Pakatan’s shaky hold on Selangor
With some of the mud sticking, Anwar Ibrahim – the ‘Selangor economic adviser’ paid a RM1 token salary – will not be an attractive vote-getter this time around.
Helen Ang, Free Malaysia Today
An “oracle”, former finance minister Daim Zainudin, predicts it will be a close fight for Selangor with a 50-50 chance for either side in the imminent general election. The outcome will be determined by votes cast in the Malay heartland, and therefore the key deciding factor rests on how PAS and PKR perform.
There are 56 state seats up for grabs. In 2008, the opposition won 36 (PKR 15, DAP 13, PAS 8) and Barisan Nasional 20 (Umno 18, MCA 2). Ten of the seats were taken with a majority of less than 10%. These are the marginal ones that could experience a pendulum swing in the next round.
Assuming a constant for the urban, Chinese-majority seats, let’s examine a few others while discounting those won with large majorities.
It is important to remember that not every vote is equal. Some are worth far less. For example, DAP gobbled Damansara Utama and Subang Jaya through whopping majorities of 15,355 and 13,851 respectively. Damansara Utama is an 82.9% Chinese constituency where DAP’s Cheah Wing Yin obtained almost 25,000 votes in total.
(All statistics cited in this article are from the 12th general election.)
These tens of thousands of redundant Chinese votes are really a “waste” as even a slim edge of 50 or 100 votes still translates into a victory. Due to weightage in favour of the more sparsely populated rural areas, BN’s current focus is logically on persuading the crucial Malay and kingmaker Indian electorate in those seats with the smallest number of registered voters.
Although Pakatan Rakyat held an unassailable 36 seats immediately after March 8, the political pact – hastily cobbled after GE12 – today finds itself a few short. Badrul Hisham Abdullah (Pelabuhan Klang) had early departed from PKR and more recently, Hasan Ali (Gombak Setia) was sacked from PAS.
DAP’s Edward Lee (Bukit Gasing) passed away not too long ago, and as we learned from the Perak constitutional crisis, a seat, according to law, “belongs” to the man and not to his party. So Pakatan is now left with 33 seats. In a 56-seat State Legislative Assembly, a simple majority is pegged at 29 seats. Pakatan is today only four seats above the magic number of 29.
It is BN that has the advantage should allegiances sway and fence-sitters tilt. The overwhelming popularity of DAP among the Chinese will not play any important role. Should even up to 80% of the Chinese rally behind the opposition, this stratospheric percentage point does not infer a direct correlation in terms of impact on the final result.
Recall that Al Gore lost the presidential election to George W Bush in 2000 notwithstanding that the former garnered 51 million votes to the latter’s 50.5 million; that is, in popular votes, Gore was actually 543,895 up on Bush. Nonetheless, the American electoral college system gave Bush 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266… tough luck Al.
Drifting away from Pakatan
The seats that Umno won by a whisker were Sungai Air Tawar, Sabak and Morib which are between 60% and 85% Malay as well as Sri Serdang which is a mixed constituency.
On the other side of the fence and going by the numbers, Sekinchan held by DAP’s Ng Suee Lim for two consecutive terms looks to be under threat. Ng won with a 190-vote majority but there were 317 spoilt votes recorded. Sekinchan is a rural seat with 41% Malay voters.
Another shaky DAP rural seat is Teluk Datuk with 33% Malay voters and a significant cache of Indian voters – 22%. DAP’s Phillip Tan won it with a majority 698 votes but the number of spoilt votes was comparatively high at 493. Teluk Datuk went to MCA in 2004 with a comfortable margin.
The GE12 turnout in Sekinchan was 80.5% and Teluk Datuk, 82.2%. In 2008, hardly anyone expected the tsunami whereas in the coming general election, most Malaysians will surely make their way to the polling booth come flood or fire.
With DAP’s Chinese vote bank reaching saturation level, the question then is how many more Selangor-shattering votes can DAP gain over what it already got in 2008? In parallel, how many Malay and Indian votes would BN manage to recover?
A third unsafe seat for Pakatan is Bukit Melawati where PKR’s Muthiah Maria Pillay beat MIC’s K Partiban by 297 votes. The number of spoilt votes was 484 and turnout relatively low at 75%. Bukit Melawati has 57% Malay voters, 13% Chinese and 30% Indian.
Hindraf, which is targeting Selangor for the GE13, has indicated an interest in contesting here due to its Indian composition. If Hindraf does, there is a strong possibility PKR will be unable to defend the seat as split votes from a three-cornered fight will hurt Pakatan.
The Indians were the biggest swingers in 2008 but have been steadily drifting away from Pakatan now that the anger has somewhat abated.
