THE opposition is on a losing streak in elections because it failed to highlight other pressing concerns affecting the people, and instead continued to harp on the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal to win votes, P. Ramasamy said today.

The Penang deputy chief minister ll said the incessant campaign against the 1MDB financial scandal and the involvement of former prime minister Najib Razak might have given Pakatan Harapan (PH) an edge in the last general election but it was not so in the subsequent by-elections and state elections. 

“The opposition, by focusing overwhelmingly on this issue, might have neglected other important concerns of the electorate,” said the DAP leader. 

“It was PH’s inability to break the cultural barrier of support to Barisan Nasional-Umno that mitigated against them. 

“Ironically, the one-time political villain Najib Razak has become a sort of folk hero to the predominantly Malay voters and to some sections within the non-Malays,” he said in a statement. 

He said the recent BN victories in Malacca and Johor seemed to suggest that all the bad publicity about Umno or BN’s complicity in corruption and financial misdeeds were not enough to dislodge the coalition from the mainstream of Malaysian politics.

“Never mind the poor voter turnout in the Johor elections, the fact that BN won a supermajority of 40 out of the total 56 seats suggests  something is really ailing the Malaysian political system. 

“It serves no purpose to blame the low turnout of slightly more than 50% and the gain in popular votes as mitigating factors in the failure to unseat BN.” 

He said that with Umno putting pressure for the general election to be called soon, PH must take action so that it emerges as a credible or formidable opposition, or to take a crack at federal power. 

“However, the chains that bind the PH must be examined and broken. 

“The internal rift must be seriously addressed within PH, even on a simple matter such as the use of the coalition’s logo. 

“PKR’s use of the party’s logo hardly made any difference in the recent electoral outcome in Johor,” he said. 

In the Johor elections on Saturday, BN won 40 out of the 56 seats, PH with only DAP and Amanah won 11, while PKR, which used its own logo, won one. 

Muhyiddin Yassin’s Perikatan Nasional (PN) won three seats, with the former prime minister calling themselves “underdogs”. Youth-based party Muda, an ally of PH, won one seat. 

None of the other opposition parties – Pejuang, Warisan, Parti Sosialis Malaysia, Parti Bangsa Malaysia and Putra – won any seats. 

Before this, BN won 21 out of 28 seats in the Malacca polls. Earlier, the BN and PN partnership also won in Sabah, while in Sarawak the PN-aligned Gabungan Parti Sarawak won the state. 

In all these elections, the opposition, in particular PH, performed badly. 

Their dismal run started with a series of by-elections soon after the 14th general election. 

PH lost federal power after 22 months following Bersatu’s withdrawal from the pact in February 2020. – March 14, 2022.