PKR won the Permatang Pauh by-election yesterday with a reduced majority. But unlike BN in the Rompin by-election, the party can claim a decent victory as it largely retained its share of votes with only a 1.47 percent decline.
This is in contrast to BN which suffered a 4.95 percent drop in vote share in Rompin, just two days before.
Interestingly, PKR's slight decline in Permatang Pauh did not translate into similar gains for BN which only saw an improvement of 0.38 percent in vote share.
Instead, some of the share went to spoilt votes as it increased from 672 in 2013 to 843 in this by-election, an increment of 0.56 percent in vote share.
The increase is unusual as spoilt votes will usually go down with lower turnout, as seen in the Rompin by-election, where spoilt votes reduced from 883 in 2013 to 591 in 2015.
The Permatang Pauh by-election saw a turnout rate of 74.53 compared to 88.3 percent in 2013, which was similarly observed in Rompin as the turnout rate fell from 85.5 percent to 73 percent.
The anomaly may be attributed to sabotage by PAS grassroots despite its central leadership instructing members to back PKR's Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.
Bagan PAS deputy chief Mohd Yusuf Khazali and information chief Azmi Jaafar had called on voters to boycott the polls or spoil their votes.
Azmi even led a delegation to Permatang Pauh urging the electorate to reject a candidate that did not support hudud, in apparent reference to Azizah.
They were ultimately chased out by angry local villagers as they were from the neighbouring parliamentary constituency of Bagan.
But the spoilt votes is an indication that the sabotage likely worked to some extent, albeit having a small impact, particularly in a stronghold like Permatang Pauh, but may pose a problem if it is repeated in marginal seats.
However, to PAS' credit, the party's central leadership including PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu and central committee member Mujahid Yusof Rawa worked tirelessly to aid PKR which helped mitigate the problem.
The remaining share of votes PKR lost went to third party candidates, which was expected, as it was a four-corner fight instead of a three-corner in 2013.
Parti Rakyat Malaysia's Azman Shah Othman and independent candidate Salleh Isahak garnered 0.88 percent of the vote share, an increase of 0.56 percent.
GST factor fizzles
PKR's success in Permatang Pauh is hardly something to boast about about as it appeared to have fell short of what it could have achieved.
Heavy campaign against the goods and services tax (GST), which was effective in partly eroding BN's support in the Rompin by-election, seemingly failed to have the same effect in Permatang Pauh.
Instead, PKR only managed to more or less maintain status quo.
In at least eight polling districts, the swing between BN and PKR was under one percent.
One to three percent of voter swing in either direction was also observed in most other polling districts.
PKR can nevertheless claim slight improvement, having wrested Kampung Belah Dua polling district (91 percent Malay), one of the six polling districts BN won in the last general election. Permatang Pauh has 28 polling districts.
While some BN leaders hailed this as a return of Chinese support to the ruling coalition, local factors may have played a bigger role for the swing. The swing was not replicated in other Chinese-majority areas.
For example, Kampung Cross Street 2, which comprises 76.7 percent Chinese voters, only saw a 3.9 percent swing to BN.
Challenges ahead
Some may argue that PKR could have done better if younger voters who are more sympathetic to the opposition returned home to vote in the latest by-election. They were unable to do so because the polls fell on a working day.
But this is still in stark contrast to the 2008 Permatang Pauh by-election, which also fell on a weekday, where PKR de facto leader Anwar won by a strong 15,671-vote majority and 65.8 percent of total votes, shortly after his ban from politcs expired.
Similarly, when Wan Azizah made her debut as a candidate for Permatang Pauh in 1999, the first time Anwar went to jail, she won with a landslide 9,077-vote majority.
This is higher than her 8,841-majority yesterday, which is also a dip from the 11,721-vote majority Anwar garnered in 2013.
Wan Azizah garnered 30,316 votes compared to BN's Suhaimi Sabudin's 21,475 votes in the latest by-election.
PKR’s failure to make further inroads despite GST and Anwar's jailing suggests a pushback which appears to have cancelled out these factors.
On top of political fatigue among Pakatan Rakyat supporters, PKR had to deal with sabotage from some quarters of PAS while the potential disintegration of Pakatan played in the background.
The fact that PKR failed to boost its win in the face of Anwar's incarceration also raises questions over the former opposition leader's relevance in the political scene.
These problems will likely continue to erode PKR's support and may become more evident when voter anger over the GST and jailing of Anwar subsides.
