Tanjung Piai by-election – a loss for Pakatan?

By admin-s On Sep 23, 2019

It’s the type of constituency whose racial composition was favoured/loved by Mahathir in his earlier reign (1981 to 2003), where if Malay voters split their support between PAS and UMNO, Mahathir would frighten the sh*t out of the ‘unwitting kingmaker’ Chinese into voting for his previous far more racist (than PAS) party, UMNO.

Ktemoc Konsiders

Al Fatihah Allahyarham Md Farid Md Rafik.

Also, deepest condolences to his family.

His sudden demise has brought about a by-election for the Tanjung Piai federal constituency in Johor. The late Md Farid won the Tanjung Piai seat at the last general election (05 May 2018), defeating Wee Jeck Seng of MCA with just a majority of 524 votes in a 53,528 strong electorate.

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	∆%
	PH	Md Farid Md Rafik	21,255	47.29	+ 47.29
	BN	Wee Jeck Seng	20,731	46.12	– 10.00
	PAS	Nordin Othman	2,962	6.59	+ 6.59
Total valid votes			44,948	100.00
Total rejected ballots			841
Unreturned ballots			69
Turnout			45,858	85.67
Registered electors			53,528
Majority			524	1.17

But if we consider the combined votes for BN and PAS against Pakatan, PH would have lost to BN-PAS by a majority of 2438. T’was the wrong strategy by BN and PAS to split their votes in GE14.

Indeed, if we examined the election prior to 2018, namely, 2013 (see following table), we’d see BN had then won with a majority of 5457. In 2013 GE MCA’s Wee Jeck Seng secured 56.12% of the ‘turnout’ votes or 25038 votes to win.

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	∆%
	BN	Wee Jeck Seng	25,038	56.12	– 11.95
	DAP	Mahdzir Ibrahim	19,581	43.88	+ 11.95
Total valid votes			44,619	100.00
Total rejected ballots			918
Unreturned ballots			85
Turnout			45,622	87.95
Registered electors			51,875
Majority			5,457	12.24

Traditionally, prior to 2018, the federal seat was seen a combat arena between MCA and DAP, with MCA winning in the 11th, 12th and 13th GE’s.

However, in the 14th GE in 2018, the DAP gave way in Tanjung Piai to Mahathir’s Parti Pribumi. The late Md Farid surprisingly won, though by then the overall political tide had already changed in Pakatan’s favour.

With the plummeting popularity of PH since its rule for more than a year, will PH be able to win Tanjung Piai again, more so when PAS and UMNO have recently vowed to haap-chiok (cooperate)?