The Malaysian Insight

IN any other circumstances, this weekend’s Semenyih by-election and results would not matter as much as it now does.

But the GE14 results and subsequent overt and cosy ties between Umno and PAS have now made every rural seat a referendum for the Pakatan Harapan government.

One just has to read the rapturous joy on the Umno and PAS side, or rancour and incandescent rage by PH supporters spewing on social media to see the sea of I-told-you-so’s.

For the record, Umno or rather Barisan Nasional’s Zakaria Hanafi polled 19,780 while PH’s Muhammad Aiman Zainali won 17,866 votes. The majority was 1,914 for BN yesterday, reversing the 8,964 majority that PH won in the May 9 general election.

And this result could well be the script of future by-elections in rural areas, where a majority of voters are Malays and have consistently voted for either BN/Umno or PAS in past elections. 

That trend continued up to GE14 but since then, both Umno and PAS have an electoral understanding to not fight each other as the results of that elections showed both sides splitting the Malay electorate. This new pact worked in the Cameron Highlands by-election and now in Semenyih.

So, what went right for Umno/PAS and what went wrong for PH? Obviously, the sea of I-told-you-so’s hold half the answer to that question and reflect political and administrative changes since GE14.

To sum it up, both sides traded smugness and cunning in the months after GE14. And the unity in purpose that PH displayed in the run-up to GE14 evaporated to the other side after the historic win.

See, BN was smug and thought it was infallible before May 9. It courted PAS which cleaved off from the then Pakatan Rakyat. The remaining allies in PR – PKR and DAP – had to work with Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Bersatu and dissidents from PAS who formed Amanah.

That PH united for the single purpose of kicking out BN from Putrajaya on the basis that then prime minister Najib Razak was a thief and BN’s policies hurt people’s pockets. 

Since then, the government changed but people’s pockets remain as empty – no extra money or even the return of the money lost to the previous government.

In place – political low-hanging-fruit policies, such as the smoking ban or sweeping out Android TV boxes, aggravate the people even more.

The public disenchantment that marked 2018 culminated in Najib and BN’s loss with people naively assuming that any reset would not cost them anything more.

Perhaps it was the promises that any and all politicians make, perhaps it was the PH manifesto and BN’s brazen smugness that got people to either vote against or not even vote for BN that cost it the government.

PH won and continued its tirade against Najib even as it struggled to fulfil all its promises and manifesto points.

It got defensive, it got smug and all the unity to fight BN appears to have disappeared. And it was too late in countering Najib’s “Bossku” campaign that seems to have struck a chord with the disenfranchised among the Malay community.

In a sense, PH has become a one-trick pony with a one-track mind. Unseat Najib, blame Najib ad infinitum and ad nauseam. 

For Umno and PAS, their holier-than-thou attitude and haughtiness in GE14 has given way to political cunning and unity to ensure their survival from by-elections to general elections.

They might fudge the truth, spark a race war but all that matters is to work up a crowd on basic and local issues to win any election.

That worked in Cameron Highlands, that worked in Semenyih where even the non-Malay voters were suitably aggrieved to give their vote to the BN man.

Months on from GE14, the reality is there is a mountain of difference between running a campaign and running a country when one is the government of the day.

BN ran a campaign from 2013 to 2018 focused on Najib and kept dropping the vote. PH is doing the same now, ignoring the real issues of the day – the empty promises and pockets in Malaysia.

Both will take time and, in that time, Umno and PAS will flourish as long as they stay united and get their supporters to go the ballot box. PH can only get that done once they actually become a government that delivers.

It has been nine months and most human pregnancies deliver in that time. – March 3, 2019.

* Jahabar Sadiq runs The Malaysian Insight.