The fight over fertile lands (WITH CHINESE TRANSLATION)

DAP and PKR both pride themselves as multiracial parties. But in reality, they can only battle in the scarce Chinese-dominated areas to make their grounds. With Gelang Patah given to Lim Keat Siang, DAP has essentially ‘conquered’ all Chinese-dominated areas (in Johor). As for PKR, who also has to depend on Chinese votes, it has practically been sentenced to death. Hence, how can you believe that there won’t be a fight between these two parties?

Original text by Tay Tian Yan, Asst. Chief Editor, SinChew Daily

Translated text by Gilbert Yeoh-Tan

The way I see it, the internal fight between DAP and PKR over Johor is no less vigorous than their external fight with Barisan National.

Johor has 26 parliamentary seats and 56 state seats; and during last election, Pakatan Rakyat had been unable to come up with candidates to fill all those seats. 

It puzzles a lot to see that they dig only around the belly button while there are indeed many seats. To quote a Chinese idiom, ‘to stick a popsicle in one’s belly button —- pain to the last nerve in one’s heart’, would be how PR supporters would feel over the fighting. 

After all, Johor is PR’s unharvested land where many supporters put high hopes on.

According to a PR strategist, if PR can win 35% of Malay votes, 80% of Chinese, and 50% of Indian, they stand a very good chance of securing 20 parliamentary seats. That should be able to push PR to winning 112 seats in total, which will then allow them to march into Putrajaya to form a new government.

Johor’s voter structure, in theory, adds advantage to PR. Johor is a typical mixed area that witnesses a more evenly-distributed voter structure than other states: Malay voters contribute to 53.7% of the voting population, Chinese 38.8%, and Indian 6.6%.

Furthermore, the geographical distribution is also an even one. It is true that Selangor and Perak have more Chinese voters, but the percentages of Chinese voters vary marginally among different seats, for example, 82% of Ipoh East voters are Chinese whereas only 6% of Larut voters are Chinese; There are no such cases in Johor.

In theory, DAP and PKR are multiracial parties.  With recent PAS’s declaration as a ‘Party for all races’, this combination, in theory (sorry for the repeated usage of the word ‘theory’), should perform better in mixed seats as they are able to harness votes from all races. 

If the above are true, we can then safely derive that Johor is ready to be the next PR state, and, with 20 parliamentary seats at hand, that PR can also march for Putrajaya to replace BN.

The problem is, theory and reality, they often differ vastly. 

Johor is indeed an untouched land. However, as of today, it would appear that the only cultivatable areas for PR are areas with high percentage of Chinese voters.

Among the 26 seats, there are only Kulai, Bakri, and Gelang Patah that have more than 50% of Chinese voters. Kluang comes close to 50%, it has 49.2%. These 4 are PR’s winnable seats.

For all other seats, PR has shown lack of confidence. For areas with less than 40% of Chinese voters, PR has practically given up the fights and let BN do as it pleases.

DAP and PKR both pride themselves as multiracial parties. But in reality, they can only battle in the scarce Chinese-dominated areas to make their ground. With Gelang Patah given to Lim Keat Siang, DAP has essentially ‘conquered’ all Chinese-dominated areas (in Johor). As for PKR, who also has to depend on Chinese votes, it has practically been sentenced to death. How, then, can you believe that there won’t be a fight between these two parties?

Undoubtedly, Johor has many seats. But for PR, Malay-dominated area are merely ‘barren lands’ that they won’t consider setting foot on whereas Chinese-dominated are ‘fertile lands’ that they can win without even the slightest efforts; there are a lot of ‘barren lands’ that attract little interests, but only a mere handful of ‘fertile lands’ that evoke brutal fights among allies. 

This is the grievance of Malaysia’s politics. No matter how loudly a party vows to become ‘multiracial’, it would end up focusing on one ethnic for its votes.

PR has been preaching on diversity and working together across all races. This is indeed a refreshing new direction that most voters will heed. But, in the end, it is what it is —- an idea with no concrete action. DAP and PKR should therefore ask themselves:  if they are indeed as multiracial as they preach, why then they haven’t even the slightest confidence to win even 30% of the Malays’ votes?

If they both can practice what they preach, bringing their ideas to the grassroots, backing up their promotions with concrete actions (for example, have more people from other races taking up senior positions or participating in decision-making processes), then they definitely can take one step up and win more votes from all races. 

Only by then will they see ‘fertile lands’ everywhere, and no longer will they have to fight to the death over Chinese seats!

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鄭丁賢‧肥田和瘦田之爭

以行動黨和公正黨今天在柔州的廝殺情況，慘烈程度不下於和國陣的對壘。

柔州有26個國會，56個州席；上屆大選，很多席位是半夜敲鑼都找不到人出來競選。

議席那麼多，怎麼就是往肚臍眼裡鑽，斗成一團……，不，更傳神的中文諺語說，是肚臍眼裡插冰棒――心寒；很多民聯支持者為此難過。

畢竟，柔佛是民聯的一塊處女地，是支持者寄望之所在。

一位民聯的策略師盤算說，一旦民聯得到35%的馬來選票，80%華人票，50%印人票，那麼，將可以奪下20個國會議席。

他認為，這20個夢幻議席，正好可以把民聯的國席推高到112席以上，直奔布特拉再也，執政中央。

況且，柔佛州的選民結構，理論上對民聯有利。

柔佛是典型的混合選區，各族人民的選票分佈比其它州更加平均；平均數字，馬來選民是53.7%，華人38.8%，印人6.6%。

各族選民的地理分佈相當均勻；雪州和霹靂固然族群比率也相當平均，但馬來選區和華人選區落差很大，譬如，霹州有華人高達82%的怡保東區，也有華人只有6%的拉律，這是柔佛沒有的情況。

理論上（又是理論），民聯3黨之中，行動黨和公正黨都是多元族群政黨，而伊斯蘭黨又打起“全民政黨＂的形象，這種組合，理論上（對不起，又重覆了），最適合套用在混合選區，因為3黨應該獲得不同族群的共同支持。

如此看來，柔州豈非已準備成立下一任民聯州政府，而且20個國會議席也將手到擒來，布城在望？

問題是，理論和現實不符。

柔州固然是處女地，然而，到目前為止，能夠開墾的，看來看去，只有華人票顯著的議席。

26個國席，華人佔50%以上的，只有峇吉里、古來、振林山，勉強加入居鑾（49.2%）；這些是民聯有勝算的議席。

其它華人票低於50%的選區，民聯本身都缺乏信心，至於華人票低於40%的選區，根本不必搶，要的話儘管拿去。

行動黨和公正黨雖然都自認為多元族群政黨，但是，卻都要搶華人選區，在少數議席中尋求棲身之地。

民聯把振林山給了林吉祥，等於行動黨佔據了所有華人選區，同樣必須靠華人票吃糊的公正黨，如今只能喝西北風；於是，兩黨豈能不斗。

的確，柔佛議席很多，問題是，對民聯而言，馬來選區是瘦田，很難開墾，華人選區是肥田，不墾也可能有收獲。瘦田很多，乏人問津；肥田很少，搶成一團。

其實，這也是大馬政治的悲哀。不論政黨如何高喊多元族群政治，然而，大家都要往單元族群裡搶票。

民聯提出多元理念，確實指出一個新的方向，也讓人民多了一重選擇；但是，單有理念是不夠的。行動黨和公正黨都應該自問，既然它們是多元族群政黨，為甚麼連30%的馬來選票都沒有信心？

如果它能夠坐言起行，過去好好在基層推廣它的理念，也用實際行動證明本身的多元性，包括在領導層和組織裡容納更多不同族群，那麼，或許它能更上層樓，獲得多元族群的支持。

如此，肥田處處，又何必在華人選區自相廝殺！