Opposition has more than just 'sexy issues' to worry about
YOURSAY | ‘Reflect on your stupidity and immaturity, treat this disgraceful episode as a good lesson.
’Voters turned off by DAP's 'lack of sexy issues'
Headhunter: People were fed up with the disunity due to the grabbing of seats between DAP and PKR. The biggest factor influencing the result is, of course the Adenan Satem factor. One must admit the Sarawak chief minister made all the right moves.
There is a lesson for premier Najib Abdul Razak to learn from this election; that using racial and religious issues will not win him votes from non-Muslims. As for PAS, Hadi being in Sarawak and saying that only a Malay should be the chief minister, had only put people off.
But it's a pity that Adenan's victory is a bit hollow due to his bullying tactic of barring opposition big guns from entering the state. Not that it made any difference to the final result.
Sarawakian: Sarawak DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen, I know you personally. I voted for you this election, my wife voted PKR in Batu Lintang. We gave donations to DAP Sarawak too. But get your act together, make amends with PKR. They are good people too.
Move forward, and don't disappoint the rakyat with blame games. As PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli said, there is a silver lining, lose this battle to win the war. The enemy is not Adenan but Najib.
Adenan is a good fellow when not pressured by Najib. Maybe now he will have breathing space to be his own man. I am sure he will not treat Sarawakians badly at least for the next five years. And Najib is sure to make good on his promises and give us all the goodies with GE14 around the corner.
Don't Worry Be Happy: Yes the reason for Pakatan Harapan's failure is the non-cooperation of its coalition partners, particularly, PKR and DAP.
Both parties deserve the humiliation and shame. Behaving like grown-up kids. Irresponsible upstarts, did you not realise you were playing with our lives and our children's future? Reflect on your stupidity and immaturity, treat this disgraceful episode as a good lesson.
Rick Teo: Sarawak voters not turned off by lack of sexy issues. Sarawakians are a stupid lot. For over 30 years they have been voting the same party to govern them and despite all the corruption, they still didn't opt for change.
What can we do? They are just destined to be a poor, deprived community living in abject poverty. No one but themselves to blame. The losses by DAP and PKR were not due to infighting. From the start, the opposition did not have a level playing field. Many were banned from going to Sarawak.
It was a dirty fight from the beginning and the Sarawakians were fooled by all the promises made by Adenan and Najib. Only when the cost of living goes up, taxes increase, costs of electricity and daily essentials rocket up, would only the Sarawakians realise they had been fooled.
This will begin when the debts of 1MDB will have to be paid by taxpayers' money. The first step has already begun. The transfer of 1MDB can only mean that all future debts previously incurred by 1MDB will now be the responsibility of the Finance Ministry, which has taken over 1MDB.
This means whatever debts that have been incurred by 1MDB, will now have to be paid by Finance Ministry and this means taxpayers' money.
Kheng: Both analysts completely ignored the fact that all the opposition bigwigs that would have made a difference to the outcome, were barred from entering Sarawak. Besides, the recent delineation exercise ensured that the opposition-held seats were diluted of opposition supporters.
No Pain No Gain: Development is a major issue for the people in rural areas. Only the incumbent coalition can support them in basic areas involving infrastructure. In the urban areas, they have the luxury of asking for democracy, because they already have these things in place.
They can be idealistic, they can want something different. That is why they care about 1MDB and other national issues.
Just a Malaysian: Incumbency and money are very powerful tools in countries with underdeveloped voters. Cash is king. The Opposition were hampered from all sides and fighting an uphill battle. Overall, the result does show the Sarawakians mainly prefer the status quo.
Pemerhati: BN’s victory in Sarawak should be viewed from a correct perspective. Essentially, BN won because the elections were not fairly conducted. Bridget Welsh in her article ‘A ‘fixed’ result - Sarawak’s electoral distortions’, said, “Malaysia is considered among the worst in the world for the practice of malapportionment, as not only are votes not equal, but this inequality has been used systematically by long-ruling coalition the BN, to stay in power.”
For instance in urban Pelawan, where the electorate is more sophisticated and not easily influenced by BN’s lies and false propaganda there are 32,000 voters and they are unlikely to vote for BN. In rural Sadong Jaya where the simple folk are easily brainwashed and not aware of BN’s massive loss of billions, there are only 6,700 voters and they are likely to vote for BN.
This is like having a football game where BN has about four times as many players or 11 players against only three in the opposition. BN will never lose such a game.
Anticonmen: The fate of the country is in the hands of these simple rurals who are kept ignorant, poor and controlled, for the sake of their votes.
DAP and PKR lost because of gerrymandering, cheating, short campaign period, access denied for Opposition politicians, police votes, postal votes, bribing, intimidation of voters, timber mafia, stuffing ballot boxes, abusing government machinery, and false promises.
Anonymous #45522856: Most opposition bigwigs were barred from entering Sarawak, or else results might have been different.
Mojo Jojo: Yes, I agree, the analysis is uncannily accurate. DAP and PKR lost solely due to disunity and lack of sexy issues. It has nothing to do with severe lack of access to rural areas via choppers, nothing to do with barring federal opposition from entering Sarawak, nothing to do with ang pows, green pows, or any pow wows.
Yup, nothing to do with the above. No, siree.
Spinnot: Sexy issues my foot. Sarawak is not peninsular Malaysia and is also different from Sabah. The voters there don't give a damn about any "national" issue unless it directly affects the state. Most of the rural voters don't understand your "national" issues anyway. Sarawakians are very independent-minded and many have strong anti-peninsula feelings.
Legit: It is time to kick out both the groups of clowns, i.e. BN and Pakatan Harapan from the corridors of power. Malaysians have to rethink how they want the political landscape to be.
All the right thinking, moderate, non-corrupt and non-tainted leaders from both sides of the peninsula should come together, including the politically, economically and socially conscious technocrats and civil society leaders, and form an alliance to take over the government.
Let the extremists, the corrupted, murderers, thieves and bigots form their own parties and alliances. It will be the good against the ugly, no more along racial and religious lines. This is the only way for the country to move forward and be a key player in the international arena.
Azlan Ahmad: It looks like the opposition has to close shop in Sarawak for good. Don't waste time. Work on Sabah now. If you all fail, then close shop in Sabah also. Just concentrate on peninsular. If you fail again, then you all might as well just forget it all.
Apa Nama: To be frank, DAP is now slightly arrogant after capturing Penang and PKR is also slightly arrogant after capturing Selangor. These two parties need to ensure their successes do not go to their heads.
Currently enjoying their new-found power and fame, these two parties need to put their foot down. Even peninsular voters also will kick DAP and PKR out if they try to be funny.
Anonymous_1371479577: Yes, this is a slap for the Opposition. Agree that the Sarawak chiefs of PKR and DAP should take responsibility and resign for the loss.
The voters were clearly disappointed with the opposition for their infighting.
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