PAS’ surprise victory in Terengganu in the May 9 elections was due to infighting within Umno and the weak Pakatan Harapan (PH) machinery in the east coast states, a post-election analysis of the results showed.

The analysis, which was presented to state PH leaders on Thursday, said that PAS attacks against PH chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad also worked in their favour, said analyst Dr Mazlan Ali.

Mazlan said his earlier predictions in September 2017 pointed to a devastating defeat for PAS in GE14.

PKR-linked think tank Invoke had made a similar prediction about a PAS wipeout in March.

“Barisan Nasional itself had thought it would capture a two-thirds majority in Kelantan and Terengganu with the three-cornered fights but that backfired,” said Mazlan, who is a  political science lecturer in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

PAS won 22 out of the 32 state seats and six out of eight parliament seats in Terengganu in the May 9 polls. At the federal level, it won 18 parliamentary seats.

In the 2013 election, PAS had only 15 out of 32 state seats in Terengganu, while the parliament seats were split between PAS and Umno at four apiece.

BN had expected a comfortable victory with the redelineation exercise that was completed less than a month before GE14 was called.

But ultimately, PAS was able to rely on the race and religion card and Islamists’ sentiments against Dr Mahathir, Mazlan said.

This was also reflected in Malay-majority seats that PAS won elsewhere, he added.

“PAS’ surprising results in the Malay-majority seats in Kedah and Pahang also showed that race and religion issues are still important. In that respect, PAS is seen as the popular choice for Malay Muslims who were disappointed with Umno-BN,” said Mazlan.

He noted that PAS and Umno had also managed to convince rural voters in those states that a vote for Pakatan was a vote for DAP.

“PAS also managed to exploit Dr Mahathir’s track record in Islamic issues in the east coast states and the dictator tag to stem Pakatan’s popularity in the Malay heartland.”

These findings on PAS’ victory in Terengganu tally with another study by Institut Darul Ehsan that found the party’s share of the popular vote in Kelantan and Terengganu in GE14 had been largely unchanged from the previous two elections in 2008 and 2013.

In Terengganu, PAS took 49% of the popular vote in GE14, while BN took 41% and PH 10%, IDE deputy chairman Prof Dr Redzuan Othman had said.

It was PH that split the vote in the choice between BN and PAS and votes that the then opposition pact obtained were likely meant for BN originally, since PAS’ share was largely unchanged from previous polls.

Weak Pakatan machinery

Pakatan’s candidate for Besut Wan Nazari Wan Jusoh admitted that the coalition’s own machinery was weak compared to PAS’ in Terengganu.

“Voters did not like BN but when they saw a weak Pakatan machinery, they picked PAS to bring down Umno,” said Wan Nazari during the presentation.

Umno’s setback in Terengganu was self-inflicted and boiled down to its poor choice of candidates and the infighting in the state, Mazlan also said.

“BN Terengganu, for example, fielded six SPM, one STPM and one primary school candidate in the state elections. Another three had questionable qualifications,” said Mazlan.

It chose these candidates instead of names with more established track records such as then-deputy minister Jailani Johari.

Jailani was seen as a threat to former Terengganu MB Ahmad Razif Abd Rahman and was dropped in the Hulu Terengganu federal seat.

Mazlan said BN’s strategy to reduce the number of outstation voters by setting polling day on a Wednesday also worked against them as around 95% of those who returned to vote were anti-BN. – June 24, 2018