By Rafizi Ramli
I am aware that my initial response to the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-election results have been reported as me blaming the voters for Barisan Nasional’s (BN) win.
I have explained previously on social media on the need to carry out a root cause analysis (a term so familiar to people with an engineering background or quality systems) to identify the real factors that motivate the voters to vote the way they did. This is a normal process out of which we are able to identify areas to intervene.
Only plans or programmes or strategies born out the correct identification of root cause analysis can yield the improvement needed to win the next general election (GE14).
My conclusion was that racial/religious sentiments as well as the goodies and cash handouts splurged during the campaigning were the two most important factors. I reiterated my view previously that unless and until voters (and our society) can move beyond these two tools deployed by the BN, it is unlikely there will ever be a change.
Some quarters quickly saw this as my blaming the voters. Umno jumped on the bandwagon and for the last few days I had the prime time slot on mainstream TV stations demonising me (one minister called me a dictator, the other one said I was a disease, another one said I never fought for the rakyat).
While it is understandable that Umno behaves this way, I find it ridiculous that other non-traditional media (often considered more independent) also behaved the same way.
No one had disputed with facts and evidence (the scholarly way and objectively) that my diagnosis of the root causes was wrong. The most widely accepted public verdict was the voters did not vote because they were disillusioned with the infighting of the Pakatan Harapan (PH), both intra- and inter-, and PAS. However, no empirical data has been offered so far to support this apart from the outpouring of criticisms on social media.
Even some political analysts, who only days before the polls predicted a stronger showing by PH compared with PAS, did not revisit their earlier prediction and instead joined the bandwagon of pointing to “Opposition bickering” as the main reason for the results.
I was not frustrated with the outcome of the election nor the decision of the voters in those constituencies. If anything, I was relieved that finally we have an empirical set of data to work on to formulate intervention strategies.
What I was frustrated by was the tendency of the public, civil society leaders, analysts and commentators not to call a spade a spade. Even worse, while the lack of unified opposition forces was a key issue that needs to be addressed, the simplicity of the thinking that puts all the blame on the Opposition bickering to the point of ignoring the flagrant abuse of money/rewards; the race/religion sentiments and a plethora of other electoral abuses by the BN, is actually counter productive.
It is ironic that while the public seems to appreciate the extent of corruption in the country, it seems oblivious to the massive corruption in the form of electoral bribery practised by BN, that I get the feeling as if the public expects PH to win IN SPITE of this electoral bribery.
Instead of focusing on the immorality of using taxpayers money to win votes by bribing the voters with a list of promised projects, many analysts and some civil society leaders seem to consider this (electoral bribery through promised projects) as a matter of campaign strategy i.e local issues versus national issues.
A lot of the comments on social media concur that goodies, cash offered and delivery of infrastructure projects promised did make a difference. They (on social media) commented that for voters from lower income families, it was better to take the cash offered because that could meet their immediate need as opposed to listening to PH’s heavy issues on national corruption, excessive spending, etc.
I find it inconsistent that while many among the public indirectly admitted that electoral bribery was rampant, yet they seemed offended when I stated just that as the root cause analysis.
I am not that perturbed with this attitude and what’s important is to concentrate on the future intervention.
My team had completed a stream by stream analysis of the results for both Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar. It was a relief that it was not as Armageddon-ish as it was made out to be.
The summary of my take on the analysed results are as follows:
i. The percentage of Malay support for Umno is status quo with no substantial increase (59% in Kuala Kangsar and 60% in Sungai Besar). The shock that gives rise to the feeling that PH was routed was because there was no dramatic decrease despite all the issues (GST, 1MDB, Tabung Haji, Mara and the use of government jet scandals).
People missed the point that despite the massive money being spent (allegedly RM400 per person distributed, more goodies and projects offered) and the persistent racist and religious attacks against PH/Amanah/DAP; Umno could only maintain the status quo.
When we contrast this against all the weaknesses on PH’s part, taking into account that we improved on this (under normal circumstances), a swing of 2-3% among Malay voters in semi-rural seats like Kuala Kangsar and Sungai Besar is possible in GE14.
ii. There was a notable increase of support for PH in both Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar among Malay middle class and young voters (saluran 3 and 4 shows a modest 1-3% increase and we won Bukit Residen, a notable Malay middle class JDM in Kuala Kangsar). Considering these seats are semi-rural, the swing can be expected to be higher in semi-urban/urban seats.
iii. PAS bagged circa 26.6% Malay support for Kuala Kangsar and 30.6% in Sungai Besar at a time when their campaign massively benefited from Umno/BN (no bad news on PAS, no attack on PAS, PAS’ attacks on PH given full coverage).
PAS was also facing Amanah which had been pictured (rather successfully) as selfish DAP lackeys. It can be expected that if the candidates had been from PKR, the percentage of Malay support for PAS in both seats would have been lower and may come to 24% – which was their base as shown in the 2004 GE.
In other words, while PAS may think they had won the day because they had the second highest share of Malay votes; they are definitely retreating and sliding towards the pre-2008 position.
iv. PH/Amanah got 9.5% Malay support in Kuala Kangsar and 8.6% in Sungai Besar. This is the worst case scenario for PH because Amanah is the newest (hence lack of recognition and machinery) and these are semi-rural seats in the worst circumstances for PH (a long time taken to decide to enter the fray due to the negotiation with PAS, etc).
We have to run the simulations for a spectrum of Malay support for all our seats but my gut feeling is our (PH/PKR) Malay support in semi-urban seats can go to 20 percent and in urban seats like Pandan can reach 30 percent.
v. The Chinese voter turnout was lower by 21–28%. However, even if we take into account a normalised turnout, we still see a swing of 5–7% to Umno/BN though I think this is very much localised because of the promises and goodies given by BN.
vi. Therefore, while the defeat was a wake-up call to concentrate on the one-to-one contest with PAS, it is also a confirmation that it was not a rout, nor has the public abandoned PH. If Chinese turnout normalised during GE14, plus early preparation and good machinery, plus BN has less firepower (cash, goodies, projects) during GE14 – my guess is we may still make a strong showing in GE14.
Rafizi Ramli is the Pandan MP and Secretary-General of PKR
With a firm belief in freedom of expression and without prejudice, FMT tries its best to share reliable content from third parties. Such articles are strictly the writer’s personal opinion. FMT does not necessarily endorse the views or opinions given by any third party content provider.