DID PAS ‘LOSE’ THE ROMPIN BY-ELECTION?

And this is why DAP needs to understand the Malay mind if it wants to form a coalition with PAS. How can you have a successful marriage if you do not understand how your partner thinks? The Malays say, Alhamdulillah we have half a glass of water, while Teng Chang Khim says, celaka the glass is half empty.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Teng Chang Khim of DAP said that Hudud did not help PAS win the Rompin by-election. In other words, PAS lost the Rompin by-election because Hudud was not acceptable to the Rompin voters.

That is probably one way of looking at it. When you have half a glass of water you can either say the glass is half full or you can say it is half empty. It all depends on how you look at things. A negative person will look at it as half empty. A positive person will say it is half full.

A negative person would say PAS did not win the Rompin by-election. An even more negative person would say PAS lost the Rompin by-election. A positive person would say PAS managed to retain its votes in the Rompin by-election.

How could PAS lose the Rompin by-election? PAS had never ‘owned’ the Rompin seat for so many decades. It had always been an Umno seat. So how could PAS lose something it had never owned? You can only lose something if you had owned it in the first place.

So Hudud is the reason why PAS did not win or PAS lost the Rompin by-election. Is Teng Chang Khim saying that had PAS publicly announced it was dropping the Hudud agenda and is no longer pursuing the issue it would have won Rompin? Or would PAS still not have won Rompin anyway?

How many more votes would PAS have won had it dropped Hudud? Or would PAS actually have won the seat had it dropped Hudud? Or is Teng Chang Khim saying had PAS used another issue instead of Hudud then Umno would have lost that by-election?

Did Teng Chang Khim conduct an exit poll? Were the voters asked whom they voted for and the reason why they voted that way? And did the voters confirm they voted for Umno because they were not happy with Hudud?

Teng Chang Khim is one of the more senior leaders in DAP and he should, therefore, make more responsible statements. If he says something it has to be based in facts and not just a spin to give an impression that the failure of PAS is because of Hudud.

I suppose, considering that Hudud is a very negative factor, then PKR should be able to win the Permatang Pauh by-election today with a majority of 15,000-16,000 votes like it did in the 2008 by-election. After all, PKR does not have a Hudud agenda and the non-Malay voting population in Permatang Pauh is far higher than in Rompin.

So let us see what happens tonight. We only have about seven hours or so to go. Will PKR win with a 15,000-16,000-vote majority like in the 2008 by-election since it is not in support of Hudud?

Anyway, PAS did not lose Rompin. PAS never owned Rompin so it cannot lose what it never owned. What PAS did own in Rompin was roughly 15,000 votes. And it did not lose those 15,000 or so votes. So PAS lost nothing.

In 2013, PAS won in only one of the 38 polling districts. This time around PAS won in four of the 38 polling districts. So PAS improved.

In 2013, PAS won 15,000 votes on an 86% voter turnout. This time around PAS still won 15,000 votes but on a much reduced 73% voter turnout. Hence PAS’s share of votes actually increased although it still won the same number of votes considering that the voter turnout reduced by 13%. PAS’s share of votes did not reduce by 13% but by just 25 votes.

So, as I said, is the glass half full or half empty? That depends on whether you have a negative brain or a positive brain. Maybe it is because I am Malay that I always look at things positively compared to how Teng Chang Khim looks at things.

I find Chinese always look at things as bad luck or bad fungshui. Malays are weird. We always look at things from the positive angle.

When we crash our car we say Alhamdulillah (praise to Allah) no one got hurt. If someone gets hurt we say Alhamdulillah no one died. If someone died we say Alhamdulillah he/she died immediately and with no pain. If someone did not die immediately we say Alhamdulillah he/she did not die immediately and the family all managed to see him/her before he/she died.

As I said, Malays are weird. Everything is seen as positive and we praise Allah (Alhamdulillah) whatever may happen in the end.

Malays would say Alhamdulillah PAS still managed to retain the same number of votes. Malays would say Alhamdulillah PAS saw an increase in three polling districts. Malays would say Alhamdulillah PAS saw an increase in its share of votes.

Malays would not say celaka PAS did not win the Rompin by-election like how Teng Chang Khim would say.

And this is why DAP needs to understand the Malay mind if it wants to form a coalition with PAS. How can you have a successful marriage if you do not understand how your partner thinks? The Malays say, Alhamdulillah we have half a glass of water, while Teng Chang Khim says, celaka the glass is half empty.

No, PAS will celebrate the ‘win’ in Rompin while DAP mourns the loss.