YOURSAY | ‘Racial outbursts were not tackled in a quick and decisive manner…’

PAS carries BN across finish line in Cameron Highlands

Gerard Lourdesamy: If the Chinese and Indian voter turnout was as high as the Orang Asli and Malay voter turnout, BN would have lost. It was PAS that ensured the BN victory, given the peculiar demographics of Cameron Highlands.

Pakatan Harapan’s choice of candidate was poor, their campaign was misguided and their overall strategy was non-existent despite being the federal government.

For rural voters, it is all about income and perception. They want regular handouts, fixed subsidies and a decent income from the government. Race and religion are secondary if the government is generous to them.

Harapan failed to use the media as an effective tool to explain their policies to the rural voters. The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd) and Hindu temple riots issues were grossly mishandled by the Harapan government.

The Malay majority parties in the ruling coalition are not pulling their weight. Malay voters want clear assurances that their rights and privileges will be protected in perpetuity by the government, including the sanctity of Islam as the official religion.

Harapan must stop bickering and get on with implementing their manifesto. Promises must be kept. Stop all the U-turns and public disagreements. They are still behaving like the opposition.

Political idealism must be tempered with the reality on the ground after 60 years of indoctrination by Umno and PAS. Good governance means being effective in helping the people notably the lower income and rural population.

Just blaming BN and pointing fingers at them is not going to solve problems. Harapan has been given the power to implement their policies, reforms and changes. Why waste this opportunity and end up being a one-term government?

The PM and all ministers need to buck up, and if not, be shipped out. A cabinet reshuffle is overdue. The sooner the transition takes place the better. People voted for change and a new beginning. Not the same old outdated policies and prescriptions in new wrapping.

The last eight months under Harapan has been dismal. The government seems to be going adrift without purpose and direction. This must end now.

BH Yap: Let this be a lesson to Harapan. Once they won the last election and formed the government, many leaders began to talk funny, criticising and pointing fingers at their own fellow comrades.

Many promises made before the elections were forgotten and excuses given. Government-linked companies (GLCs) were not reformed. The government backtracked and gave in to the extremists.

Racial outbursts were not tackled in a quick and decisive manner, giving the impression that they were condoned in the name of free speech.

The police wavered in many instances instead of acting decisively. Has any attempt been made to resolve the many unexplained and unsolved murder and kidnapping cases under the previous administration? Not that the public has seen any.

Ministers seem more interested in keeping their own positions. This is no government but a group of uncoordinated national leaders shooting in the dark!

Get your act together, Harapan. And Bersatu had better keep the tainted ex-Umno leaders away if they want the rakyat to continue supporting the party.

Anonymous_1404366050: Indeed, the result is not surprising at all. The moment BN placed an Orang Asli candidate (regardless if the person is capable or not), they had checkmated Harapan even before the campaign began.

With the demographic compositions of the constituent, coupled with the less enlightened/educated population as well as race and religion, played the central part of the campaign, there's no way any other contenders can win.

Unless the race-and-religion issue is banned and this is fully enforced, there is no way for there to be an even playing field.

Semenyih in Selangor will be a real testing ground for Harapan to gauge their popularity and effectiveness. But it has to nip the race and religion politicking first.

VP Biden: The true barometer of support can only be analysed after another two or three by-elections. Semenyih, a semi-urban seat, will be interesting to gauge.

In Cameron Highlands, the two state seats of Jelai and Tanah Rata, showed different voting trends. In Malay-majority Jelai, more voters came out than non-Malay majority Tanah Rata.

Tanah Rata voters, by not turning up, tipped the balance to BN. Maybe they were too tired of voting or were making a protest vote, but it will be different in an actual GE.

The 20 percent gain with Orang Asli for Harapan was impressive, more work needed. Race and religion were at the core for Jelai voters, along with palm oil prices down by 20 percent. Harapan did not know how to counter these two issues.

All the hard work being done by Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah, Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok and International Trade and Industry Minister Darell Leiking to engage the European Union in finding a formidable solution to palm oil imports to Europe were not shared with the Felda settlers.

Legislation on race and religion is needed urgently where hate speeches can be curtailed. Minister P Wathyamoorthy said it will be tabled in 2019; let’s see if it happens.

Harapan does not know how to counter BN’s and PAS’ race and religion propaganda, which they are masters at. Harapan Malay leaders need to try a different approach.

Spinnot: Whatever you say cannot change the fact that Bersatu, Amanah and PKR, despite being the ruling parties and having made some attempts to out-do Umno/PAS in playing the race/religion card, are still not able to make inroads in the Malay heartland and deliver the Malay votes to Harapan coalition.

After five decades of brainwashing the Malays by Umno (more than two decades of which under Dr Mahathir Mohamad), you now expect to change their mindset overnight? You reap what you sow.

Cogito Ergo Sum: The longer the cases against Najib drag on, the backlash of a conviction will be worse. Umno/BN has successfully painted Harapan as a party dominated by non-Muslims in the DAP.

The failure of Harapan to dispel this notion quickly will soon spell disaster for the government in all future by-elections. Harapan leaders are rank amateurs in the perception game with no machinery to counter Umno’s propaganda of lies.

The truth alone, without being made known, is insufficient against the well-crafted lies of the opposition.

Prudent: Harapan, please galvanise your support base in middle Malaysia and stop catering to the Umno-PAS’ support base of racial-religious extremists.

And with brisk economic growth extended even to the rural areas, Umno-PAS support base of religious and racial extremists will dwindle.

Yoursay: Umno-PAS combo hard to beat in the hinterlands

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