Chinese still the kingmaker

By MT Webmaster On Nov 5, 2013

This would mean (if it was 10,722 Malay votes for PAS versus 10,655 Malay votes for Umno) the Malays are still split 50:50 like what Nazri Aziz told me five years ago. And this would also mean that PAS won the Sungai Limau by-election yesterday with a 1,084 majority because of the 97% Chinese support representing 1,347 Chinese voters.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Nazri Abdullah, the Editor of Harakahdaily (the online version of PAS’s party newspaper), wrote his analysis today, Sg Limau: Mengapa majoriti PAS merosot? (READ HERE). Basically, he explained why the majority for PAS in yesterday’s Sungai Limau by-election got reduced from 2,774 votes to just 1,084 votes.

Around five years or so ago, I had dinner with another Nazri — the Minister Nazri Aziz — and he told me that the Malays are split 50:50 between Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat. It could be 51:49 one election and 49:51 the next. Nevertheless, the Malays are split about 50:50 between the government and the opposition.

I suppose the recent general election in May this year more or less proved what Nazri Aziz said. The ruling party won more seats where the voters were majority Malay while the opposition won more seats where the voters were not majority Malay.

And if you were to analyse the popular votes that the ruling party won, it can be seen that it won about half the Malay votes but lost almost all the non-Malay votes, in particular the Chinese votes, 97% who voted opposition. Hence the ruling party won more seats against the backdrop of lesser votes (just 47%) — and mainly in the Malay-majority constituencies.

To be fair, I do not yet have my hands on the details of yesterday’s voting pattern according to saluran. So at best I am merely making an ‘educated guess’ based on the fact that the Malays are still split 50:50 since five years ago until today. Of course, I could be wrong and once I see the details according to saluran it may prove otherwise.

Anyway, this is my opinion before I see the detailed breakdown of the saluran.

About 85.5% or 23,249 of the 27,222 registered voters in Sungai Limau turned out to vote.

Out of these 27,222 registered voters, 1,842 are Chinese. (There are only 15 Indians and 42 ‘others’ so we can ignore this group because the numbers are too small to swing the results either way).

Let us assume that 85.5% of the Chinese voters turned out to vote as well. That means about 1,575 of the 1,842 Chinese voters voted yesterday. (This is the part that I cannot confirm yet since I do not have the details of the saluran)

Now, in the recent general election, 97% of the Chinese voters voted opposition. So let us assume that the Chinese support for the opposition has remained the same and in yesterday’s by-election 97% of the 1,575 Chinese voters voted opposition as well. That would mean 1,347 Chinese voted for PAS yesterday.

(As I said, I am still working on the basis of ‘educated guess’ and not backed with the details of the saluran).

PAS garnered 12,069 votes versus Umno’s 10,985 (giving PAS a majority of 1,084).

Now, if the 12,069 votes that PAS won includes the 1,347 Chinese votes, that would mean the Malay votes that PAS won was only 10,722 versus Umno’s 10,655 (10,985 minus the 3% Chinese votes that Umno won based on the assumption that 97% of the Chinese voters voted opposition).

Hence the Chinese (if 97% continue to vote opposition until the next general election) are the kingmaker. And it also means that the Chinese have not swung back to the ruling party and continue to support the opposition until today.

And it furthermore means that if Barisan Nasional wants to remain in power it has to garner more than just 50% of the Malay votes. Umno will need to increase the Malay support to at least 60% or so to stay in power since it can no longer depend on the Chinese support.

My conclusion?

Umno will need to be more Malay- and Islam-centric if it wants to increase the Malay support from just 50% to 60% or thereabouts. And Perkasa, Malay rights, the NEP, the Allah word issue, etc., will need to be played to the hilt for this to happen.

Is that why Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak just announced today ‘Najib vows to defend use of Allah as exclusive to Muslims’ (READ HERE)?

Interesting, is it not?