FORMER Bangi lawmaker Ong Kian Ming said Pakatan Harapan (PH) would not have won the Sungai Pelek seat in the Selangor elections without Barisan Nasional’s (BN) support. 

He said the victory was a good example of the benefits of Pakatan Harapan-BN cooperation. 

He noted that the seat was also the most difficult for DAP to retain.  

“This was an almost 60% Malay-majority seat where DAP was fielding a local Chinese candidate against a relatively well-known Perikatan Nasional (PN) candidate who was a former local Umno leader,” he said in a statement today. 

Ong said the vote transfer from BN supporters was enough to ensure that the Chinese candidate from PH won the seat with a 1,458-vote majority. 

PH’s DAP candidate Lwi Kian Keong faced Suhaimi Ghazali (PN) and R. Nageswari (Independent) in the three-cornered fight. 

Lwi polled 17,984 votes while Suhaimi and Nageswari received 16,526 and 230 votes respectively. 

“PH would not have been able to win N56 Sungai Pelek seat without support from Umno especially in the Malay-majority areas of Jenderam Hulu, Salak, and Hulu Cucuh.” 

Ong pointed out that 5% out of the 25% support given by Malays to BN in the last general election (GE15) swung to PH in the Selangor elections.  

“Similarly, around 5% of the Chinese vote and 10% of the Indian vote had also swung to PH from BN.” 

“All in all, a vote transfer of approximately 25% of total BN votes from GE15 went to PH in the 2023 state elections, with the remaining 75% going to PN,” he added. 

Ong stressed that cooperation between PH and BN leaders at the grassroots level was also strengthened by the presence of state and national leaders. 

“International Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz came to Sungai Pelek to campaign with the PH candidate Lwi Kian Seong, together with Ng Sze Han, the DAP Selangor state secretary.” 

“Zafrul was able to mobilise the local Umno leadership and grassroots to throw their support behind the PH candidate,” he said. 

BN also benefited from the cooperation as PH helped its former enemy to win other seats such as Dusun Tua. 

DAP previously won Dusun Tua in the 2018 general election and the seat was given to Umno in the recent state elections. 

DAP leaders like Gobind Singh, Ng Sze Han, Kampung Tunku assemblyman Lim Yi Wei, and Taiping MP Wong Kah Woh campaigned for the Umno candidate, Johan Abdul Aziz, who won the seat with a 3,014-vote majority. 

In the Selangor polls, PH won 32 out of 56 seats while BN won only two.  

PN won 22 seats, denying PH a two-thirds majority for the first time in 15 years. – August 22, 2023.