Somebody should tell the Democratic Action Party's boss Lim Kit Siang to take a cold shower following the Sibu by-election. For all his exuberance, there's no denying that the DAP won Sibu for the Pakatan Alliance by beating back BN - despite its massive election machinery.

That includes BN's insidious employment, as always, of buying votes with money and wild and woolly promises. Umno still thinks that if it can use such dirty tricks at its General Assembly, it can do likewise in the broader national poll. It was rebuffed at the 2008 national election, and it was again rebuffed at Sibu.

sibu by election lim kit siang But are these irrefutable winds of change that so many pundits are now reading from their political crystal balls?

DAP's Lim started polling or pre-polling day saying Pakatan would need a miracle to win the by-election. Perhaps. But pollsters were already signaling a close tie. So Lim dredged up the DAP's public relations machine and came out with spin - to show the DAP, on behalf of Pakatan, would be the underdog in the poll. Hard to say if this managed to garner a fraction of sympathy votes for the DAP. Perhaps it did. Perhaps not. But to exuberate in the way Lim has is, well, fanciful.

Pollsters were also saying, long before the by-election, that Umno and Barisan were on voters' noses. Hardly surprising, given the nauseating wretchedness of Umno and Barisan since at least 1964-5, if not 1946.

In its more contemporary incarnate, that nauseating mess in which Umno and Barisan now find themselves is largely of its own making rather than the genuine popularity of DAP and Pakatan amongst voters. Somebody should remind Lim that DAP won Sibu by a miserly 398 votes.

The desperation by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and, to be fair, by Anwar Ibrahim and Lim to win Sibu was glaring. Picking up the Sibu seat is important, but not so important given the margin of victory to the DAP and Pakatan. By that margin - and pardon the punt - the Sibu seat remains marginal in the hands of DAP and Pakatan.

So no real progress on that front. Oh, sure, I know what you're thinking. You're going to tell me that Pakatan have now won eight from eleven by-elections and that must mean something greater than my cynicism. In its raw form, I'd be happy to agree with you. But this isn't about raw politics and a numbers game. It stopped becoming one on May 13, 1969.

Political desperation

The political desperation illustrated by Najib and Anwar and Lim had more to do with the political psychological dynamics of the way in which Malaysian politics has become more and more of desperation than of cleverness or even of organic intelligence.

NONE Khairy Jamaluddin ( left ), the neophyte who suddenly became one of Malaysia richest politicians after joining Umno, now runs the party's ultra-right youth wing, and likes to boorishly portray himself as a public intellectual.

I repeat: It's not numbers but political psychology. And nobody knows this better than Khairy. Because ultimately you're still dealing with the old British hearts-and-minds campaign from whom Umno and the old Alliance partnership learnt to play that game. Divide and rule and conquer.

If Malaysians are still being asked to cast their votes according to their primordial ties of race and colour and creed, then you're still engaged in political psychology which runs through every election campaign, everytime, everywhere, including by-elections.

The predominant political ideology of race and racism hasn't changed one bit. Until this changes, until Malaysians rise up as one people and cast their racial markers and racism, nothing in Malaysian politics will ever change.

That's one reminder of the hollowness of the Sibu by-election victory. And I'll bet you any money Lim Kit Siang and Anwar Ibrahim would privately acknowledge. But of course being old political animals with desperation written all over them, they'll hail the victory as resounding nonetheless, and that it demonstrates the maturity of Malaysia's electorates in shedding race and racism for the greater good.

Here's something else. Whilst a victory is a victory is a victory, as diehard fans will no doubt amplify, Pakatan is no more unified today than it was yesterday. Tomorrow is another question altogether. But things just do not augur well for Pakatan. It keeps losing its members of Parliament.

anwar in sibu by election dap forum Anwar ( left ) simply shrugs off those members who leave Pakatan as vermin. Surely one or two have left Pakatan for conscionable reasons, just as some have joined Pakatan for conscionable reasons.

But that's not a good enough reason for Anwar to shrug off Pakatan's political hemorrhages. For one thing it can't afford to be seen to be losing its members. With national elections to be held in 2013, Anwar needs to hold, to build and to consolidate Pakatan, going forward.

Political hemorrhages make voters nervous. Or at the very least swinging voters (and there are many of them, I suspect) would question whether they ought to put their lot behind an opposition alliance that keeps losing from within (even though its seems to be winning seats, albeit by the slimmest margins, on the outside).

These sorts of contradictions will manifest themselves on crunch day. Anwar must not go to a national election with contradictions writ large on the only erstwhile opposition to the inherently corrupt, morally repugnant and malfeasant Umno and Barisan.

Umno and Barisan are united

Like it or not, Umno and Barisan, at the very least, look united, feel united and act united. Which is more than I would say for Pakatan. Things need to change, and change quickly, within Pakatan. The entire coalition needs to revisit its structural strengths as well as its political ideology. And it has to renew and it has to hold together.

On the one hand that's easy to do since Malaysia's overarching political ideology is still race and racism. And so the political psychology looks the same. But it need not. If Pakatan is clever, it'll learn to close if not narrow the chasm. In fact it must. It has no choice - eight from eleven by-elections wins or not.

Umno and Barisan will always exploit the schism of race and racism because they are old and have only old ideas. They are as intellectually as morally bankrupt, which is why they resort to money politics and corruption in all its forms.

Pakatan, however, must make structural changes to itself to exploit otherwise. It must be the complete opposite in every which way. It must be utterly convincing. Racial markers cannot possess it. Nor must it succumb to the politics of short-term self-interests and the imbecility of corruption where money is god. Umno and Barisan's god.

MANJIT BHATIA, an academician and writer, is also research director of AsiaRisk, a political, economic and risk analysis consultancy in Australia. He specialises in international economics and politics, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific.