KUALA LUMPUR – Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) uphill battle to wrest the Sg Bakap seat was exacerbated by Rafizi Ramli’s derogatory remarks and the machinery’s poor explanation about the targeted diesel subsidy, said former Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming.
Ong, a DAP election strategist, said the battle was complicated by the politicisation of Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd’s privatisation exercise and the differences in academic qualifications of PH candidate Joohari Ariffin and Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) Abidin Ismail.
“The tough reality (was) that there are more issues for the opposition to attack the government on compared to the positive outcomes that the government can claim credit for.”
He also said there was a significant drop in the turnout rate of non-Malay voters in the Penang constituency compared with last year’s state election.
In the 2023 election, Ong said 78% of the total Malay voters on the electoral roll and 73% of the total non-Malays turned out to vote.
However, last Saturday, 76% of the total Malay voters and only 46% of the non-Malay voters went to the ballot box. The estimated Malay turnout fell by 2%, while the non-Malay turnout fell by a massive 27% from 2023 to 2024.
“With this difference in turnout among Malay and non-Malay voters, Sg Bakap went from being a 60% Malay/40% non-Malay seat to a 70% Malay/30% non-Malay seat,” Ong said in a statement.
This, he said, was in contrast to the Kuala Kubu Baharu by-election on May 7, where the turnout of Malay voters fell from 68% to 58% while the turnout of non-Malay voters fell from 66% to 64% compared to the 2023 Selangor election.
“The fact that the non-Malay turnout fell by less than the Malay turnout in Kuala Kubu Baharu also explains why PH was able to maintain this seat with a similar majority and a slight increase in vote share, in contrast to Sg Bakap.”
On the low non-Malay voter turnout in Sg Bakap, Ong said it was driven by the growing disappointment among the Chinese and Indian communities towards the unity government over unfilled promises and poor performance amid an uncertain economic landscape.
He speculated that the government’s poor handling of the dual language programme and the matriculation intake issues likely contributed to the unhappiness among the non-Malays.
“The lower turnout as a protest vote among the non-Malays and the slight shift in the non-Malay vote towards PN should be a warning sign to PH and Umno.
“If this trend continues and if it cannot be reversed before GE16, a sizeable number of marginal seats won by PH in GE15 and some of the seats that Umno is hoping to hold on to via an electoral pact with PH may be lost to PN.”
Rafizi, who is PH election director and PKR deputy president, was caught on camera lashing out at critics who had questioned him about his “formulas” while speaking at a ceramah, calling them “bahlol” (moron) and “bodoh” (idiot).
PN retained the Sg Bakap seat against PH in the by-election with an increased majority of 4,267 votes compared to the previous state poll. – July 10, 2024
