Kit Siang: Opposition replicating Pakatan in GE13 ‘tough’
The greatest challenge in the run-up to GE14 is how to re-ignite the hopes of the people for meaningful change in Putrajaya after the failure of the Pakatan Rakyat experiment.
(Free Malaysia Today) – Suspended Gelang Patah MP Lim Kit Siang noted that his Ipoh friend Koon Yew Yin, philanthropist and Malaysia’s social conscience, wrote an article “How the Opposition can win the next elections”, suggesting that the winning formula was to ensure a “one-to-one” electoral contest in GE14.
The greatest challenge in the run-up to GE14 was how to re-ignite the hopes of the people for meaningful change in Putrajaya after the failure of the seven-year Pakatan Rakyat experiment, said Lim. “In other words, how can Pakatan Harapan fully play the role of Pakatan Rakyat in GE13?”
Electoral politics, after the failed experiment with PAS in an informal Opposition alliance, was not as simple and straight-forward as in the 12th and 13th General Elections, warned Lim who is also DAP Parliamentary Leader. “If hudud had been a hot controversial issue in the 13th General Elections on May 5, 2013, the Barisan Nasional (BN) would have regained its two-thirds parliamentary majority.”
“It would then have re-delineated electoral constituencies at will to consolidate its power hold in Putrajaya in GE14.”
The Opposition, as a result, might have lost Selangor apart from Kedah, and Johore would have reverted as an invincible BN “fixed-deposit” state.
“The hudud issue has never been and will never be a vote winner in plural Malaysia based on past electoral evidence,” said Lim.
As an example, he said, PAS and PKR won all the eight parliamentary seats and 28 out of 32 state seats in Terengganu in the 10th General Election in 1999 because of the backlash against Umno arising from de facto Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim’s arrest and the Reformasi movement.
But despite passing the state hudud enactment in 2001 (which DAP opposed), PAS and PKR only managed to retain one out of eight Parliament seats in Terengganu and four out of 28 state seats in the 11th General Election in 2004, he pointed out. “With hudud as a hot controversial issue in the GE13, the damage to Pakatan Rakyat in terms of non-Malay support would have been very decisive.”
The total number of 89 Parliamentary and 229 State Assembly seats won by the three parties in Pakatan Rakyat — DAP, PKR and PAS — in GE13 could have been slashed to 46 Parliamentary seats ( 23 DAP, 16 PAS and 7 PKR) and 134 State Assembly seats ( PAS 62, DAP 57 and PKR 15).
In GE14, asked Lim, would the voters forget about the hudud and local government elections controversies raised by PAS, the PAS leadership’s refusal to endorse Anwar Ibrahim for Prime Minister and Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as Selangor Menteri Besar. “The most recent developments include the PAS President’s readiness to be Umno’s adviser and the refusal of the PAS leadership to direct the PAS MPs to vote against Najib’s 2016 Budget.”
“We must not overlook the adage ‘better the devil you know than the devil you don’t’.”
