If there ever was a time when a short campaign period was more helpful to the opposition than to the BN, Permatang Pasir would be it.

After reducing PAS’ majority in the Manek Urai by-election to a mere 65 votes, the BN were hoping of a better performance in this by-election, perhaps even thinking that they could capture this constituency from the opposition.

However, from day one of this eight-day campaign, the main issue of contention has been the controversy surrounding Umno candidate Rohaizat Othman regarding his role in an aborted land transaction that ultimately got him struck off the rolls of the Malaysian Bar.

NONE This controversy immediately put the BN on the defensive.

One could make a strong argument that the BN could have gained traction on the ground by attacking Pakatan Rakyat on a number of issues – including disagreements between the DAP and PAS in Selangor on the sale of alcohol in Muslim majority areas, the criticisms of Jamaah Islah Malaysia (JIM) by DAP MP Jeff Ooi, alleged links between a DAP exco member and the triads brought up by a PKR MP no less.

But even without the Rohaizat controversy, it would have been very unlikely for BN to manufacture an upset in Permatang Pasir. Even with a 7% swing in the Malay vote in favour of BN which we saw in Manek Urai, PAS would still have won this constituency with approximately 59% of the popular vote.

And this assumes that the non-Malay voters, which constitute roughly a quarter of all voters, would have voted for BN in more or less the same proportions as 2008.

The extent to which Rohaizat’s candidacy has damaged BN in Permatang Pasir is hard to predict. What is clear is that Umno has been trying to do damage control through much of this campaign.

Two emerging trends

All this attention on Rohaizat has diverted attention away from two trends which have been observed since the tri-elections on April 7.

The first is a small but discernible swing in the Malay vote of between 5% to 7% back to the BN in the Bukit Gantang and the Manek Urai by-elections.

The second is a greater willingness on the part of the Chinese voters to vote for PAS, which was shown by a more than 10% swing in the Chinese vote in favour of PAS in Bukit Gantang.

NONE I believe that both these trends will continue in Permatang Pasir.

The fears raised by Umno that the Malays would lose their rights under a Pakatan-led government have affected the coalition’s image among Malay voters.

Rohaizat’s candidacy will probably limit the increase in the level of BN support to just a few percentage points.

At the same time, the recent death of Teoh Beng Hock would have increased the willingness of the Chinese voters here to support the PAS candidate.

Even though PAS won a majority of the Chinese vote here in the 2008 general election (my estimates put it at approximately 70%), PKR received approximately 1,400 more votes at the parliamentary level, mostly from Chinese voters who were still unwilling to vote for PAS.

I predict that PAS will experience a small increase of up to 5% points in its level of support among the Chinese.

PAS’ margin of victory

Finally, I believe that the overall majority would be most affected by a lower turnout.

NONE The turnout in this seat in 2008 was 84%. I expect turnout to decrease to somewhere between 65% to 70% given that most voters expect this to by-election to result in a comfortable victory for PAS and given that Rohaizat’s candidacy may have turned off some voters from coming to the polls.

The nett result will be a PAS victory of between 4,000 to 4,500 votes.

But Pakatan should not take the results to mean that they can rest on their laurels. They were handed a gift from above in the form of Rohaizat’s candidacy.

They have some ways to go before convincing a sufficient number of Malay voters to switch their vote to Pakatan, which is necessary if Pakatan wants to win a majority of parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia in the next general election.

ONG KIAN MING is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Duke University. He can be reached at im.ok.man@gmail.com.