PKR needs DAP more than DAP needs a dying PKR

Umar Mukhtar

PKR will lose in the 29 parliamentary seats it now holds (less independent-held Bandar Tun Razak) in Peninsular Malaysia in the coming PRU14, if it is not part of the new opposition coalition headed by DAP. These seats have mostly 30% to 49% non-Malay voters, especially in the urban areas, where we can be safely assume 85% of Chinese votes went to the old Pakistan Rakyat which was represented there by PKR. It was reflected in their winning margins.

In five of the seats where Chinese voters were the largest single majority, but the seats were given to PKR — Bayan Lepas 49%, Gopeng 46%, Pandan 48%, Kelana Jaya 42%, Petaling Jaya Selatan 42%, and even Miri, 57%, in Sarawak — DAP might ask for some of them back to strengthen their parliamentary presence. The rest are as follows:-

1.  Alor Setar: 34% (Chinese voters)

2.  Sungai Petani: 29%

3.  Padang Serai: 23%

4.  Kuala Kedah: 21%

5.  Nibong Tebal: 37%

6.  Sungai Siput (PSM): 39%

7.  Lumut: 35%

8.  Indera Mahkota: 29%

9.  Kuantan: 33%

10.  Selayang: 36%

11.  Gombak: 13%

12.  Ampang: 34%

14.  Subang: 38%

15.  Kapar: 34%

16.  Kuala Langat: 34%

17.  Batu: 38%

18.  Wangsa Maju: 38%

19.  Lembah Pantai: 23%

20.  Bandar Tun Razak (Independent): 37%

21.  Telok Kemang: 34%

22.  Bukit Katil: 41%

23.  Batu Pahat: 46%

24.  Penampang: 32%

25.  Permatang Pauh: 21%

In any case, DAP will have its sponsored Islamist party as substitutes to run in Malay mixed constituencies should PKR be foolish enough to decline being in the new PR. DAP can always run in the Chinese mixed constituencies.

DAP’s present seats are solidly Chinese elsewhere.

Except for one or two constituencies, where PKR MPs served their constituencies well, which is not a PKR strong forte, or are recognised as nationally outspoken mouth-pieces of the down-trodden, PKR can kiss these seats good-bye.

What could be worse for PKR is, if DAP asked for those Chinese largest single minority seats back. DAP will win hands down. Especially if BN does not avoid three-corned fights  by not having an electoral understanding of sort with PAS. In any case, three-cornered fights may even work for BN in the smaller Chinese-presence constituencies. But it would definitely be fatal for PKR if PAS and BN comes to an electoral understanding.

This is what Lim Kit Siang is really scared of – Malay voters uniting to say fook-off to Malay DAP lackeys. So as a matter of fact, one can look at the present scenario, and with hindsight, conclude that the only thing PKR had achieved in the 12 years of its existence is only to provide Chinese minorities all over the country a chance to vote opposition.These  were previously traditional MCA/Gerakan voters.

Of course, there were in existence then of a sprinkling of Malay PKR supporters but with only about 50,000 card-carrying members nation-wide, what can PKR really do? The strong opposition presence in the demonstrations, ceramahs, and whatnot, we’re mostly PAS members. The riffs-rafts who had supported PKR earlier were either UMNO rejects, or were not of PAS material and inclination, and most have left after being witness to the nepotism which had excluded them from the gravy train.

The intellectuals have mostly left too, leaving just a few who hold paying jobs of party-patronage and elected positions which are fast disappearing. What happened to the numerous true reformists when PKR was first founded? Along the way, they saw the party ideals destroyed by the hijacker from Sungai Buloh. And they left.

Anwar Ibrahim hijacked PKR and changed it from a party that had big plans of political reforms, which the majority of Malaysians yearned for, to a politics-as-usual vehicle for personal power at the expense of holistic endeavours, complete with internal party intrigues and self-serving, self-defeating stupid moves. How is that different from BN? To stay relevant, Anwar sold out to DAP, which played along as if they really will make a sodomist the PM. That was enough for Anwar, though.

Come PRU14, the non-Malay PKR elected representatives will depend on DAP generosity and hopefully tough seat-negotiations by its wet-beind-the-ears party leadership. They will perish, except maybe people like Lee Boon Chai who works quietly, and his opposite, vocal Tian Chua, and maybe, Sivarasah Rasiah, and N Surendran. Among the Malay MPs only Rafizi Ramli may survive, but it depends on where he runs. Azmin Ali? Oh, he has already left the party!

Whichever way you look at it, PKR’s future as a party previously bursting with ‘reformasi’ ideals, is now bleak. History will not be kind to Anwar. The state seats and Sabah and Sarawak seats carry the same sorry tale. Just as BN is surviving because of a myopic opposition, similarly the opposition is still relevant because BN refuses to change. But we all are victims of the stagnancy.

The world passes us by while we argue about money missing from trusted hands and whether a young man was taken advantage of by his crazy boss. These are issues of justice, no doubt, but the perpetrators are the ones in whose hands we had placed our dreams.

Malaysia needs a third force. Jaded politics only survive in apathetic societies.