Election aftermath: Portents for the future

By P. Gunasegaram

The elections are over and it is probably a result that surprises most. But things are not so clear cut. Within Barisan Nasional, a power struggle is brewing. Pakatan Rakyat needs to think about broadening its base and looking towards other leaders. BN needs to see how it can regain lost support. In the first of a series of articles analysing the elections, KiniBiz takes a broad look at what the results mean to the parties and the electorate. 

---

The results of the latest general elections must have come as deep disappointment to most – to Barisan Nasional, to Pakatan Rakyat, to their respective supporters and to the voting public. But perhaps it was the best result under the circumstances – and what everyone deserved.

The 13th General Elections broke significant records and there are a number of portends for the future which the two main coalitions and the public at large ignore at their own peril.

Most important of these in the short term is the question of who would be PM – incumbent Najib Abdul Razak or, in the light of poorer results by BN, his deputy Muhyiddin Yassin. On that would depend the direction and future of the economy. We have looked at this in some detail in our pre-election coverage here and here.

 Worst showing ever for BN

It was of course, the worst showing ever for BN. On top of that, BN for the first time rules with less than 50% support of the voters and Pakatan has for the first time ever gained majority of the support of the voters, reflecting its best ever performance. Malaysiakini’s initial calculations show that Pakatan obtained some 50.6 percent of the popular vote while BN got around 48.6 percent, the remaining 0.8 percent percent going to others.

The changes at state and parliamentary level

But in terms of seats, BN got 133 seats or 60 percent with Pakatan and allies holding the remaining 40 percent or 89 seats. Pakatan’s net gain was seven seats – and all of the gains came from Sabah (two) and Sarawak (five). Incidentally in our article on who would be PM, we had rather arbitrarily put the chances of a BN victory at 0.6 or 60 percent in our base-case probability tree and by some coincidence (no we are convinced we don’t have predictive abilities), that was the percentage of parliamentary seats that BN won.

That means Pakatan’s number of seats for the peninsula actually stood still at 80 seats, which must come as a deep disappointment to the party which many thought would improve on its 2008 performance at least in the peninsula. This is despite an improvement in the popular vote in peninsular Malaysia to an estimated 52.8 percent for Pakatan from 50.3 percent previously, reflecting the increased majorities with which Pakatan won many seats and the narrow losses of others.

DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang had predicted that the extra 30 swing parliamentary seats for victory would come from 10 each in Johor, Sabah and Sarawak. But in the event, of the 10 seats that DAP gained half or five came from Sabah (1) and Sarawak (4). See chart.

In the peninsula, DAP gained five seats but PAS lost two and PKR lost three, neutralising DAP’s gains, leaving parliamentary gains of seven entirely from Sabah and Sarawak. Apart from DAP’s five seats gain here, PKR gained one each from Sabah and Sarawak.

The biggest disappointment for Pakatan

Perhaps the biggest disappointment for Pakatan is the loss of one state, Kedah and the inability to retake Perak and the narrow loss in Terengganu. If it had kept Kedah, retaken Perak and conquered Terengganu, its position would have been far stronger and it could have claimed a victory of sorts. Even in Kelantan, which it retained, it suffered setbacks.

Not just that, Kelantan and Kedah gave BN valuable parliamentary seats, gaining nine at the expense of Pakatan and negating the gain of five seats in Sarawak and four in Johor, which formed the major swings for Pakatan. At this stage it is not clear what are the reasons for the swing in the north but part of it must have to do with the poor performance of the Kedah state government which focused more on religious rather than economic issues.

In Selangor and Penang, where Pakatan governments led by PKR and DAP respectively, showed a clear track record of economic achievement and reduction in corruption and patronage, voters rewarded them by increasing their majority. Pakatan gained eight seats in Selangor to get a two thirds majority while it gained an additional seat in Penang. See chart.

BN barely edged out Pakatan in Terengganu getting 17 seats, by a mere two-seat majority and a three-seat margin in Perak where it obtained 31 seats.

But the positive thing was that Pakatan made inroads in most BN states, gaining 12 seats in Johor (total 56 seats), 11 in Sabah (56 seats), seven in Pahang, seven in Terengganu and two in Malacca. Total state seats gained were 32 for a total of 229, which is 46 less than BN’s 275 for seats contested in these elections.

The reason for DAP’s gains and BN’s loss

Overall, most people expected BN to win by a reduced majority but perhaps more people expected Pakatan to produce a better result than just 89 parliamentary seats to BN’s 133, and losing one state in the process. This is particularly difficult to stomach for Pakatan leaders most of whom would have expected better.

BN leaders may have expected an improvement from their March 2008 showing but that is by no means across the board and may have reflected a need to maintain confidence. In the event, there was almost something celebratory about BN getting parliamentary majority and palpable relief as Najib and leaders appeared on TV just after victory. That must mean that there was the distinct possibility of a Pakatan victory.

It is inevitable that election results will be dissected to see what was the reason for the swing to DAP, and by extension away from BN. The unfortunate term “Chinese tsunami” is being used, even by Najib, to racialise the elections and explain the near annihilation of MCA in the elections. In crybaby form, MCA chief Chua Soi Lek says MCA won’t accept government posts but it seems likely he and his party will be persuaded to reconsider the stance.

What may be closer to the truth is that there has been an urban swing to Pakatan – and that includes both urban Chinese and Malays and perhaps even Indians, reflecting the urban middle and upper class disenchantment with BN. BN would do well to address that instead of going on a racial witch hunt which will only further alienate urban voters. Conversely, Pakatan needs new strategies to reach out to the rural areas if it wants to make headway.

What do these imply for the future?  Let’s take BN and Pakatan in turn.

Who will be PM?

For BN, the question is who will be PM a bit further out. Umno’s general assembly will be held later this year. The betting is that Najib’s deputy Muhyiddin will launch a bid for leadership of Umno and hence BN and the premiership. If he does not, then there is every likelihood that there will be a deal made for Najib to step down perhaps a year or so later. Najib himself replaced Abdullah Badawi about a year after BN’s poor showing in the Mar 2008 elections in April 2009.

The danger is that Umno politics may now replace the earlier electioneering and that may mean more precious time wasted as the country puts on hold urgent reforms such as reining in government expenditure, introducing a value-added tax and rationalising subsidies. These are all potentially unpopular moves which the nation has to go through to improve economic stability, get government revenue up and reduce the unhealthy dependence on oil.

Meantime, it would be a mistake for BN to take victory to mean that they can continue to go on their freewheeling ways in terms of outright, large-scale corruption, mismanagement, cronyism and patronage. Undoubtedly the biggest failure of BN has been in these areas as well as the slow pace of liberalising laws and rules that restrict personal freedom, shackle the press and limit the entrance of new media players.

If these reforms, plus changes to the Election Commission and election rules to level the playing field, are not implemented, BN risks further alienating urban, and eventually, rural voters as well.

A retention and expansion strategy for Pakatan

If Pakatan wants to become a broad-based party which can eventually form an alternative to BN, and bring about a true two-party system in Malaysia, it has to think of some way to make substantial inroads into Sabah and Sarawak. Considering the allergy that people across the South China Sea have for peninsular Malaysians, it would seem wise to encourage Sabahans and Sarawakians to form their own parties with which Pakatan can form alliances, especially for the rural areas. If it does not make headway in Sabah and Sarawak, the two states will continue to be fixed deposit states for BN.

Meantime, Pakatan needs to widen and deepen their pool of talent and big names. One could argue that they would have regained Perak if Lim Kit Siang went there instead of Johor. And if PAS had put more effort into Terengganu, a state it ruled before, instead of dispersing it throughout, they may well have taken the state.

Pakatan needs a strategy which will allow them to retain the gains they make while at the same time expanding elsewhere, and this is especially so for PKR which still needs far more work on the ground then it has done. That it needs new talent is to state the obvious.

Who after Anwar?

Meantime both PAS and DAP need to widen their appeal by some sort of makeover to ensure that they are not perceived as two parties at two ends of the pole. One would have thought that they could at least have coordinated strategy during elections so that they don’t appear diametrically opposed to each other. PKR must work at expanding its membership base and learn a lot about organisation and discipline from PAS and DAP.

Meantime Pakatan has a perplexing problem that it must face up to pretty soon. One man is the glue that holds the coalition together – Anwar Ibrahim, PKR’s defacto head (his wife heads the party). What happens if he is gone? Anwar has already said he won’t go for PM if he does not succeed now. But it looks more than likely that he will be persuaded to change his mind. But if he goes, who after him? Azmin Ali, currently PKR deputy head? There are many who don’t like him and his ways.

Anwar’s wife? She will be reluctant for sure. Anwar’s daughter Nurul Izzah is too young. That means Pakatan and PKR in particular needs to roll out their next crop of leaders and pretty fast. They can’t be too young or too old.

One thing about the election results is that it clearly shows that Pakatan is within striking distance of BN. But BN is not exactly a spent force. Who wins in the next elections not more than five years from now will be the coalition which better organises itself and reaches out to ALL sectors of the populace.

Right now, it is anybody’s guess who that will be.

---

Tomorrow: The economic and business implications of the elections.