable candidates. It’s an insult too for the local senior division leaders when they were sidelined due to the reason of “incapability.” If the local leaders really fall in to that group at the first place they will not be able to rise to high rank in division especially in umno. The strategy has contributed to the sabotage. BN campaign’s was badly organised, out of the control and was done in a mess. Arif Shah was running his election machinery separately from his home and fails to present in most of the programme organised by the division or main election machinery. IPF, they show their faces during the Najib’s visit to the IPF booth but after that start to bang MIC and PPP. While having a chat with one of the member, he projected him self as the hard worker and start to bang MIC. The jokes was all this Indian based party claimed they are representing 3507 Indian voters and try to step on each others in front of Najib. MCA, Gerakan, PPP, KIMMA, Nallakaruppan’s party physically has set-up the booth with inactive machinery. The only credit that I dare to give was to MIC youth, it was not because of their election machinery but their dissenting voices against the umno during a dialogue session with Hisamuddin. 5. Character assassination has back fired Umno/BN. P44 was predominantly conquered by Malay community with the culture and religion sentiments. In 1999 election, Malay community have shown their dissatisfaction when BN, over emphasize on sodomy case. They feel, what BN was doing is out of the Malay culture and to demote Anwar Ibrahim to the lowest level of human natural is totally unacceptable. Even non-malays have shown their dissatisfaction when character assassination against Anwar Ibrahim was repeated after ten years. Yet BN strategist out do the sentiments and repeated again the same mistakes in this by-election. Electronic media shall take part of the responsibility too. When Pa Lah, Prime Minister and Umno President said, do not politicise the “Saiful Oath,” none of the electronic media took his words and continuously repeated the clip and make it as a political issues. BN strategist it self has used the clip to maximum bashing. That create uneasiness among the voters and it’s really backfired when Ramlang Porigi stand in PKR stage and denied his involvement on the setting-up of oath taking process. His statement has confused the voters especially the Malay community. 6. BN has no issues other than character assassinations. While Anwar Ibrahim was talking about the national agenda and future of Malaysia, BN strategists was banging on his character and not addressing his allegation on the sluggish of economy, integrity, transparency, corruption and other national issues. Although the war on banners and flyers was colourful but PKR notice board, banners and articles was more on issues and places in strategic locations. As usual BN out source the job to place the banners and other related works and the out source company did their job well but not in a strategic locations. Umno failed to counter the Selangor MB proposal to allocate ten percent of the UiTM intakes to foreign and non-malay students. Despite failure to counter the issues professionally, the party which rule the government has closed both eyes and give full back up to the VC to play his political game. Just in a night, the students was prepared with black shirts and ushered to street to show their dissatisfactions. The demonstration was done in all over the campus and media has projected the scene as a dissenting voice against the PKR. In other side PKR gave a statistics to the voters with an explanation that Khalid intention was to upgrade the education quality and it was a proposal only. The explanation was followed with the press cutting, saying umno has opened the entry to MRSM, polytechnics etc to non-bumiputeras long time ago. The demo was no impact to Permatang Pauh malay voters but has backfired among the non-malay voters. The voters feedback says, why no actions taken although “College, University Act” still in force? What’s wrong to give an idea and why used student as a provocative agents? UiTM is just another government education centre funded by tax payer’s money, all Malaysian’s money so why manipulate the issues? It’s really backfired and Chinese say “No To Arif Shah.”

7. Butterworth was Hindraf base. The influences, Hindraf has in Butterworth and the surrounding area including Permatang Pauh was very strong. When two members started bonfire [yaagam] in Chinese temple [after the Seberang Jaya Karumariamman temple committee rejected the request to start the bonfire] by make using the Hindraf name that has provoked the Hindraf members to gather and show their angriness. Co-incidentally or pre-planned [only GOD know] Pa Lah suddenly appear in the locations. The drama started when the two Hindraf defectors hand over the 18 point memorandum to Pa Lah and he promised to look into it and ask Indians to vote BN in the by-election. The supporters lost the temper and started to go aggressively. They said, "this is chinese temple and nothing to do with Hinduism so why the two [which was suspected working for BN] must do the bonfire in non-Hindu temple?" Even when Hindraf went to Putrajaya few times, went to street, went to Parliament and so many attempts to meet Pa Lah, all failed but why now he must drop by to receive the 18 points? When it starts to go out of control, police intervened and detained the national co-ordinator and eight members including two ladies. Two ladies were released on following days and others on the eve of election day. The group went all out to tell the Indians what really transpired on the day and the words used against them while they was in detention. The incidents was just like pouring R97 (quality petrol) to the bonfire which are burning inside the Hindraf supporters. Conclusion I believe, this by-election is second warning for the umno/BN. Once again the voters have voted not only against the BN candidates but have given more numbers to Anwar Ibrahim even Arif Shah failed to secure the majority votes in his own state constituency. The non-malay voters have rejected the appeal from their race based political party and voted beyond their race and religion for second times. This is a very alarming trend for BN. If BN fail to reform the policy then I believe the future is very dark for their politicians. BN component members have three options, remain with racism strategy and die together with umno, or push umno to reform. The third option is to leave umno at the back and move forward as a Malaysian. BN must take a decision otherwise face the consequence sooner or later in 13 general elections.

(I shall say, thank you to my friend. He is the source of the picture)