MP SPEAKS If hudud had been a hot, controversial issue in the last year’s 13th general election, the BN would not only have regained two-thirds parliamentary majority to redelineate electoral constituencies at will, but Pakatan Rakyat might have lost Selangor, while Johore would have reverted to an invincible BN “fixed deposit” state.

The hudud issue has never been, and will never, be a vote winner for PAS based on past electoral evidence.

PAS and PKR won all eight parliamentary seats and 28 out of 32 state seats in Terengganu in the general election of 1999 (GE10) because of the backlash against Umno, arising from Anwar’s arrest and the Reformasi movement.

However, despite passing the state Hudud Enactment in 2001, PAS and PKR only managed to retain one out of eight parliamentary seats and four out of the 28 state seats in GE11 in 2004.

Furthermore, PAS and PKR won four out of eight parliamentary and 15 out of 32 state seats in Terengganu in in GE13, without campaigning explicitly to implement hudud in the state.

In fact, according to the ‘5 Janji Awal Manifesto PAS Terengganu’ and ‘5 Lagi Manifesto PRU13’ for GE13, the issue of hudud was not even mentioned. The failure to mention hudud in the state manifesto did not cause PAS to lose any ground in Terengganu.

What is interesting to note is that even though PAS Terengganu included the implementation of the hudud enactment in the Barisan Alternatif Terengganu Manifesto prior to the GE12 in 2008, this did not win PAS and PKR many more votes and seats in the state.

PAS still won only one Parliament seat and managed to increase the number of state seats from four to eight in the 2008 general election. While the BN’s support fell by 11 percent nationwide, from 2004 to 2008, BN’s support in Terengganu only fell by 0.5 percent.

More importance to issues other than hudud?

Is this not an indication that voters in Terengganu were placing more importance on other issues rather than the implementation of hudud?

What if PAS had insisted that Pakatan included hudud as part of its manifesto prior to GE13?

In the first place, DAP would never have agreed to such a proposal.

However, let us conduct a simple exercise and assume that this was the case prior to GE13.

In such circumstances, the increase in the Malay support for Pakatan would have been negligible.

If hudud would guarantee a significant increase in Malay support for whichever party or coalition that proposes it as part of the manifesto, Umno and  BN would have considered it as a way to save their own waning support.

But, for the sake of argument, let us be generous and assume that Malay support for Pakatan would have increased by one percent.

The damage for Pakatan in terms of its non-Malay support would have been far more significant. Judging from the 1999 GE, where the non-Malay vote would have otherwise turned against the BN if the BN was not so successful in painting the image that a vote for the then Barisan Alternatif was a vote to support an Islamic state, Pakatan’s support for hudud may have decreased non-Malay support for Pakatan by between 10 and 20 percent.

Under Scenario 1, where Pakatan  experiences a 10 percent decrease in non-Malay support versus a one percent increase in Malay support, Pakatan would only have won 70 parliamentary seats or 32 percent of the total seats, compared with the 89 Parliament seats or 40 percent of the seats actually won.

Under Scenario 2, where the non-Malay support for PR decreases by 15 percent, Pakatan would only have won 57 parliamentary seats or 26 percent and under Scenario 3, where the non-Malay support for Pakatan decreases by 20 percent, Pakatan would only have won 46 seats or 21 percent.

Under all three scenarios, PKR would have been the biggest loser, since many of the ethnically mixed PKR seats were won with relatively smaller majorities (compared with the DAP seats).

In all of these three scenarios, Pakatan would have lost out as a whole as the BN  would have regained two-thirds parliamentary majority to enable it to redelineate electoral constituencies at will to perpetuate its undemocratic hold on political power.

What about the state seats? How would the number of state seats won by Pakathan have changed in GE13?

Using the same three scenario calculations, Pakatan would have seen a 40-seat, 63-seat and 95-seat decrease in the number of state seats won by Pakatan under Scenarios 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

Would hudud have saved the Pakatan government in Kedah? The simple answer is ‘no’. In fact, Pakatan would have lost even more state seats if hudud was part of Pakatan’s GE13 manifesto.

Under Scenarios 1 and 2 in Table 3 above, Pakatan would have won only 11 state seats, compared with the 15 which were actually won in GE13. Under Scenario 3, Pakatan would have won a measly six seats as the decrease in the non-Malay support would have cost all three parties many of the marginal seats.

What about Penang and Selangor?

Fortunately, because the majority won by Pakatan in Penang was so large in GE13, Pakatan still managed to hold on to the state government even under Scenario 3 ( see Table 4 below ). The number of seats won by Pakatan would have decreased to 25 (out of 40) under Scenario 3.

For Selangor, the case is not so positive. Under Scenario 3, Pakatan would have lost control of the state government as it would have only won 21 out of 56 state seats. PAS and PKR would have lost the most number of seats under Scenario 3 (compared with DAP).

Pakatan achieved an important breakthrough in the BN ‘fortress’ of Johor by winning five Parliament seats and 18 state seats in GE13, up from one Parliament and six state seats in GE12. Pakatan fell one state seat short of denying the BN a two-third majority in the Johor state legislature.

But if hudud had been part of Pakatan’s manifesto in the 2013 general eletion, this breakthrough would not have occurred. According to the figures in the table below, Pakatan would have just won eight state seats under Scenario 1, seven state seats under Scenario 2 and a mere four state seats under the disastrous Scenario 3, which would have been a worse performance if compared with the 2008 general election.

PAS would have been denied any state representation in the state assembly under Scenario 3.

LIM KIT SIANG is the DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Gelang Patah.