The BN can no consider any state in Malaysia a fixed deposit - including Sabah, Sarawak, and Johor - as the 13th general election has shown that even these states had significant swings towards Pakatan Rakyat, says DAP election strategist Ong Kian Ming.

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Ong ( right ) pointed out that of all the states in Malaysia, voters in Johor swung the most to Pakatan, from 34.7 percent to 45 percent, an increase of 10.3 percent in support.

Furthermore, he said the second highest swing for Pakatan was another so-called BN fixed-deposit state, which saw votes for the opposition coalition increasing from 28.3 percent to 37.3 percent, an increase of 8.9 percent.

"With an increased number of state seats, especially in front line states of Johor, Sabah and Sarawak...and with a significant decrease in the level of BN support in these states, the BN cannot consider these states as fixed deposits any longer," he said.

 

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Ong, who is also newly-minted Serdang MP, was speaking during a press conference at the DAP headquarters this morning.

As for Sabah, he said that while the increase of support for Pakatan Rakyat was only 3.4 percent, the decrease for BN was 6.6 percent as the difference was taken up by independents and other local-based parties there.

Emphasising his point, Ong presented a eight seats in Sarawak which had a Dayak population between 82.8 percent to 42.7 percent and in all of them, BN's support was reduced between 10.1 to 23.6 percent.

Despite the reduction of more than 10 percent of support for BN there, Ong noted that it was insufficient for Pakatan to capture the eight seats, but came very close in Saratok and Baram.

 

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'Erosion of BN's support likely to continue'

"In my analysis, as long as BN does not have the political will to resolve local issues like land grab and the building of dams, the Dayak-majority and Dayak-plurality seats will likely continue to see a decrease of support for BN in future," he said.

Similarly in Sabah, Ong pointed out that BN saw a reduction of more than 10 percent of support in seven seats, consisting of almost 100 percent Muslim and non-Muslim bumiputeras.

"At the state level, Pakatan managed to win 11 seats, six of which were in non-Chinese majority or plurality areas.

"If multiple-cornered fights can be avoided in future, Pakatan can build on its current representation of three MPs and 11 state assemblypersons to make further inroads in Sabah.”

Pakatan won the parliamentary seats of Kota Kinabalu, Penampang and Sandakan in Sabah.

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