The fallacy that PAS needs Chinese votes

By MT Webmaster Last updated Nov 11, 2015

No doubt there is now one more factor that did not exist in the last 11 general elections — and that is PAS now has a competitor for the ‘Muslim vote’ in the form of PAN. But we are yet to see whether PAN is a serious competitor or just another washout like the other two PAS breakaway parties before this — HAMIM and BERJASA. Have you ever heard of these two PAS breakaway parties?

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

This is the comment that David Lee posted in my article The Pakatan Harapan-MACC unholy alliance.

Don’t be so stupid of your comment Raja Petra, we cannot keep on condemning people unless they refuse to improve for the betterment of the country. What the opposite did was right and should the people have improved or changed or had realised what they had done was wrong then it was a right decision to give them a chance to give the best to the beloved country.

For instance like PAS, the Chinese gave them a chance in 2008 & 2013 election after the party had made a changed for a betterment of this country, the Chinese have withdrawn their support after Hadi Awang betraying his partners in Pakatan Rakyat not because they want to change to a new partner (Party Amanah).

Well, that was David Lee’s analysis of the political situation in Malaysia in general and regarding PAS in particular. And his analysis is: the Chinese gave PAS a chance in the 2008 and 2013 general elections because the party ‘had changed for the betterment of the country’ but now that PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang has ‘betrayed his partners in Pakatan Rakyat’ the Chinese have withdrawn their support.

That is a very general and very vague statement but I chose to publish it anyway and will now comment on it because that statement reflects the view of quite a number of Chinese. Therefore you can, in a way, say that David Lee is ‘speaking on behalf’ of many, if not the majority, of the Chinese.

I am not sure in what way ‘PAS changed for the betterment of the country’, as David Lee said, because he did not explain. Does he mean in the past (before 2008) PAS was propagating the concept of an Islamic State and aspired to implement the Islamic Sharia law of Hudud while in 2008 and 2013 they had declared they were abandoning those aspirations?

PAS passed the Sharia Amendment Bill to implement Hudud laws in the Kelantan State Assembly in 1993 and in the Terengganu State Assembly in 2002. No doubt PAS was no longer in power in Terengganu in 2008 and 2013 (Umno was and still is) but the party was still in power in Kelantan in 2008 and 2013.

Did PAS withdraw that Sharia Amendment Bill in Kelantan in 2008 or 2013? That Bill was still on the books so PAS never said it was abandoning Hudud. And the current controversy is regarding the Bill that PAS passed in the Kelantan State Assembly in 1993. It is not a new Bill. It is an amendment to the amendment of 1993.

So if David Lee is talking about Hudud then what ‘change for the betterment’ is he talking about? There is no change from 1993 right up to 2008 and 2013 (20 years later), and right up to now. It is still business as usual for PAS.

Now, one thing that must be noted is that both Their Royal Highnesses the Sultans of Kelantan and Terengganu have signed those Bills. That means both Bills have met with royal consent. Is David Lee (and the rest of the Chinese) saying that the Sultans of Kelantan and Terengganu are wrong?

So, are David Lee and the Chinese who, as he said, have abandoned PAS actually hitting out at PAS or are they hitting out at the Sultans of Kelantan and Terengganu? If they are really upset about the matter then they should organise an anti-Sultan campaign (those who signed their consent to the Sharia Amendment Bills) rather than embark upon an anti-PAS or anti-Hadi campaign.

If, however, David Lee is talking about the ‘Kajang Move’, that move was a unilateral decision by PKR and not a bilateral decision by Pakatan Rakyat (although the Selangor government was a Pakatan Rakyat government and not a PKR government).

The Kajang Move was NOT a Pakatan Rakyat decision. It was a PKR decision, which later got the support of DAP (although in the beginning it did not). Did Anwar Ibrahim not say that Pakatan Rakyat works on the basis of consensus and that if there is no consensus then they will agree to disagree?

So tell me, David Lee, in what way did Hadi stab his Pakatan Rakyat partners in the back?

David Lee goes on to say that the Chinese have now withdrawn support for PAS. In 2008 and 2013 the Chinese supported PAS. Now the Chinese no longer support PAS. So that means, what David Lee is saying, PAS did well in 2008 and 2013 but did not do well before that and is no longer going to do well in future because the Chinese were not and will no longer be supporting PAS.

Maybe David Lee is overrating the power of the Chinese vote and thinks that without the Chinese vote PAS is dead meat. Well, then let us analyse the results of the 11 general elections from 1969 to 2013.

In the 1969 general election, PAS won 12 seats in the Malay heartland while DAP won 13 seats in the Chinese areas. It was an almost 50-50 situation.

In the 1974 general election (after the creation of Barisan Nasional and with PAS as one of the coalition members), PAS won 13 seats in the Malay heartland while DAP won only 9 seats in the Chinese areas (4 seats less than in 1969). So PAS did better than DAP (an opposition party) but won only one extra seat as a member of Barisan Nasional.

PAS then left Barisan Nasional and went back to being an opposition party and, in the 1978 general election, PAS won 5 seats in the Malay heartland while DAP won 16 seats in the Chinese areas (a slide for PAS and an improvement for DAP).

In 1981 Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad took over as Prime Minister and in the 1982 general election (the year Anwar Ibrahim abandoned PAS and joined Umno), PAS, again, won 5 seats in the Malay heartland (same as in 1978) while DAP won 9 seats in the Chinese areas (back to what it was in 1974).

The ‘turning point’ was in the 1986 general election when PAS won only 1 seat while DAP shot up to 24 seats.

Then Umno broke up and the Umno splinter party, Semangat 46, was formed. In the 1990 general election that followed the Umno breakup, PAS won 7 seats in the Malay heartland with Semangat 46 winning 8 (total 15) while DAP won 20 seats in the Chinese areas.

In the 1995 general election, PAS retained it 7 seats in the Malay heartland, Semangat 46 dropped to 6 seats, while DAP dropped to 9 seats (from 20) in the Chinese areas.

Then Anwar Ibrahim was sacked from Umno and was sent to jail. PKR was formed as yet another Umno splinter party (by then Semangat 46 had been dissolved) and for the first time a formal opposition coalition, Barisan Alternatif, was formed.

In the 1999 general election that same year, PAS won 27 seats in the Malay heartland, PKR (then called PKN) won 5 seats, while DAP won only 10 seats in the Chinese areas. PAS, because of its majority, became the Opposition Leader in Parliament.

In the 2004 general election (with DAP no longer a member of Barisan Alternatif), PAS dropped to 7 seats in the Malay heartland, PKR almost got wiped out with only 1 seat, while DAP won 12 seats (an improvement of 2 seats) in the Chinese areas.

And now we come to the ‘historic’ 2008 general election after the creation of Pakatan Rakyat. In that general election PAS won 23 seats, PKR won 31 seats, while DAP won 28 seats. PKR took over as the new Opposition Leader in parliament.

The best ever for DAP was, of course, in the 2013 general election. In that general election PAS won 21 seats, PKR won 30 seats, while DAP won 38 seats. PAS and PKR saw only a slight drop of two and one seat respectively while DAP saw an impressive increase of an additional 10 seats.

So, in short, only DAP made gains in the 2013 general election while PAS and PKR did not benefit from the association. They actually saw a drop in 2013 compared to 2008.

Therefore it is a fallacy that PAS depends on the Chinese vote and that without the Chinese vote PAS is dead meat. The result of the last 11 general elections speaks for themselves.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK