Why BN will win GE14
The trouble with Pakatan Harapan is they are a victim of their own propaganda. It is like back in Nazi Germany when they kept saying they were winning the war and believed their own lies right up to the point the Russians surrounded Berlin. Propaganda is meant to fool your enemies, not yourself. Once you start believing your own propaganda you are in serious trouble. Then you will start believing that you actually won GE13 because you won 50.87% of the votes.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
In the 2008 general election, Barisan Nasional won 140 parliament seats with only 51.39% of the popular votes versus Pakatan Rakyat’s 82 seats. In the 2013 general election, Barisan Nasional won 133 parliament seats with only 47.38% of the popular votes versus Pakatan Rakyat’s 89 seats.
Because Pakatan Rakyat garnered 50.87% of the popular votes but won only 89 parliament seats (instead of 112 seats as what they claim it should be: meaning they were ‘robbed’ of 23 parliament seats), allegations of election fraud were raised. Anwar Ibrahim claimed that Pakatan Rakyat actually won the 2013 general election based on the popular votes garnered and that Barisan Nasional cheated them of this win.
That is utter nonsense and Anwar knows this. Since the 1990s (when Anwar was still in Umno and was Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister) I have been writing that Barisan Nasional needs to win just 40% of the popular votes to form the government while the opposition must win more than 60% of the votes to take over the federal government.
Pakatan Harapan’s support is mainly non-Malay and in the urban and semi-urban areas, which means they have less seats to win
This is not about cheating. This is about two things. One is gerrymandering, which is not illegal, and the other is while the opposition support is concentrated in the high-voter urban or semi-urban areas, the support for Barisan Nasional, in particular Umno, is spread out in the low-voter rural areas and Malay heartland.
This is actually due to one main reason. The opposition support is largely non-Malay-based while the government support is largely Malay-based. Unless the opposition can conquer the low-voter rural areas and Malay heartland, Umno and Barisan Nasional will continue to rule Malaysia.
This is not only true for Malaysia. In the UK it is also the same. Look at what happened in the UK in the last two general elections.
UK 2010 General Election
Conservatives: 47.1% of the seats and 36.1% of the votes
Labour: 39.7% of the seats and 29.0% of the votes
LibDem: 8.8% of the seats and 23.0% of the votes
UK 2015 General Election
Conservatives: 50.8% of the seats and 36.8% of the votes
Labour: 35.7% of the seats and 30.4% of the votes
LibDem: 1.2% of the seats and 7.9% of the votes
Scottish National Party: 8.6% of the seats and 4.7% of the votes
The support for ‘blue’ is spread out in the rural areas and in the ‘British heartland’ while the support for ‘red’ is concentrated in the urban and semi-urban areas
Can you see how LibDem garnered 23% of the votes but won only 8.8% of the seats in 2010? And in the 2015 general election it was 7.9% of the votes but they won only 1.2% of the seats. And see where the ‘blue’ and ‘red’ areas are.
Now, we must remember that Malaysia and the UK share the same election system. And that system is first-past-the-post. So, you need to focus on winning seats in the ‘right’ places. Pakatan Harapan’s focus, instead, is in ‘winning’ crowds at ceramah and rallies. And, 20 years ago, I already wrote that crowds do NOT translate to votes.
Pakatan Harapan is still excited about crowds and still boasts about how many thousands turn up in their ceramah. In Sanggang and Indera Kayangan the opposition got such huge crowds that the traffic jams were miles long but Barisan Nasional still beat them. And the same in many other places since 1998.
The trouble with Pakatan Harapan is they are a victim of their own propaganda. It is like back in Nazi Germany when they kept saying they were winning the war and believed their own lies right up to the point the Russians surrounded Berlin. Propaganda is meant to fool your enemies, not yourself. Once you start believing your own propaganda you are in serious trouble. Then you will start believing that you actually won GE13 because you won 50.87% of the votes.
