Permatang Pauh by-election result should open the eyes of ruling coalition

BUKIT MERTAJAM: The Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat by-election result should open the eyes of the Barisan Nasional (BN) and impel it to re-evaluate the effectiveness of its election machinery for the future.

BN, which may be facing a few more by-elections, including for the Sanglang state seat and Kulim Bandar Baru parliamentary seat, needs to ensure that its mistakes in Permatang Pauh will not be repeated.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) advisor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim won the Permatang Pauh by-election with a 15,671-vote majority yesterday, garnering 31,195 votes, while BN’s Datuk Arif Shah Omar Shah, 51, obtained 15,524 votes.

The other candidate, Hanafi Mamat, 61, of Angkatan Keadilan Insan Malaysia (Akim) lost his deposit as he only received 92 votes.

According to political observer Dr Sivamurugan Pandian, BN needed to reorganise and step up its election machinery which was seen to be slow to rise or react to the opposition onslaught, particularly from PKR, during the by-election campaign.

He said based on the scenario in Permatang Pauh, there were a number of factors that needed special attention by Umno and BN, including reviewing cooperation among its components, the use of religious issues which many people found to have gone overboard, media strategy and the issues highlighted, and personal attacks against the rival candidate, as well as outside factors which affected people’s support for the 14-party coalition (BN).

The area’s residents were also fed up with the never-ending leadership struggle among Umno leaders in the Permatang Pauh division, making them feel that their rights and wants had been sidelined, said the Universiti Sains Malaysia lecturer.

“It is high time that the BN leaders listen to the voices and needs of the people instead of forcing what they want on the people,” he said.

Sivamurugan felt that BN and its invited speakers’ tactic of harping on the hotly-debated issue of swearing by Anwar’s former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan that he was sodomised by him (Anwar) had also back-fired as the village folk were offended or simply fed up of hearing about it.

He said the 15,524 votes obtained by Arif Shah while there were over 26,000 BN members in the constituency, showed that there were component party members who did not vote for the people-friendly Seberang Jaya assemblyman.

Were the BN component party members being insincere and disloyal to BN?

The indication is that on paper, out of the 58,459 registered voters in Permatang Pauh, 26,942 of them are BN component party members, including 19,442 from Umno.

Gerakan has 2,900 voters in the constituency , MCA 2,400, MIC 1,700 and PPP 500.

So what happened to the remaining 11,418 voters from BN? The question is whether they had voted for the opposition or did not vote at all.

The Election Commission received 47,258 votes, including 447 spoilt ones, in Tuesday’s by-election, meaning 11,201 voters did not come out to cast their votes.

Penang PKR secretary Abdul Malek Abul Kasim, when contacted, said the party had 12,000 members in the constituency, according to the latest list (12th general election).

PAS has 8,000 members. This means the opposition only has 20,000 voters in the constituency compared with BN’s 26,000.

Akim candidate Hanafi Hamat, who is also the party president, managed to ‘steal’ 92 votes from the fence-sitters.

Hence, for the BN by-election machinery, their efforts had not only been a failure but they should also learn from this to correct the situation.

Many had expected BN to lose the by-election but not the bigger majority won by Anwar compared with his wife’s in the last general election.

Some political observers opined that Anwar’s big win was not only due to the opposition’s strong, well-organised by-election machinery but also because of BN’s delibitating internal problems.

Although PKR’s victory in the by-election has not increased Pakatan Rakyat’s number of seats in Parliament, nevertheless it is a manifestation of its drive to increase public support for the opposition pact.

Permatang Pauh will not remain with PKR forever if BN can successfully carry out its restoration and rebuilding process before the 13th general election.

BN’s failure to win over the fence-sitters is seen by political analyst Datuk Dr Zainal Kling as one of the main factors for its loss in Permatang Pauh.

Director of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s Institute of Ethnic Studies, Prof Datuk Dr Shamsul Amri Baharudin, meanwhile, said that BN had brought in only small issues to Permatang Pauh.

Whatever the views, the voters in Permatang Pauh had made their choice based on the democratic principle.

 — Bernama