Does the Berita Harian editorial (July 20) that the Malay votes have swung back to Umno hold water? Let's extrapolate what happened at the recent Pendang by-election.

Both parties — Barisan Nasional and PAS — got roughly 22,500 votes. BN claims that 82 percent of the 3,403 Chinese Malaysian voters voted for it, which comes to about 2,790 votes.

Which means that out of those who voted for BN, 19,710 voters are non-Chinese. Taking into account the large number of Thai Malaysian voters that the mainstream media claimed voted for BN, and not forgetting the Indian Malaysian voters, I just wonder how many Malay Malaysian voters really voted for BN.

As most 'analysts' claimed that hardly any non-Malays voted for PAS, would that mean that almost 100 percent of PAS votes are Malay votes? I wonder where the 'swing', as claimed by the Berita Harian editorial, came from then.

People are cynical about Umno's claims that the party has won the Malay hearts again and that it is the paramount Malay flag bearer in Malaysian politics. If someone can prove the party's claims, I stand corrected on my views.