Despite losing Sungai Kandis, BN benefits from PAS pact

Chan Kok Leong Chan Kok Leong Updated 7 years ago · Published on 5 Aug 2018 7:00AM · 6 Comments

A view of the counting area for the Sungai Kandis by-election in Shah Alam yesterday. Penang Institute political analyst Dr Wong Chin Huat says had PAS and Barisan Nasional voters come out in full force, the Umno candidate would have gotten 20,000 votes. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Kamal Ariffin, August 5, 2018.

PAS’ decision not to contest the Sungai Kandis by-election appears to have paid off for Barisan Nasional, which saw increased vote percentages in several polling districts despite losing.

An early analysis of three polling districts – Kg Jawa, Bandar Putri Klang and Kg Bukit Naga – of the state seat’s 19 showed that BN gained ground on account of the Islamist party’s absence.

In the predominantly Malay Kg Jawa, Umno Supreme Council member Lokman Noor Adam increased BN’s share of the vote from 19.7% to 30.5%, while Pakatan Harapan’s PKR improved marginally, from 64.1% to 68.7%.

In the 14th general election, PAS had 15.6% of the vote in Kg Jawa.

In Bukit Naga, BN saw a boost from 36.9% to 53.6%, while PKR improved 40.4% to 46% in yesterday’s by-election. PAS, in GE14, secured 22.6% of the vote in the polling district.

More telling, perhaps, is the non-Malay Bukit Putri Klang, where, with PAS’ absence, PKR dropped slightly from 77.6% to 75.1%, while BN almost doubled its share from 12.4% to 23.9%.

Penang Institute political analyst Dr Wong Chin Huat said while this was expected, there is a silver lining for PH.

“Had PAS and BN voters come out in full force, Umno would have gotten around 20,000 votes. But the result shows that it got less than 50%, compared with PH, which only dropped 36% (from 23,998 to 15,427).”

He said although PAS’ absence paid off for BN, the payoff for racial and religious rhetoric was poor, given the sizable non-Malay electorate in the constituency.

The Sungai Kandis electorate comprises 72% Malays, 16% Indians and 12% Chinese.

Pakatan Harapan's Mohd Zawawi Ahmad Mughni celebrating his win in the Sungai Kandis by-election yesterday. The low turnout of 49.4% has been attributed to election fatigue among voters. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Kamal Ariffin, August 5, 2018.

“West coast voters may feel that such politics are unappealing, and there was no desperate need to vote for an unelectable party just to protest. Hence, Umno may want to rethink its positioning,” said Wong.

“Playing on more Malay anxiety may just confirm its desperation and hopelessness in the eyes of more pragmatic Malay voters.”

Low turnout

Despite PH’s Mohd Zawawi Ahmad Mughni winning the by-election by 5,842 votes, the low turnout signalled election fatigue among voters.

The Sungai Kandis by-election recorded a 49.4% voter turnout, second only to the 46% recorded in the 2009 polls in Penanti, Penang.

“I think election fatigue is the main reason for the very low turnout,” said International Islamic University political science lecturer Tunku Mohar Tunku Mohd Mokhtar.

On the campaign for the Sungai Kandis polls, he said there was complacency on the part of PKR.

“Also, I think both sides were unable to mobilise their voters.”

He said PAS’ delay in instructing members to vote for BN also cost the latter.

Although, the Islamist party did not campaign alongside BN, its secretary-general, Takiyuddin Hassan, had instructed members not to support PH in the by-election.

Similarly, a day before the polls, Kota Raja PAS chief Mohamed Diah Baharun told members to vote for BN. – August 5, 2018.

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Comments

  • The racial & religious rhetorics of UMNO didnt work out at this by election. Thats shows maturity of the SK voters. Cheers !!!

    Posted 7 years ago by Sabah One · Reply

  • No matter what percentages you are talking about, and whatever UMNOs way of campaigning, people still reject BN/UMNO. This gave a strong signal to UMNO that their time is over. By now, UMNO people should have regretted for not throwing DSN long time ago. UMNO should support PH effort to put DSN in prison for life to show to people that they are also condemning DSN for what he had done. If UMNO just keeps quite, and worst if they criticize PH on DSN case, then people will hate UMNO forever.

    Posted 7 years ago by Leng Kapri As Saribasi · Reply

  • Umno getting around 31.6% of the votes in a 70% Malay majority seat is hardly an achievement. The low voter turnout at 49.4% should have benefitted Umno together with their unholy alliance with PAS but yet boboth parties were rejected by the pragmatic Malay voters in Sungao Kandis. It is obvious that other than the rural Malay heartland of Kelantan, Terengganu and parts of Kedah, the race and religion rhetoric of both Umno and PAS does not resonate with the mainstream Malay voters.

    Posted 7 years ago by Gerard Lourdesamy · Reply

  • If we are talking about a BN+PAS pact, then we have to compare the results of this by-election against the COMBINED performance of BN and PAS in GE14.

    In GE14, the BN+PAS "pact" obtained 19091 votes (11518 for BN + 7573 for PAS). This is in comparison to the 23998 votes received by PKR, i.e. so BN+PAS total votes were close to 80% of PKR's total votes (19091 / 23998).

    Compare this now to the performance in GE14. The BN+PAS "pact' obtained 9585 votes. PKR received 15427 votes. So in the by-election, the ratio of BN+PAS votes to PKR dropped to around 60% (9585 / 15427).

    How is this any evidence that the pact with PAS actually helped BN? Looking at the overall ratios, BN+PAS performed far worse in the by-election than in GE14 despite the low turnout.

    Posted 7 years ago by Ali Baba · Reply

  • Given the 30% solid non malay votes against the umno man, the prk result showed that some malays started to show their disapproval against ph government conduct

    Posted 7 years ago by Abdul Rahman Ahamad · Reply

  • Lol. BN gained ground? This journalist could be PH's trojan horse in disguise trying to mislead BN's calculation, throwing dust in their eyes. Keep up the good work, let BN stays optimistic until their next election so they'll tighten the BN+PAS pact.

    Posted 7 years ago by Chris ck · Reply