In the aftermath of May 5th (part 13) (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)
While Barisan Nasional was confident it is guaranteed no less than 130 parliamentary seats — with 145 as an achievable target — Pakatan Rakyat, in turn, was equally confident it could win 135 parliamentary seats — the worst-case scenario being at least 120 seats. And, just like Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Rakyat, too, did its maths and had a basis for this confidence.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
The jury is now in. A post mortem has been done on the performance of both Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Nasional in the recent general election on 5th May 2013 and this is what the jury has decided.
Both Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Nasional made tactical blunders that cost them seats.
No doubt Barisan Nasional won 133 parliamentary seats, which is higher than Pakatan Rakyat’s 89. However, the worst-case scenario for Barisan Nasional was 130 while the best-case scenario was 145. And Barisan Nasional’s war room had hoped to at least duplicate the 140 seats they won in 2008 even if they cannot touch the best-case scenario of 145.
The differential in Barisan Nasional’s seven or so parliamentary seats came basically from the Chinese-majority constituencies. Barisan Nasional felt that at best it could garner at least 10% of the Chinese vote. So all it needed to do was to get an additional 5% to make this 15%. Then, with the increase in Malay and Indians votes, they can get close to 140 parliamentary seats.
Barisan Nasional was shocked that it not only did not get the 10% of the Chinese vote it thought it would, or increase this by another 5% that it hoped could happen, the Chinese vote was as low as 2-3%. This stunned Barisan Nasional to speechlessness.
Barisan Nasional’s strategy was to break the war into a few battles with different generals for each battle. The 31 parliamentary seats in Sarawak would be left to Taib Mahmud to manage. The 26 parliamentary seats in Sabah/Labuan would be left to Musa Aman to manage. Pusat would not interfere in those two East Malaysian states. Then the 165 parliamentary seats in West Malaysia would be divided into rural and urban. The rural seats would be fought on the ground via perjumpaan kelompok, ceramah and rapat umum while the urban seats would be fought on the Internet via the social media and Blogs.
Barisan Nasional now admits that while the battle in Sarawak, Sabah and the rural areas of West Malaysia were to a certain degree successful, they failed in the urban battle on the Internet and in the social media. They admit that Pakatan Rakyat was just too good for them and they underestimated the opposition’s strength.
And this is going to be Khairy Jamaluddins’ job for the next five years, to win the battle of the hearts and minds of the youth, the Internet- and social media-savvy population of Malaysia. How he is going to achieve this would, of course, be something we find out later. However, by calling Bloggers monkeys would certainly not be one of the strategies to adopt.
While Barisan Nasional was confident it is guaranteed no less than 130 parliamentary seats — with 145 as an achievable target — Pakatan Rakyat, in turn, was equally confident it could win 135 parliamentary seats — the worst-case scenario being at least 120 seats. And, just like Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Rakyat, too, did its maths and had a basis for this confidence.
And that was why Anwar Ibrahim dared issue the promise that if Pakatan Rakyat does not win the election he would retire and go back to teaching. He was confident he would not need to carry out this promise.
This reminds me of Samy Vellu’s promise during the Lunas by-election in November 2000 where he said that if MIC does not win he will never go back to Kuala Lumpur. Well, MIC lost and Samy quietly sneaked back to Kuala Lumpur.
Barisan Nasional found out the hard way regarding Pakatan Rakyat’s strength in psywar and in the Internet war. Even before the election, Pakatan Rakyat’s cyber troopers already said the 5th May 2013 general election was going to be the mother of all battles plus the dirtiest election in Malaysian history. The fact they said the same thing in 2008, 2004, 1999, and so on, escaped many people’s attention.
Every general election, according to the opposition, is the mother of all battles plus the dirtiest election in history. Yet every election (except in 2004) the opposition does better and better. Ah, yes, but if there had not been any cheating then they would have done even better still.
This was well planted in the minds of many Malaysians and Barisan Nasional failed to counter that argument. Hence Pakatan Rakyat won the hearts and minds of the urban voters while Barisan Nasional lost.
Then, as early as 7.00pm on Polling Day, even as the votes were still being counted and no one really knew the full result yet, Anwar announced that he had already won the election.
Again, Barisan Nasional did not counter this and, again, Pakatan Rakyat won that round.
Then Pakatan Rakyat announced that there were blackouts all over Malaysia plus extra ballot boxes were being brought into the counting centres. And that was why at 7.00pm Pakatan Rakyat won the election but three or four hours later Barisan Nasional won instead.
And, yet again, Barisan Nasional did not counter this and, yet again, Pakatan Rakyat won that round. The fact that the counting centres that had blackouts plus extra ballot boxes smuggled into them were never named escaped many people’s attention. And none of the Pakatan Rakyat PACA ever came forward to name the counting centres that they were on duty at when all this happened.
Then Anwar announces that his exit from politics and his retirement will have to be put on hold since he does not accept the election results. He also said he will campaign non-stop all over Malaysia until he gets what he wants.
He did not, however, say exactly what he wants.
Does he want certain seats (he said Pakatan Rakyat had won 30 seats, which were ‘stolen’) to get declared null and void and for new elections to be held for those seats? Does he want the Election Commission to ‘call off’ the entire election and hold a new general election?
In that case, what will happen to Penang, Selangor and Kelantan where Pakatan Rakyat has already been sworn in as the government? Would the Pakatan Rakyat governments of these states all resign and would new elections be held in those states as well?
Pakatan Rakyat never explained and Barisan Nasional never asked or countered. So one more round for Pakatan Rakyat!
Barisan Nasional is so sloppy. No wonder they lost the urban vote. Maybe that is where Khairy should look for the monkeys — amongst the Umno cyber troopers. Aiyoh! Send them for training lah. The DAP cyber troopers make them look like fools.
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5月5之後（十三）
儅囯陣祭出130席-145席的信心時，民聯也不遑多讓，擺出了個120席-135席的信心。而正如囯陣一樣，他們也打好了算盤來確認他們的自信。
原文：Raja Petra Kamarudin
譯文：方宙
陪審團已經有結果了！囯陣和民聯在5月5大選表現的解剖報告經已出爐，而這就是陪審員們所認爲的:
囯陣和民聯都同樣地在策略上做出了錯誤而失去了席位。
雖然說囯陣確實贏得了133席，比民聯的89席還要多，但囯陣的最壞打算是130席而最好的則是145席。他們亦希望如果達不到最好情況的話，那他們至少也能贏囘2008年的140席。
他們那7席的失算基本上都是來自華人選區。他們覺得他們至少能奪得10%的支持率，他們的戰略是再增加個5%至15%，然後配合馬來票和印度票的回流，他們就有很大的機會奪得140席。
儅囯陣看到他們那5%策略不只沒有奏效，就連那10%的基本票也保不住時，他們愣傻了；華人票直接降到了2-3%，他們真的是無語了。
囯陣的戰爭策略大抵上就是讓不同的將軍全權地去佔領他們的選區。砂勞越的31個選區由泰益Taib Mahmud 説了算，而沙巴的26個席位則由慕沙Musa Aman做主，黨中心不會去干涉這兩個州屬。西馬的選區則分成兩個區塊，城區和鄉區。鄉區採取的政策是perjumpaan kelompok，ceramah和rapat umum，而城區的則是社交媒體和博客的網絡大戰。
囯陣承認沙砂兩州與西馬鄉區的策略確實都有奏效，但城區的網絡大戰則輸到趴地；民聯在此真的太強了，他們根本無法招架。他們也承認他們低估了對手的實力。
這就是凱利未來5年内得做得，他需要從新奪回年輕一代與網絡狂熱者的心。他要怎樣達到目的是我們即將看到的，但現在一開戰就罵博客們是猴子絕對不是個好方法。
儅囯陣祭出130席-145席的信心時，民聯也不遑多讓，擺出了個120席-135席的信心。而正如囯陣一樣，他們也打好了算盤來確認他們的自信。
這也是爲什麽安華一早就講説如果民聯贏不了的話他會退休去教書。他很有自信他不必兌現他這個諾言。
這令我想起了三美威魯在2000年Lunas補選時的口出狂言。他當時說如果囯大黨贏不了的話他就永遠都不會吉隆坡。結果是囯大黨輸了，而三美則靜悄悄地夾著尾巴逃囘吉隆坡。
囯陣付出了很大的代價來摸清民聯在心理戰和網絡戰的實力。就在大選之前，民聯的網絡打手已經聲明了5月5大選將是‘所有戰爭之母’和馬來西亞史上最骯髒的選舉。但沒有人記得他們在2008年，2004年，1999年等就發表過一模一樣的言論。
對民聯來講，每屆大選都是‘所有戰爭之母’和馬來西亞史上最骯髒的選舉，但他們都是表現得一屆比一屆好（除了2004年那一屆以外）。對了，如果沒有舞弊的話，那他們肯定能表現得更好。
這個想法已經根深蒂固的留在很多大馬人腦海里面了，而囯陣根本沒得反駁。所以民聯贏得了城市選民的心而囯陣敗陣下來。
安華早在選舉日當天的傍晚7點還在計算選票和沒有人知道成績時就宣佈他已經贏得了大選。囯陣根本就沒有反應過來，民聯當時就贏了一侷。
然後，民聯再對外宣稱全馬多処發生了停電和有多個票箱出現在算票中心裏。這就是爲什麽民聯在7點贏了但在三四小時以後囯陣卻贏了。
這時囯陣還是沒有站住來反駁，民聯又贏了一侷。很多人都沒有注意到民聯根本就沒有表明到底是哪個算票中心停電了和出現了多出來的票箱。根本就沒有一個民聯的PACA站出來講明他們當值的選票中心出了以上的問題。
安華過後又站出來講說他輸了就要退休的諾言必須延期，因爲他不接受大選結果。他也講到他會在全國各地舉行巡迴集會知道他得到他想要的結果爲止。
但他沒有闡明他想要得到的結果是什麽。
他是想要某些議席（他說民聯贏得了30個議席，但被‘偷走’了）宣佈無效而從新在這些選區來個選舉嗎？還是他要選舉委員會宣佈整個大選無效然後再全國來個新大選？
如果是這樣的話，那已經宣誓組織政府的檳城，雪蘭莪和吉蘭丹政府該怎麽辦？他們這三州的政府會辭職以便新大選能舉行嗎？
民聯從來沒有講清楚而囯陣從來沒有問明白。民聯又贏了一侷！
囯陣真窩囊啊，怪不得他們輸掉了那些城市選區。這可能就是凱利開始尋找猴子的地方—-巫統的網絡打手。唉喲，把他們送去訓練唄，行動黨的打手都把他們給打得腦殘了！
