There’s a ‘Baby Boom’ change and UMNO have yet to realise
Back in 1999, BN was partly saved by the inefficiency of SPR when some 300,000 newly registered voters could not be made available in time for the General Election. Realising this, UMNO still under Dr Mahathir acted to establish the Puteri wing and introduced more effort to attract members into Pemuda UMNO.
That and the new broom helped create a political avalanche for 2004. But it came with the arrogance as Abdullah kept reiterating "90% of population voted him". In actual fact, they won 90% of seats in Parliament and not the popular votes.
They neglected an emerging trend from 1999. That neglect brought about a rude awakening in 2008. UMNO and BN did poorly in the third and fourth channel voters. The same trend continued in the subsequent by-elections at Permatang Pauh and Kuala Terengganu recently.
