DAP’s Growing Popularity A Cause for Alarm to BN
By Syed Zahar, Malaysian Digest
Despite the hoo-ha over Barisan Nasional’s (BN) comfortable win in the Sarawak state election last weekend which retained them their two-thirds majority, the Opposition has a good reason to celebrate too, especially DAP. DAP won 12 out of 15 seats it contested, much better than its six out of 12 record in 2006 and PKR’s three out of 49 and PAS’ zero out of five seats for that matter.
From these stats, it would only be natural for people to the have the perception that PKR and PAS has failed to toe Pakatan Rakyat’s line but this is still arguable in PKR’s case as they did make a 200 percent improvement since 2006 when it won only one out of the 25 seats it contested. As for PAS, I think they will continue to have a tough time in making inroads into Sarawak in time to come.
Chinese Vote Swing
It’s become painfully apparent for BN that the Chinese voters in Sarawak have turned against them. The results of the 10th Sarawak election says is all and this is a cause for alarm bells for the ruling coalition. Former premier and BN chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad was one of the first to express concern (with a pinch of bitterness and trademark sarcasm) over the worrying trend.
“I congratulate the DAP for bringing its racist politics to Sarawak. Before this all races co-operated well with each other for the good of Sarawak. Now we see clearly that the Chinese community in Sarawak has rejected multiracialism,” he said in his blog post.
Dr Mahathir also hinted a few obvious factors that may have contributed to BN’s dismal results against DAP.
“Perhaps the SUPP (Sarawak United People’s Party) are at fault but others in the BN also committed many wrong things. But the rejection is almost entirely by the Chinese community,” he said.
Later, in a press conference on Tuesday, he said, “But the fact that his (Taib Mahmud) party (Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu) won 100 percent of the seats contested, it showed PBB accepted his leadership. On the other hand, the Chinese community clearly could not accept Taib due to incitement from the DAP,’ he said.
Chinese Not the Only Ones
There’s no doubt that DAP is enjoying the continued support they have been receiving from Chinese voters, especially in urban areas, which has grown since 2006 (and 2008 General Election). In all the Chinese-majority seats (Bukit Assek, Padungan, etc) the level of support for the opposition has increased, both in number of votes and share of the vote and this contributed immensely to Pakatan’s doubling of its seats. However, the Chinese were not the only ones that had switched to Pakatan as pointed out by an associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University, Dr Bridget Welsh.
..“No question about it, a growing number of Chinese supported the opposition in Sarawak. The interesting finding from the results, however, is that they are not alone, and in fact the Chinese swing toward the opposition is comparatively less (yes, less) than the changes within other communities,” Dr Welsh said.
Comparing the 2011 results with those of 2006, Welsh traced the changes in voter turnout and share of support (percentage of majority among voters who turned out to vote) for the opposition at the seat level and, when appropriate and with available data, the polling stream level.
“The preliminary findings highlight that the movement is greatest in mixed constituencies, and significant movement occurred across the ethnic communities, even the Malays,” she said.
From the stats, Malays were the biggest turnout increase followed by increased participation of Chinese and Iban voters. According to Dr Welsh, this impressive increase in mobilization across ethnic groups revealed that Sarawakians recognized their power as voters and came out to vote in an unprecedented manner.
“This highlights the growing appreciation of political power in Sarawak and engagement with politics, which is in keeping with the unprecedented crowds at ceramah across the state, even in the rural areas,” she said.
“The greatest movement compared to 2006 was in mixed seats, followed by movement in the Orang Ulu community in places such as Ba’Kelalan (where Baru Bian won his seat) but also places such as Telang Usan,” she added.
She also said that the share of movement in Orang Ulu-majority seats shows a 20 percent swing.
“These numbers can be a bit deceiving in that the actual numbers of voters in Sarawak are small and 20 percent can reflect a small number of voters in the small constituencies, yet nevertheless, the swing is significant,” she said.
