Pakatan Harapan has to radically change just to survive

Lessons from Melaka

Most pundits foresaw that Pakatan Harapan had electoral appeal issues, but not to the magnitude we all saw in Melaka.

Pakatan not only failed to take the reigns of government in the recent Melaka state election, but was close to being decimated. This should be extremely alarming for Pakatan’s top leadership. If Pakatan can’t win Melaka, it will have no chance of winning Putra Jaya. If Pakatan can’t change, then Pakatan as we know it will not survive the coming general election.

Melaka was a good bellwether for the rest of the peninsula. Most of the state is semi-urban, and there are a majority of Malay voters in 20 out 28 of the state seats. Perhaps only the PAS results, underestimate the party’s national electoral potential, as the party’s strongholds are in the East-Coast states of Kelantan and Terengganu, and Kedah in the north.

Another reason why Melaka is a good indicator of overall party support is because local issues played a minimum role in the election, with the exception of candidate selection

The final results gave the Barisan Nasional 21 seats, 18 to UMNO, picking up 4 new seats, the MCA picking up 2 new seats, and the MIC picking up 1 seat. Bersatu, under Perikatan Nasional was able to maintain 2 seats, with PAS performing similar to the 2018 election and not winning a single seat. The DAP held onto 4 seats, losing 4, with Amanah losing one of the 2 seats it won in 2018. PKR lost the three seats it won in 2018. This gives the Barisan Nasional a two-thirds majority in the new assembly. Last general election Pakatan won the state with 15 seats to the Barisan Nasional’s 13 seats.

The reality has to sink in for Pakatan

For Pakatan, the results reflect their dismal image with the voting electorate. Melaka has quantified voter disappointment, apathy, and even anger with Pakatan that all knew about, but couldn’t numerically sum-up until the Saturday night election results.

An analysis of the comments made on online news-sites and social media indicates a number of issues that have created negative perceptions of Pakatan, and were translated into a poor electoral performance in Melaka. These were not comments made by cybertroopers to discredit Pakatan, voting patterns clearing reflected the feelings of the electorate out there, waiting for a chance to express them.

Discontent with Pakatan has been long running.

There has been widespread disenchantment with Pakatan, since its unexpected general election win back in 2018. Pakatan failed to implement much of its reform agenda. A poor string of byelections sent Pakatan a message the electorate was disappointed. Cronyism and corruption issues raised their head within the Pakatan administration before it was turfed from power after the infamous Sheraton move, which brought Muhyiddin Yassin’s Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition to power.

The anger over UMNO coming back to power through the backdoor didn’t equate to electoral support for Pakatan.

The DAP has received a lot of blame, being perceived as being silent over a number of unpopular decisions with its supporters, back when it was in government. DAP leader Lim Guan Eng’s reputation is tinted with corruption issues, yet to be resolved, where many party insiders believe he should have long ago stepped down. The grassroots faction of the party has been largely replaced with the elitist faction, conjuring up perceptions of Chinese chauvinism with many voters.

Pakatan and PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim has become a divisive figure, leading to many party members questioning whether he should remain as PKR leader. There is criticism of Anwar’s failure to nominate a shadow cabinet, and signing an MOU to support the Ismail Sabri government in parliament.

Taking up party defectors cost Pakatan dearly. Former UMNO chief minister Idris Haron, running for PKR lost in Asahan by more than 3,000 votes.  Amanah’s selection of defector Nor Azman Hassan, formally an UMNO member lost to the BN candidate Tuminah Mohd Hasim in Pantai Kundor, by more than 1,100 votes.

In addition to taking on political ‘frogs’, Anwar’s decision to replace Ginie Lim, who had strong local support in Machap with another candidate Law Bing Haw, allowed the MCA to win the seat with a nearly 1,000 vote majority.

Anwar’s lacklustre opposition to a racially unfair 2022 budget led to a lot of online criticism. Others claim that Anwar lacks any clear vision for Malaysia, and want to see young candidates with fresh ideas. They are tired of the intra-party politics and Anwar falling out with key party allies, the latest being the popular Rafizi Ramli, who was a key electoral strategist for Anwar.

Rafizi Ramli

The calls for Anwar to resign have become much stronger now. Staying on as leader will be an electoral liability for PKR.

Malaysia is in the midst of a recession, with growing unemployment, rising poverty, rampant corruption, and a government making unpopular decisions over issues sensitive to traditional Pakatan voters. Winning should have been easy for Pakatan. However, Barisan Nasional was able to project itself as a multi-racial coalition, fighting for the same space as Pakatan. In the end, Perikatan Nasional votes eroded Pakatan support, rather than Barisan Nasional support, leading to both groups suffering badly in the polls.

Pakatan supporters have lost trust, seeing Syed Saddiq’s new political movement MUDA as a new hope. Social media and whatsapp groups are now becoming excited over MUDA, where Pakatan are now seen as losers.

The low voter turnout at 66 percent indicates voter apathy for all sides of politics. This is much more dangerous for Pakatan, as they have to defeat the incumbent government to take power. Pakatan must take close and careful notice and change, if they are to have even the slightest chance of winning GE15.

Melaka has clearly shown that UMNO is back and convicted felon Najib Razak is being attributed as a hero with 4.5 million followers on Facebook. UMNO with formidable grassroots election machinery has shown they are now the dominant Malay party once again, taking the Perikatan Nasional challenge with ease. With MCA and MIC, UMNO has reconstituted the BN as a multiracial umbrella once again. This proposition was accepted by the voters in Melaka.

“Bossku” Convicted felon Najib Razak - formidible on the hustings

What are the options for Pakatan?

The first is to do nothing, which is the most likely scenario. If this occurs, there will be growing dissatisfaction among both respective coalition party members and voters. PKR could loose up to half of its current 47 seats in the federal parliament and the DAP may even loose a handful to successful MCA challenges. This would be a great setback for Pakatan, taking them a generation to recover.

The second option would be for Anwar Ibrahim to resign as the leader of the opposition. There are two problems to this scenario. Anwar has no intention of resigning. Even if Anwar was to step down for the good of the party, there is no visible heir apparent to takeover the mantle of leadership. This shows a great weakness within PKR itself.

Anwar and Zahid go back to the Reformasi days of 1998

The third option is to form an alliance with UMNO. Such an alliance would bring Pakatan to government once again, be it sharing power. For UMNO, this would mean the party can completely sever ties with PAS and become a more moderate party. There have been talks about this alliance for some time between Anwar and UMNO’s president Zahid Hamidi. Although a potentially winning coalition, party members from both sides would be staunchly against this, and most Pakatan supporters would see this as a great betrayal.

Finally, an ‘out of the box’ option would be to amalgamate all the member parties within Pakatan into a single party, something like the Democratic Justice Party (DJP). This would create a true multi-racial alternative to the race-based parties of the past. However, egos and differing agendas may make this an almost impossible task.

Pakatan now has a lot of serious thinking ahead of them.

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