With the Permatang Pauh seat won with a comfortable majority yesterday, analysts say Pakatan Rakyat should now turn its attention towards healing the rifts within the coalition.

 

Otherwise, according to Penang Institute fellow Wong Chin Huat, the voting trends in the Sungai Lembu polling district could be a sign of things to come.

 

The district is a small rural area with just a little more than 533 voters, of whom 98.69 percent are Chinese, according to 2013 data.

 

The area experienced a vote swing of 13.8 percent in BN’s favour during yesterday’s by-election.

 

Wong pointed out the voter turnout in the district yesterday was about 60 percent, which is well below its turnout of nearly 90 percent during the 13th general election and yesterday's Permatang Puah average turnout of 74.53 percent.

 

“They (the Sungai Lembu voters) may not be very happy with Pakatan, but could not bring themselves to vote for BN. Therefore they did not turn up to vote, and I believe that factor has to do mostly with PAS.

 

“That should be a concern to Pakatan (and) to both DAP and PKR, because what could be a trend in the next election is that they may not vote for BN. They could just stay at home and that is enough for the likes of Gerakan to claim that (its vote share has increased),” Wong ( right ) told Malaysiakini when contacted last night.

 

Pakatan’s election campaigning in Permatang Pauh had been blotted with infighting surrounding PAS’ push to implement hudud in Kelantan.

 

This had included calls by grassroots PAS leaders to boycott the election over the issue, although the call was later retracted.

 

Wong, a political scientist, said episodes like this might have frightened voters who do not support hudud.

 

No gains from BN anger

 

Meanwhile, Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) CEO Wan Saiful Wan Jan agreed that Pakatan now needs to resolve its infighting.

 

Wan Saiful said though the fact that PKR had been able to maintain its level of support is reason for hope for Pakatan, it has, at the same time, failed to gain new supporters.

 

“It shows that national issues may affect BN supporters who may decide not to vote, but they are definitely not going to vote for Pakatan.

 

“It shows that despite all the anger towards BN, Pakatan is still not getting any more new voters.

 

“You are not seeing an increase in support at a time when you are supposed to get increased support,” Wan Saiful told Malaysiakini when contacted last night.

 

PKR’s Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail won yesterday's by-election with a 8,841 vote majority.

 

Although this represents a reduced majority for the party, compared with the 13th general election, the percentage of votes for Pakatan and BN saw no major shifts between the two elections.

Notably though, PKR’s popular vote dropped slightly by 1.47 percent and BN gained 0.38 percent.

Both coalitions in trouble

 

However, Wong said Pakatan is not the only coalition in trouble, and the Permatang Pauh voting patterns seem to indicate BN is faring worse with its own infighting.

 

He said although former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad continued to attack current Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s administration during the campaign period, at least neither he nor his supporters were campaigning in Permatang Pauh, unlike Pakatan’s experience with some disgruntled PAS members.

 

“While both camps (BN and Pakatan) are in trouble, it looks like Umno’s trouble is bigger.

"With Kak Wan (Wan Azizah), even I felt that she might win much more narrowly, but she made it.

 

“Najib has some big questions to answer including both the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB)," he said.

At the same time, Wong noted that BN had failed to capitalise and exploit Wan Azizah's problems.