JANUARY 28 — I’ve lost count of the number of tweets I’ve seen declaring (or insinuating) that Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) defeat at the recently concluded Cameron Highlands by-election is “proof” of the new government’s failure and (impending) demise, how BN will be making a comeback, how there will be a Malay “tsunami” of voters against Pakatan, etc, etc.
Most people say that Pakatan lost non-Malay votes because it failed to deliver after GE14. Others counter that the BN-PAS partnership has managed to win Malay votes by exploiting racial and religious sentiments.
The bottomline is that this by-election conclusively demonstrates falling support for the government.
However, the data gives a different picture, and certainly a less damning one. Let’s check it out:
The voter turnout for the by-election was 68.79 per cent. This is 10.21 per cent less than GE14’s 79 per cent.
Assuming voters in Cameron Highlands voted for the same party as they did eight months ago, the scoresheet for the by-election gives a surprising contrast between forecast and actual result.
Forecast results based on GE14 ratio (after deducting 10.21 per cent):
BN: 9,255
PH: 8,718
PAS: 3,221 (if PAS had contested)
Other/independent: 683
The actual results, however, show the following:
BN: 12,038 (+2,783)
PH: 8,800 (+82)
PAS did not contest
Other/independent: 590 (-93)
(Note: There is a shortage of about 449 votes between the expected (21,877) and actual (21,428) results. We confess we are unsure of the cause, other than a likely rounding error.)
There are a few things we can take note of by comparing the forecasted and actual results.
First, BN did gain votes from PAS voters, but not all of them. The BN-PAS partnership — if it was maximally effective — should’ve resulted in BN getting the entirety of PAS’s 3,221 votes but they were short of 438.
This strongly suggests some defection from either BN or PAS. Racial and religious exploitation doesn’t work all the time (see note 1).
Second, after all is said and done, PH actually received a marginal gain of 82 votes. Clearly, some who voted for the independent candidates or BN or PAS in GE14 have cast their ballot for PH at the by-election.
The bottomline is that the data contradicts any suggestion that PH voters (from GE14) have abandoned the party or that PH is less popular than they were in May 2018. It is, in fact, the opposite.
The bad news, of course, is that the Cameron Highlands by-election shows that racial and religious sentiments continue to be exploited with success.
We can even expect the BN-PAS partnership to further fan such unscrupulous flames. For those who still support BN and PAS, aren’t you ashamed to know that your parties’ political survival depends on stoking fear and animosity among our country’s ethnic communities?
For PH, this by-election defeat shows how much harder they’ll have to work. Those newly added 82 votes are precious but, of course, way too few.
But if GE14 proves anything, it’s that a positive political trajectory and future are no longer impossible. It is, in fact, already here.
* Note 1: One may argue that if BN won the unaccounted for “mysterious” 449 votes, they would have equalled the forecasted tally. However, this argument does not hold water because those votes could also have gone to either PH or the independent candidates.
** This article was written in conversation with Joshua Woo, former councillor of DAP Penang.
*** This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
