By Wong Chin Huat (The Nut Graph)
THE Permatang Pasir by-election was an unquestionable success for PAS and the Pakatan Rakyat (PR). PAS's share of the total votes cast, excluding spoilt votes, went from 66.39% in the March 2008 elections to 65.50% — a drop of barely 1%. The reduction in terms of PAS's majority was from 5,433 votes to 4,551 this time, and was due mainly to a reduced voter turnout.
The victory is sweet even after analysing communal voting trends. According to party sources, the preliminary analysis shows that PAS has increased its Chinese Malaysian support from about 70% in 2008 to 75%, although its Malay Malaysian support declined, from 65% to 60%.
The actual decline in Malay Malaysian support may be less than the data indicates, considering the lower turnout. The majority of the 2,000 voters who did not turn up to vote on 25 Aug 2009 were younger Malay Malaysian voters, who would probably be more likely to support PAS than Umno if the trends elsewhere are any indicator. Had polling fallen on a weekend or public holiday, PAS might have easily bagged a few hundred more Malay Malaysian votes and raised their winning margin.
Winds of change?
The result was definitely a big blow to the deputy prime minister and Umno deputy president, who claimed to see a "wind of change". A wind of change indeed swept through Permatang Pasir, just not in the direction that Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin would have liked. Instead, it blew away much of the hope for Umno and the Barisan Nasional (BN)'s renewal, without even providing a near miss as it did in Manik Urai just a month ago.
Umno had, of course, picked the wrong candidate. Either Rohaizat Othman had successfully fooled the Umno leadership into picking him, or the other potential candidates were no better than him. Either way, this speaks volumes of the problems with Umno's talent pool and candidate selection.
The BN/Umno's problem, however, is much larger than candidacy. It is institutional. It is a question of relevance, of raison d'être.
Why should a voter cast his or her vote for Umno? The best answer Umno could offer in Permatang Pasir was pathetic: federal incumbency. The "anak emas" (literally "golden child") argument, that Permatang Pasir would get the best financial support from the federal government with a BN representative, is one of default by position, not by capacity or choice. Any party controlling the federal government and willing to abuse its power can do that. There is no "added value" by voting for the BN.
Clearly, such incentive works only when the federal ruling party is a given. After the March 2008 elections, the BN's federal incumbency has progressively looked less like a given with each passing day. So why would voters elect the BN/Umno to discriminate against those who do not?
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