Selangor polls would cost Pakatan seats but not state, analysts predict

By admin-s On Aug 21, 2014

(MMO) – PR would comfortably win a simple majority, with most of the losses occurring in PAS-held constituencies.

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) will pay a price in lost seats should its self-inflicted mentri besar crisis lead to a Selangor election, but political analysts project that it will scrape by with enough to keep hold of the state.

With Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim said to be weighing the dissolution of the state assembly to resolve PR’s bid to remove him, the pact may be forced to face an electorate unimpressed with the political intrigue involved in unseating the mentri besar.

It is an “anger” that one analyst said may see the pact lose its recently won dominance over the state assembly, though not to the extent that will completely reverse its Election 2013 win.

“It’s not going to cost them Selangor. It’s going to cost them two-thirds majority maybe,” Prof Dr Jayum A. Jawan from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) told Malay Mail Online when contacted this week.

Citing PR’s haul of 44 seats out of Selangor’s 56-seat assembly, Jayum said the pact’s overwhelming majority was a “strong indicator” of the voters’ acceptance.

He predicted that PR would comfortably win a simple majority, with most of the losses occurring in PAS-held constituencies.

The Selangor mentri besar saga was prolonged after PAS initially departed from an agreement with allies PKR and DAP, and backed Khalid to stay on.

It then delayed deciding on its position until last Sunday, giving Khalid enough room to commandeer the administration by removing hostile PKR and DAP officials.

Wan Saiful Wan Jan, chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs think tank, also forecast a PR victory in Selangor but with a “significantly reduced” majority.

But he attributed the pact’s survival to the shortcomings of Barisan Nasional (BN) and its lynchpin Umno in the state, rather than the voters’ endorsement of its merits.

“They must realise that even if they do win Selangor, it’s not necessarily because they’re strong, but because Umno is in a disarray,” he told Malay Mail Online today in a phone conversation, adding that many voters will feel that this snap polls is “unnecessary”.