PKR, Pas bridesmaid to DAP

(NST) DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang said the outcome of Saturday’s Sarawak election was an eye-opener for the loose opposition grouping.

He must have been referring to the reality checks, mismatches and over-sized ambitions paraded in Sarawak, and the inability to agree on a seat allocation beforehand.

DAP contested 15 constituencies, winning 12 of those urban, predominantly Chinese seats.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat contested 49 seats; its Sarawak leader Baru Bian hailed as a prospective chief minister. The party won three seats. In footballing terms, the party had until then suffered from a lack of games, hence match practice.

The last outing was in Hulu Selangor in mid-April last year when Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, formerly member of parliament for Kota Baru, was plucked as a candidate, his liberal qualities amplified.

PKR was defending a seat it won rather unexpectedly in the March 2008 general election which swept into the political terrain all sorts of shocking strands.

Zaid, who still gives top-notch media interviews, lost to the fast-talking P. Kamalanathan of MIC.

The return of Malay and Indian voters to the Barisan Nasional fold as a general pattern was reinforced.

The Chinese voters of Hulu Selangor, where MCA had a sizeable presence, hesitated.

Then on, PKR under the leadership of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, starting scoring some spectacular own goals via the straightforward exercise of trying to elect its leaders.

Zaid signed up to contest the deputy president’s post but bailed out midway, bringing attention (vociferously) to the faultlines in the party. He said Anwar — the de facto leader — exercised power without responsibility since he had been unelected.

Zaid suggested that Anwar contest the presidency to gain legitimacy.

Anwar’s supporters in PKR and in other opposition parties thought the opposition leader should be preserved as a unifying figure for the opposition.

Alas, recent empirical outcomes of the political combat might have diminished PKR’s and Anwar’s stature in the opposition ranks.

Politics of race sits on a delicate equilibrium. PKR is on paper a multiracial party that brings together Pas and DAP. So long as it has a Malay leadership (being the majority community) and supported energetically by everyone else, it shall live on.

Every now and then, the signatories to this arrangement will have to produce the numbers to justify their respective roles.

When one community surges ahead, the rest react. DAP is galloping ahead. First, there was the May 2010 Sibu by-election victory, and now, doubling its tally of state seats in Sarawak to 12.

The impact of the emphasised sizeable Chinese support for DAP does suggest the opposition grouping now relies largely or to a certain extent on Chinese support.

In the next few weeks, analysts shall roll out their thoughts on this gathering trend of the opposition grouping whether it is acquiring a particular racial identification.

The Chinese voters have been dithering whether to back BN in proportions associated with most general elections; they must have their reasons. The taxi drivers talk about corruption and their desire to see a level playing field. When pointed out that the administration has been going hard on corruption, they said this was a good start.

Pas, like PKR, has not been able to add to its support base. The results of the Galas (Nov 4) by-election, followed by those in Tenang (Jan 30), Merlimau and Kerdau (March 6) show that Pas is hurting.

Such is the astonishing simplicity of communal-based politics that more Chinese support going to one opposition party could lead to more Malay votes for Umno.

In terms of strategy, this has smashed the structure of the opposition grouping as PKR and Anwar cannot justifiably lead a political arrangement that includes DAP as it is now the strongest component.

Pas will convene its annual muktamar in June. There shall be an airing of its own anxiety at the latest political trends.

As was the case in Sarawak, BN, with the support of most of the communities largely intact, could still win the two-thirds majority in a nationwide polls.

After all, the series of elections has demonstrated that there is nothing fundamentally wrong about its choice of policies and stewardship of the economy.

Without a doubt, the Chinese voters are in the midst of some introspection.

While BN will surely attempt to work doubly hard at reassuring the community, the reality of it all is this introspection shall hurt the opposition more.