Seats of contention between PKR and DAP

I am sure that many Malaysiakini readers were concerned upon reading various reports that seat negotiations between PKR and DAP for the upcoming Sarawak state elections had broken down because of disagreement over four seats.

The four are Batu Kawah in the Stampin parliamentary constituency, Balai Ringin in the Sri Aman parliamentary constituency, Dudong in the Lanang parliamentary constituency and Piasau in the Miri parliamentary constituency.

Two other seats of contention - Padungan in the Bandar Kuching parliamentary constituency and Senadin in the Miri parliamentary constituency - seems to have been conceded by the DAP to PKR.

Arguments can be made on both sides as to why they are better suited to contest in these disputed seats. The purpose of this article is to discuss and evaluate these arguments based on past election results.

This is not an easy article for me to write since I know it will ruffle the feathers of many of my friends, especially those in PKR. In addition, I value and respect the ideals espoused by both PKR and DAP, and I admire and respect leaders of both parties who have worked tirelessly in Sarawak in their efforts to combat the hegemony of the Abdul Taib Mahmud-led government that has been in power for 30 years (and counting).

But write this I must, especially in light of the utmost importance of avoiding three-cornered fights among the main opposition parties during this crucial state election where the BN is particularly vulnerable, and which can potentially turn the tide for the opposition in the rest of the country in the next general election.

Let me start with the argument as to why PKR should contest in all of the six state seats highlighted above.

The PKR's case

PKR has shown, at least in Peninsular Malaysia, that it is the only genuinely multi-racial party that is Malay-led but is inclusive enough to attract a significant number of non-Malay Chinese and Indian members and leaders.

Indeed, despite the six parliamentary and five state legislative ‘defections' since March 2008, PKR is still the only political party in Peninsular Malaysia to have Malay, Chinese and Indian representatives at both parliamentary and state levels.

For PKR to present itself as a multi-racial party that is capable of leading the nation at the federal level, it must have a multi-racial representation at the state level, especially in multiracial states like Selangor, Perak and Sarawak.

As such, PKR cannot be expected to only contest in the Dayak and Malay/Melanau majority seats. It must be allocated a certain number of Chinese-majority seats, so the argument goes, to be able to present itself as a Dayak-led (in the case of Sarawak at least) but multi-racial party.

Furthermore, if DAP continues to hog and go on to win most, if not all, of the Chinese-majority seats in Sarawak, it will lead to the weakening of Pakatan in Peninsular Malaysia, especially among the Malay voters because of the stoking of fears that DAP is the dominant party within Pakatan.

Finally, PKR has identified a few high calibre Chinese candidates whom they can field in these Chinese-majority seats and who stand a good chance of capturing these seats.

While these arguments sound reasonable and plausible (especially in the medium to long term), they can be refuted for the upcoming Sarawak state election with one simple counter-argument - that the opposition chances of winning almost all of these seats decrease significantly if PKR rather the DAP were to field a candidate.

Numbers don't lie

The premise of this argument is simple. Where we can compare differences in the vote share obtained by PKR at the state level in the 2006 Sarawak state election and by DAP at the parliamentary level in 2008, the results are always favourable to DAP, at least in the four Chinese majority/plurality seats of Padungan, Batu Kawah, Piasau and Senadin.

Padungan

Let's start with the state seat of Padungan. It is clear, based on the 2006 Sarawak state and 2008 Sarawak parliamentary results, that more voters in the state seat of Padungan prefer to vote for a DAP compared to a PKR candidate.

N9 Padungan , is part of the Bandar Kuching parliamentary seat. N10 Pending is the other state seat in this parliamentary constituency. Padungan is 92% Chinese, whereas Pending is 91% Chinese.

In the 2006 state elections, the PKR candidate, Dominique Ng, won Padungan with 54.4% of the popular vote. Meanwhile, in the Pending state seat, the DAP candidate, Violet Yong ( left ), won her seat with 61.3% of the popular vote.

In these two seats with almost the same percentage of Chinese voters, DAP won the Pending state seat with 7% more of the popular vote compared to PKR in Padungan. And PKR cannot even use the excuse that Padungan was a more difficult seat to win for PKR compared to Pending.

In the 2001 Sarawak state election, the BN won Padungan with only 52.3% of the popular vote while it won Pending with 62.2% of the popular vote (albeit in a three-cornered fight featuring Dominique Ng, left , and Voon Lee Shan).

In other words, PKR could only obtain a 6.7% in the popular support for the opposition from the 2001 to 2006 Sarawak state elections in Padungan, where DAP managed to obtain a 23.5% swing in the popular support for the opposition from 2001 to 2006 in the state seat of Pending.

The greater popularity of the DAP vis-à-vis PKR becomes even clearer when we examine the 2008 parliamentary results in the parliamentary seat of Kuching.

In the polling stations in the Padungan state seat, the DAP won 68.3% of the popular vote, a difference of 13.9% compared to the PKR total in 2006. By contrast, the DAP won 63.5% of the popular vote in the Pending state seat, an improvement of only 2.2% from DAP's own performance in the 2006 Sarawak state election.

One could say, of course, that the DAP parliamentary candidate, Chong Chieng Jen, is far more popular than either the PKR or the DAP candidates who contested in the 2006 state elections. If this was the case, then the increase in the DAP's vote share from 2006 to 2008 would have been similar and not the 13.9% in Pandugan and a mere 2.2% in Pending.

One should also consider that the DAP conceded Padungan to PKR in the 2006 Sarawak state elections, which based on the 2001 results, was the easier of the two state seats in the Bandar Kuching parliamentary constituency to win.

The Padungan state assemblyman would repay DAP's generosity by campaigning against the DAP in the parliamentary constituency of Stampin in the 2008 general election, where the PKR candidate would go on to lose his deposit (more on this below).

The decision by the DAP to concede Padungan to PKR cannot be seen as a mere gesture of PKR's incumbency in that seat, especially in light of the lawsuits between Ng and Chong Chieng Jen ( right ), the DAP MP for Bandar Kuching and Adun for Kota Sentosa, and Ng and DAP vice-chairperson Chong Siew Chian, over allegations of defamation.

Furthermore, if Dominique Ng were to be dropped as the PKR candidate in Padungan, which is not out of the question given his own deteriorating relationship with the PKR state and national leaders, DAP would be best placed to win this seat in a three-cornered fight featuring Ng as an independent candidate.

Batu Kawah

PKR managed to only win 27% of the popular vote in the N13 Batu Kawah state seat in the 2006 Sarawak state elections.

Batu Kawah is one of the three state seats in the parliamentary seat of Stampin, a 78% Chinese-majority seat, which the DAP could have arguably won in the 2008 general elections if not for the presence of a three-cornered fight featuring a PKR candidate, who failed to even hold on to his deposit.

PKR's weak claim to hold on to the Batu Kawah state seat can be further illustrated when we examine the split voting difference between the 2006 Sarawak state and the 2008 general election results.

In N11 Batu Lintang and N12 Kota Sentosa , both seats which the DAP won in 2006, the DAP actually won a smaller percentage of the popular vote at the parliamentary level in 2008, partly because of the presence of PKR. But in the state seat of Batu Kawah, the DAP actually won 6.7% more votes in 2008 compared to PKR in 2006 despite the presence of the PKR candidate in 2008.

Furthermore, PKR won the fewest votes (in absolute and percentage terms) in the Batu Kawah state seat. If PKR had more of a grassroots presence in Batu Kawah, given that it had contested the seat in 2006, then surely it should have won more votes in Batu Kawah.

Surely if PKR was the better party to win a greater proportion of the 40% non-Chinese vote (divided more or less equally between Malay/Melanau and Dayak voters), it would have won more votes in Batu Kawah.

Batu Kawah is a winnable seat for the opposition but not with a PKR candidate.

Piasau and Senadin

N63 Piasau and N65 Senadin are state seats in the parliamentary constituency of P219 Miri. N64 Pujut is the other state seat in this constituency.

PKR contested both seats in 2006, only managing to win 28.5% and 24.5% of the vote in Piasau and Senadin respectively. One could make the argument that both seats were tough seats for PKR because the SUPP candidate in Piasau is George Chan, the deputy chief minister, and Senadin is only a 50% Chinese seat.

By contrast, N64 Pujut is an easier seat for the DAP because it does not feature a SUPP heavyweight and it is also a 70% Chinese-majority seat. The DAP won 43.8% of the popular vote in this seat in 2006.

But the argument that the DAP is better placed to contest in both Piasau and Senadin becomes clear when we examine the difference between the 2006 and 2008 election results.

In Piasau and Senadin, the DAP parliamentary candidate in 2008 won 13.8% and 14.7% more votes respectively compared to the PKR candidates in the 2006 state elections. By contrast, in Pujut, which the DAP contested in 2006, the increase in the popular vote share obtained by the DAP was a mere 3.4%.

SUPP is particularly vulnerable in Piasau because of the high percentage of Chinese voters as well as the perception that George Chan has tied his fate too closely to that of Taib Mahmud's.

But the DAP is in better position to capture this seat, not PKR, as seen by these results.

Dudong

Unlike the other four seats above, PKR did not compete in N46 Dudong state seat in the 2006 state elections. The DAP lost this seat, one of the two state seats in the parliamentary seat of Lanang, by a mere 408 votes in this 53% Chinese-majority seat.

Rumours abound that the SUPP incumbent, Dr Soon Choon Teck, may be replaced and even if he isn't, his long-standing party feud with Wong Soon Koh, the N47 Bawang Assan state assemblyman (Sibu state seat) may result in internal party sabotage tactics that will cause Soon to lose his state seat.

Given these circumstances and given DAP's better established presence in this area and the presence of local leaders (DAP state chairman Wong Ho Leng ( right ) is the N45 Bukit Assek state assemblyman, the other state seat in the Lanang parliamentary constituency as well as the Sibu member of parliament), it is not hard to make the argument that the DAP is better placed to win this seat compared to PKR.

Balai Ringin

N25 Balai Ringin is an 88% Iban-majority state seat under the Sri Aman parliamentary constituency. N26 Bukit Begunan and N27 Simanggang are the other two state seats in this parliamentary constituency.

The BN-PRS candidate won this seat with 56.4% of the popular vote against a Snap and an independent candidate in the 2006 state elections. In the 2008 parliamentary election, the BN-PRS candidate for the Sri Aman parliamentary seat won 61.3% in the polling stations in the Balai Ringin state seat.

This seat is probably the seat where DAP's claim to be able to do better than PKR is the weakest. But there are at least two reasons as to why DAP would be in a better position to win this seat compared to PKR.

Firstly, the unprecedented move of 10 tuai rumah or longhouse chiefs, who officially joined the DAP, together with 620 members, in 2010. This public declaration of support for the DAP is especially dangerous for longhouse chiefs because it exposes them to possible recrimination and punishment from the state government.

Secondly, the potential of internal PKR sabotage if the party's preferred candidate, Ibi Uding, the former PKR Wanita chief in Sarawak, is chosen over Cobbold John, a two-time former independent candidate (once in 2006, where he contested against Ibi Uding, who stood as a Snap opposition candidate).

The bad blood between these two PKR local leaders is well-known. In contrast, the DAP is united behind the candidacy of Augustine Terban Ngchangak, the pro-tem chairman of DAP's Balai Ringin branch.

It's not too late

Finally, one has to take note that PKR is not the same party as it was just after the historic March 2008 general election.

Its public reputation has taken a number of significant hits because of the many high-profile defections of MPs, Aduns and former national leaders like Zaid Ibrahim and the many problems associated with the internal party elections which took place at the end of 2010.

The fear that some PKR candidates may ‘jump ship' after winning their seats will be an important consideration for the voters, especially those in the urban areas.

The PKR party ‘discount' which was already evident when we examine the 2006 and 2008 election results, will only increase in upcoming Sarawak state elections which further reinforces the notion that the DAP will do better than PKR in the seats mentioned above.

It is not too late for PKR and DAP to come to an agreement. But the basis of this agreement has to be sound. The understanding must be that the opposition coalition must, at the very minimum, deny BN two-thirds control of the Sarawak state legislature.

This means that the DAP should be allowed to contest in Batu Kawah, Dudong, Piasau and Balai Ringin because it is best placed to win these seats. In return, the DAP should try its level best to support PKR's candidates in Padungan and Senadin.

Seat negotiations between PKR and DAP should, theoretically at least, be simpler than seat negotiations between PKR and Snap, because there are fewer seats at stake. I foresee that it will be almost impossible to avoid three-cornered fights between Snap and PKR.

But if PKR and DAP, especially in light of their experience of resolving seat allocation problems in Peninsular Malaysia, cannot resolve their seat differences amicably to avoid three-cornered fights, even the minimum goal of denying BN its two-thirds control of the Sarawak state legislature will be in jeopardy.

It is time for the PKR leadership to act. To put it more specifically and bluntly, it is time for Anwar Ibrahim to act.

 

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