Some fallacies about the Malacca general election result of Nov. 20
There are many fallacies about the outcome of the Malacca general election of November 20, 2021.
Firstly, that it was a landslide victory of UMNO and Barisan Nasional, when it was landslide victory of seats but not of votes – as although the BN won two-thirds majority of the state assembly seats, it won only an infinitesimal increase of 0.55 per cent of the 2018 votes cast to secure 38.39% of the votes in the Malacca general election last Saturday.
Secondly, UMNO leaders expected Perikatan Nasional (PN), in particular Bersatu, to be wiped out in the Malacca general election. Instead, PN secured 24.31% of the votes in the Malacca general election and proved that it is a political force to be reckoned with.
Thirdly, that the Malacca general election results signified the revival of MCA – when in actual fact, MCA joined the Gerakan for their candidates in losing their deposits in the Bandar Hilir and Kota Laksamana seats. Even in the two seats of Klebang and Machap Jaya won by MCA, the win was because of UMNO’s votes rather than MCA’s votes!
However, the Gerakan president Dominic Lau has created history of sorts in being appointed Senator after a disastrous electoral outing in Malacca general election, leading to the resignation of the former Gerakan state youth chief who denounced Lau for incompetence and lack of accountability.
Fourthly, based on the results, Najib Razak and UMNO leaders envisage a landslide victory for Barisan Nasional in the 15th General Election, and the Malacca general election a stepping stone for Najib to return as the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia, causing them to want the 15th General Election to be held early.
This is the reason why Najib is trying very hard to mock the whole idea, desperately trying to keep the question from being pondered by more and more Malaysians whether they want a kleptocrat to return as the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia.
In 2004, Transparency International released the names of the ten most corrupt politicians in the past two decades - led by Suharto of Indonesia, Marcos of Philippines, Mobutu of Zaire, Sani Abacha of Nigeria and Milosevic of Serbia.
If in 2024, Transparency International released a new list of the names of the ten leading Kleptocrats in the past two decades, will Najib’s name be on the list?
It is debatable whether the 15th General Election could replicate the results of the Malacca general election, one of which was the absence of Covid-19 pandemic as an election issue in the Malacca general election.
Many Malaccans mistakenly regard this as a national issue and not a Malacca general election issue.
Yesterday, Malaysia recorded 5,755 daily new Covid-19 cases and 37 Covid-19 deaths, bringing the cumulative totals to 2,602,855 Covid-19 cases and 30,147 (including 6,096 Brought-in-Dead) Covid-19 deaths.
Malaysia’s global ranking in the cumulative number of confirmed cases rose from 89th position on November 18, 2020 to 20th position on September 27, 2021 and it is quite an achievement that in the last two months, we have not overtaken more countries. However, it is a failure of our Covid-19 pandemic strategy that other nations have not overtaken Malaysia’s global ranking.
Malaysia’s deaths per million population is the highest in ASEAN, and the third highest in Asia.
Yesterday, Dr. Milton Lum, past president of the Federation of Private Medical Associations and Malaysian Medical Association, wrote a two-part article on “Fatal Errors in Covid Management” in CodeBlue, referring to “not just a single error, but a series of errors, some of which occurred concurrently that contributed significantly to the cases and deaths”.
He concluded his article with the question:”Who was accountable in Malaysia? Will the unpalatable question of the high number of Covid-19 deaths per capita be addressed?
“How many of the deaths were preventable? What about those who were brought-in-dead? Will there be an independent investigation into Covid-19 management in Malaysia?”
These questions should be answered in the Malacca general election, but they were not. Will the answers be given during the First Hundred Days of Khairy Jamaluddin as the Health Minister on December 7, 2021?
The atrocious handling of the Covid-19 pandemic by the PN/BN governments were not addressed in Malacca general election on Nov. 20, but they will be the focal issues in the 15th General Election!