Bagan Pinang N31 : Congrats BN, back to the drawing boards for PR....

Now, Najib can start gloating on 14th October 2009. The warlords are back in business. If you don't believe me - just ask Isa Samad.

First, congratulations is in order for BN. Yes ! They win and win big in Bagan Pinang. Although the majority is 5,435 I will stick to my stand as per earlier posting that the actual majority for Bagan Pinang is slightly more than 1,000 (1,313 to be exact) votes. My prediction was BN to retain Bagan Pinang with a majority of not more than 2,000 votes.

Looking at the figures, my prediction is way off, right? Wrong! After omitting the postal votes which is considered 4,122 votes strong for BN (the 601 votes casted for PR is actually a non-issue), the actual majority is 1,313 votes. That's less than 2,000 majority. Does that mean my prediction is right? Hhhmmmmm...that will be how politicians justify their figures and today I am not in the mood to play with figures. Today, let's re-visit Bagan Pinang and try to understand why the results is so....

For that, let's put it into point forms. So, here are my takes :-

1. Candidate

   BN, with its back on the walls have no other choice but to put in Isa Samad. Why? Isa Samad is considered a local there and BN banked on his roots to blank off whatever he had done wrong in the past. BN can't even afford to place Isa' son there as candidate because only Isa's stature is well known there.
   

   PR, on the other hand opted to put in PAS's Negeri's chief as candidate. It might be a right choice to PR leaders but as a strategist, I would stick to Ramli Ismail (unless he has done grave mistake). To me, by sticking to Ramli Ismail, PR will be showing Bagan Pinang that they have made the right choice before and they are offering the same right choice for Bagan Pinang.
   

   PR should have sense the confidence in BN when the so-called aspiring independent candidate "failed" to get his seconder and thus did not submit his nomination papers.
   

2. Money politics

   There are two parts of money politics here.

   • One, involving Isa and leading to his suspension from UMNO and eventually leads to his failure to defend his VP's post;

     Bagan Pinang voters is sending a dangerous signal here. No doubt that Isa is their favourite son, but to a certain extent Bagan Pinang is saying that they are not bothered with the fact that Isa was found guilty of money politics in UMNO. Yes, Isa has not been charged in the court of law and his suspension is only in his party but is Bagan Pinang saying that it is alright to be involved in money politics at party level?
     

     Or is Bagan Pinang rightly sending a message that Isa is not the only one practising money politics in UMNO? If this is Bagan Pinang's stand, then money politics will be a continued tradition in UMNO politics.
     

   • Second is about the "flooding" of Bagan Pinang with financial inducement;

     This is not something unexpected. Most of the ministers visiting Bagan Pinang will pledge this and that, including the elusive swimming pool in the army camp. Bagan Pinang proves once again that the voters just don't care less about the inducement. It is nice to hear and if it materialise, then fine...if not, we can always wait for the promise again in next GE.
     

   Overall, Bagan Pinang is not listening to the hues and cries f money politics. To them, the issue is a distant sound and did not affect them. Thus, they are not bothered with the issue at all...as long as they can get Isa elected as their state rep for Bagan Pinang.
   

3. Intimidation

   I will be crude here. No offence intended. This is what I hear from those returning from Bagan Pinang :-
   

   • there are party workers going into individual houses and intimidate the occupants to vote for their party;
   • some elderly party workers attacked by opponents, leading to bloody ears on the elderly party worker;
   • there are numerous skirmishes between opposing party workers;
   • on polling day, opposing parties continually jaunts each other leading to "missiles" flown from both sides and also skirmishes between two opposing groups;
     

   Let me qualify myself in saying that I am one person who do not subscribe to violence as a mean to get what I want. What I see is another dangerous trend. It reminds me of Ijok where intimidation rules the day. It also recollects what happened in Lubuk Merbau when judgement deserted party workers.

   My question is simple - do we need to resort to violence? Do we live by intimidating others? Couldn't we reason out why voters should support a party? Are we such poor orators that our party workers have to use "physical charm" to get the votes in?
   

   On one part, both parties are to blame. When thousands descended into Bagan Pinang, these genuine voters feel intimidated and choose to cocooned themselves. At the end, the voters feel it is better for them to follow the status quo and hand Bagan Pinang to BN on a silver platter.
   

   That said, whoever caused and promoted intimidation has given that little extra push for the voters to opts for BN in Bagan Pinang. After all, who is going to look after them once the dust settled in Bagan Pinang and when the party workers and the extra police beef left the scene?
   

4. PR's confusing acts

   Some may say that this is irrelevant but I choose to say otherwise. PR's has not been blending well in Selangor with the continual bickerings between Hassan Ali and DAP. I say Hassan Ali because he is the only person coming out with statement after statement, contradicting to PR's wishes and aspirations.
   

   PAS failed to contain Hassan Ali and at the same time did not indicate that they are totally behind Hassan Ali's stand regarding the many issues surrounding PR government in Selangor. With the "not here, neither there" stand, PAS under the leadership of Hadi Awang fails to take a firm stand on those issues.
   

   Granted that PAS and DAP reached some sort of consensus during Bagan Pinang by-election campaign period. However, the consensus appears to be superficial at best. This can be sensed with the lack of "controversies" raised by the controversial Hassan Ali. If only someone in PAS monitors his statements then PAS would have anticipated that they are on the losing end in Bagan Pinang when Hassan Ali did not issue any controversial statement during the campaign period.

5. PR's daily media statement

   As media coverage is scarce for PR, PR's decision to hold daily press conference is a novel idea. However, PR is slow in giving response to the many issues raised during the campaign. Amongst them :-
   

   • EC's response on the postal votes discrepancies;
   • PDRM's response on the alledged attacks by opposition parties;
   • Defense ministry response to the no-campaign policy in army camps;
     

   PAS's daily media conference did not stressed on the point of the alledged attacks and although PAS pointed out that they have lodged 8 police reports, PAS did not offer the police reports for the media's scrutiny especially the one circulating in the internet on the slashed t-shirts and blood trickling down the face.

6. Postal votes

   As the postal votes in Bagan Pinang constitutes to almost 30 % of the total votes, it is a significant votes to both parties.
   

   Postal voting system is something that has been discussed where PR claimed of instances where the soldiers did not vote. PR came out with a few admissions by retired soldiers that they voted en-mass, under the watchful eyes of camp commandants.
   

   Fine! PR make the exposure but when confronting EC, the following happened :-
   

   • the person who make the admission "conveniently" forgot when he voted for the soldiers;
   • although he admitted voting for the rest under his camp's commandant's instructions, he can only remember that it was during Tun Mahathir's time;
   • PR failed to bring supplementary proof of cases where the soldiers registered in 2 voting places.
   • whilst EC agreed that they will check the accussations, PR failed to capitalise on this for better postal voting system
     

7. Development issues and abandoned projects

   PAS is quite late in releasing its by-election manisfesto in Bagan Pinang. Instead of zooming in the current development issues, PAS chose to attack Isa's development and abandoned projects.
   

   In doing so, PAS is exposing itself by going for something in the past. Yes, Isa may be guilty for some of the development issues and abandoned projects but Bagan Pinang voters came to terms with the fact that Isa could not do anything much when his hands were tight. BN pushed him to contest for parliamentary seat against his will and then placed him in cold storage for money politics. Something that were practised by many UMNO politicians. The difference is Isa was caught practising it!
   

   PR could do a better jon if they were to focus on current projects and listed out abandoned projects under Mohd Hassan. Instead, PAS took a 22-year time tunnel journey back to the 80's.

8. Personal life
   

   Here, maybe PR is not totally at fault. During the height of the campaign, some enterprising blogs supposedly Isa's misconduct. This is a grave mistake. Remember back in the 90's when BN use Anwar's supposedly misconduct to dismiss him as the DPM. What happen was an uproar and the Malays rise up questioning the wisdom of exposing such act and publicly humiliating him. The same goes for Isa.
   

   Isa may be wrong. He may be guilty of accusations but as Muslims, is this the way to humilate your own kins and fellow believers? How true is the accusations? Or is it hearsay to discredit Isa? The accusations and naming his supposedly "partner" and providing her background is totally unacceptable (at least to me). This also sways the voters to back Isa.
   

Of course there are other factors contributing to BN's routing PR in Bagan Pinang. If all the factors are listed here, then might as well do a proper paper on this and submit for University doctorate :) Whatever it is, the results are already there. BN got what it needed to stay alive. Maybe, this result will stablise BN more. This result will serve as a reminder to other component parties in BN, in the sense that :-

1. UMNO do not really need other component parties in peninsular Malaysia to survive;
2. UMNO, with its back on the walls, will outdo opposition parties to remain in power;
3. UMNO is sending a signal to MCA that they better clean their own house before UMNO cleans MCA;
4. UMNO is sending another signal to MIC to clean their act or UMNO will take in another Indian-based party (PMSM) to replace MIC which is losing the support of Indians;
5. UMNO is also sending a signal to PPP that they should resolve their own internal bickering as there are no significant contributions made by PPP in Bagan Pinang;
6. UMNO doesn't care whether Gerakan show up in Bagan Pinang or not;
   

For now Najib can breathe easy. PR can continue hyping on his possible connections with the model. As far as Najib is concerned, it is a non-issue in Bagan Pinang. The same goes with reveleatiuons on the carpet-man. It is a hot issue for gossipers but not hot enough to catch Bagan Pinang's voters attention.

BN play it right by maneuvering the polling day to fall on Sunday. The Indians are glued to the Tamil movies whilst the Chinese may be lounging in their homes and the Malays are sweating it out in the open.

UMNO knows the Malays teperaments very well. They play the tune better than PR. When the voters are angry, what UMNO did is to make personal courtesy call, a little pat at the back and the Malays are pecking UMNO's hands. A little bit of "incentive" and some words of encouragements, the Malays are back into UMNO's fold.

Now, Najib can start gloating on 14th October 2009. The warlords are back in business. If you don't believe me - just ask Isa Samad.

Till then...G'nite M'sia...wherever u are...