By Nga Kor Ming
The people of Teluk Intan has spoken. We put up a good fight and lost narrowly against the entire Barisan Nasional machinery. The Teluk Intan by-election was a battle of new politics and old politics. The battle has ended but the war has just begun.
Despite the defeat, we planted the seed for a new Malaysia. We did not fail. We have yet to succeed. This is the beginning of something big that is about to happen. Malaysia 2.0 is in the making. The results of Teluk Intan by election show that we have managed to break the voting trend across racial lines though we failed to achieve our ultimate aim, to win the by-election.
We conceded that there is a drop of votes from all races, though the percentage of drop vary across races and ballot box. However the main factor of us not able to defend the Teluk Intan seat is due to the low turn out rate. the 67.4% turnout rate is 13% lower than the 80.4% turnout rate in last year election. This translates to about 7863 votes, which is higher than the majority we achieved in the last election. The majority of outstation voters who did not cast their vote are incline to support Pakatan Rakyat.
Najib dangle the carrot in front of the Teluk Intan voters two days before polling day by promising Mah a cabinet post should Gerakan recapture the seat. The minister trump card coupled with the development promise and millions of funds allocations managed to swing the votes. Preliminary analysis shows that Chinese votes drop from 85% to 70%. Malay voting pattern differs from ares. We managed to increase Malay support in some areas from 34% to 39% but in certain areas our support was as low as 14%. We managed to secured 50% of Indian votes compare to 61% last round.
The Batu 12 village suffered a massive blow from last election and is decisive of the outcome in this by-election. We went down from winning 550 votes to losing 70 votes, a swing of 620 votes. This is due to MCA and Gerakan who manage to solve the local issues in Batu 12 village. It is of much regret that the voters of Teluk Intan lost the chance to send a strong message to Barisan Nasional and look beyond local issues instead of the country long term political cause.
Pakatan Rakyat should now focus on our common agenda to regain middle ground. The Teluk Intan by-election results show that the hudud issue which is brought up by Barisan Nasional managed to slash Pakatan Rakyat support. Pakatan Rakyat should stop advancing individual party agenda and instead look at the big picture to regain the trust and confidence of all Malaysians.
The Teluk Intan by-election can be a bittersweet defeat for Pakatan Rakyat if we learn the lessons and continue to strengthen Pakatan Rakyat. If Teluk Intan were meant to be a battle to lose so we can see the big picture to win the war and capture Putrajaya, so be it. We will never give up and continue the fight to bring a meaningful change to all Malaysians.
Nga Kor Ming is the MP for Taiping, DAP national assistant treasurer and Perak DAP state chairman.
