Is this the beginning of the end?
Salleh Said Keruak
DAP is celebrating what it calls its menang dalam kekalahan (winning in defeat) performance in the recent Teluk Intan by-election. Its candidate lost by just 238 votes in what DAP tried to portray as a ‘David versus Goliath’ contest — meaning, of course, DAP is the ‘David’ while Barisan Nasional is the ‘Goliath’.
Hence, because of the mismatch and the very narrow margin, DAP can be said to have ‘won’ that by-election, or ‘won in defeat’ if you wish.
However, DAP is just looking at the very narrow 238-vote margin that it lost. It conveniently forgot that it started with a more than 7,000-vote majority so this would mean the margin is more like 7,500 rather than just over 200.
Anyway, DAP has attributed its lost due to a slide in Chinese votes. One reason for this slide is because many Chinese voters did not vote, or did not come home to vote. Hence the voter turnout was just about 67% compared to about 80% just a year ago.
And the reason the Chinese ‘boycotted’ the by-election is because they were not happy with PAS stubbornly pushing its Hudud agenda, says DAP. In short, DAP’s ‘narrow’ defeat in Teluk Intan has to be blamed on PAS.
PAS is asking DAP to explain what it means by this allegation. And unless a credible and satisfactory explanation is forthcoming this can have two affects.
One would be that PAS might have to reconsider its membership in Pakatan Rakyat. If PAS were sincere about its struggle for Islam then it would be impossible for it to remain in Pakatan Rakyat when one of the coalition members is openly hostile towards Islam.
Second would be the differences between the fundamentalist and liberal Muslims in PAS would increase even further. There are many in PAS who would rather the party remain a regional party in the Malay heartland than a national party that ‘sacrifices’ Islam.
