By Lim Kit Siang, Gelang Patah MP

If hudud had been a hot controversial issue in the 13 General Elections on May 5, 2013, the Barisan Nasional would not only have regained its two-thirds parliamentary majority to redelineate electoral constituencies at will, Pakatan Rakyat might have lost Selangor apart from Kedah and Johore would have reverted as an invincible Barisan Nasional “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 8 parliamentary seats and 28 out of 32 state seats in Terengganu in the 1999 GE / GE10 because of the backlash against UMNO arising from Anwar’s arrest and the Reformasi movement.

But despite passing the state hudud enactment in 2001, PAS and PKR only managed to retain 1 out of 8 parliament seats and 4 out of 28 state seats in the 2004 GE / GE11.

Furthermore, PAS and PKR won 4 out of 8 parliament and 15 out of 32 state seats in GE13 in Terengganu 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 2008 GE, this did not win PAS and PKR many more votes and seats in the state.

PAS still won only one parliament seat and only managed to increase the number of state seats from 4 to 8 in GE2008. While BN’s support fell by 11% nationwide from 2004 to 2008, BN’s support in Terengganu only fell by 0.5%.

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 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 which 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 1%.

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% to 20%.

Under Scenario 1 where PR experiences a 10% decrease in non-Malay support versus a 1% increase in Malay support, PR would only have won 70 parliamentary seats or 32% of total seats compared to the 89 parliament seats or 40% of seats actually won.

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

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 to DAP seats).

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

Table 1: Number of parliament seats PR would have won in GE13 under 3 different scenarios

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

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

Table 2: Number of state seats PR would have won in Peninsular Malaysia in GE13 under 3 different scenarios

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

Table 3: Number of state seats PR would have won in Kedah in GE13 under 3 different scenarios

Under Scenarios 1 and 2 in Table 3 above, PR would have won only 11 state seats compared to the 15 which was actually won in GE13. Under Scenario 3, PR would have won a measly 6 seats as the decrease in the non-Malay support would have cost all three parties many of the marginal seats.

What about the situation in Penang and Selangor?

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

Table 4: Number of state seats PR would have won in Penang in GE13 under 3 different scenarios

For Selangor, the case is not so positive. Under Scenario 3, PR 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 to DAP).

Table 5: Number of state seats PR would have won in Selangor in GE13 under 3 different scenarios

What about the state seats in Johor?

PR achieved an important breakthrough in the BN ‘fortress’ of Johor by winning 5 parliament seats and 18 state seats in GE2013, up from 1 parliament and 6 state seats in GE2008. PR fell one state seat short of denying the BN a 2/3rds majority in the state legislature.

But if hudud had been part of PR’s manifesto in GE2013, this breakthrough would not have occurred. According to the figures in the table below, PR would have just won 8 state seats under Scenario 1, 7 state seats under Scenario 2 and a mere 4 state seats under the disastrous Scenario 3 which would have been a worse performance compared to GE2008. 

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

Table 6: Number of state seats PR would have won in Johor in GE13 under 3 different scenarios