THE recently concluded Kuala Kubu Baharu (KKB) by-election results proved that DAP still holds the majority support of the Chinese community, former DAP lawmaker Ong Kian Ming said. 

Although MCA boycotted campaigning for the Pakatan Harapan (PH) candidate in KKB, the former Bangi MP said the Barisan Nasional (BN) component party’s move did not hurt DAP. 

“MCA proved themselves to be politically irrelevant because their boycotting of the campaign did not result in PH losing any traction among the Chinese voters.

“In fact, small gains were made by PH in the Chinese-majority polling areas,” he said in a statement today. 

Ong said that Gerakan, which contested in KKB for Perikatan Nasional (PN) in the August state polls, also failed to capture Chinese votes for the coalition this time. 

“Gerakan also proved themselves to be ineffective in terms of its inability to hold on to this seat to contest under the PN ticket and for failing to win even 5% of the Chinese vote as promised by its president, Dominic Lau,” he said. 

DAP’s Pang Sock Tao won the by-election on Saturday with a 3,869-vote majority. She garnered 14,000 votes, defeating her closest rival, PN’s Khairul Azhari Saut, who obtained 10,131 votes. 

Parti Rakyat Malaysia’s Hafizah Zainuddin got 152 votes and independent candidate Nyau Ke Xin received 188 votes. 

According to Ong, PH managed to maintain its stranglehold on Chinese voters. 

In the six Chinese-majority polling stations with more than 100 voters, PH increased its share of vote from 83.9% in August 2023 to 86.2% in 2024, a small improvement of 2.3%.

“This wasn’t surprising given that the PN had all but abandoned the Chinese vote when it decided to field a Malay candidate in this by-election and did not make any significant effort to campaign in the Chinese-majority polling stations during the campaign,” he said. 

PH’s improved performance

Based on Saturday’s results, Ong said PH improved its performance from the 2023 state elections in a few voter segments, especially among police, army, and civil servants, Orang Asli and Indian voters. 

“The first voter segment is among the police, army, and the postal voters (mostly civil servants). 

“PH’s majority went from minus 540 in the 2023 state elections to plus 472 in the by-election, contributing a +1012 change in PH’s majority. This improvement is probably due to the recent announcement by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim that the pay for civil servants would be increased by 12% later this year and also the likely scrutiny put on the uniformed personnel by their superiors to ‘deliver’ the vote to the unity government,” he said. 

The second voter segment is among the Orang Asli community where PH overturned a minus 69 majority in 2023 to a plus 150 majority in 2024 in the two Orang Asli-majority voting stations in Pertak. 

“PH saw its vote share increase from 29.1% in these two polling stations in 2023 to 70.6% in 2024, an increase of 41.5%. This was definitely a case of voting for the government, especially at the federal level, and the likelihood of this performance being replicated in the next general election will be higher especially if PH and Umno/BN campaign together, thus being seen as a more credible option to remain as government,” he said. 

The third voter segment is among Indian voters in the two Indian-majority polling stations in KKB – Lembah Beringin (52.3% Indian voters) and Ladang Nigel Gardner (60.8% Indian voters). 

“PH increased its voter share from 62.0% in 2023 to 64.5% in 2024, an increase of 2.5% in Lembah Beringin. In Ladang Nigel Gardner, PH increased its share of vote by a significant 22.6% from 55.6% in 2023 to 78.2% in 2024,” he said. 

“PH managed to win most of the votes which went to the Muda candidate in 2023 in Ladang Nigel Gardner, which is part of the reason for this significant increase. 

“Overall, the share of vote won by PH in these two polling stations increased from 59.6% in 2023 to 69.5% in 2024, an increase of almost 10%,” Ong added. 

Malays still not with PH 

Ong, who is a former deputy international trade and industry minister, noted that the PN still has the support of Malays. 

He said that there was a small decrease in PH’s performance in the Malay-majority polling stations.

“Not surprisingly, PH lost some ground in the five Malay-majority polling stations where its vote share decreased by 1.3% from 40.0% in 2023 to 38.7% in 2024. 

“Even though PH made up some ground in the Kg Air Jernih and Kerling polling stations, it lost ground in the polling stations of Ampang Pechah and Bandar Utama Batang Kali (with two voting places) where the majority of the Malay voters in the KKB state seat are located. 

“These three polling stations were also the places where PN focused their campaign in terms of ceramah and other campaign-related activities,” he said. 

Don’t misinterpret KKB results

Ong said that the status quo for the KKB by-election has positive and negative implications for PH and BN as well as for PN. 

For PH, the KKB results may be interpreted as a vote of confidence for PH and the unity government and for business as usual to continue. 

“This would be a mistake since the underlying dissatisfaction against the government among different segments of society are real and growing. 

“Many of my colleagues in PH would remember the April 2007 Ijok by-elections that were won relatively comfortably by the BN candidate. Less than one year later, in March 2008, in the 13th general election, BN lost control of Selangor and of the two-thirds majority in parliament,” he said. 

Ong said that it also would be a mistake for Umno to think that the Malay vote has started to turn in its favour. 

“The results in the Malay-majority areas in KKB clearly proves otherwise. 

“The party still lacks a coherent game plan on how it will win back the Malay vote, especially among the Malay youth,” he said.

Ong said that PN would also be mistaken to think that the current government’s popularity would allow it to easily win back power in GE16. 

“While PN definitely have the majority of Malay support nationally, it remains to be seen if this will be sufficient for them to win a majority of seats in Peninsular Malaysia, especially if some of the leadership challenges in Bersatu continues to weaken the ability of the party to campaign and present itself as a credible government in waiting. 

“The battle ground is among the middle ground, especially the Malay middle ground, which can be swayed by good leadership, good policies, and good implementation,” he said.

The former DAP lawmaker said that there is a lot of runway before the next federal polls, where parties and their leaders make the necessary adjustments to win this middle ground as a pathway to Putrajaya. – May 14, 2024.