A DAP lawmaker has expressed his fears that Barisan Nasional’s (BN) landslide victory during the Melaka state election may mark the possible return of Datuk Seri Najib Razak to his former post as the country’s prime minister.
“The most ominous implication of the Melaka state election is that Najib may become the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia after the 15th general election (GE15),” Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang said.
“Is this what Malaysians deserve, to get rid of the man who made Malaysia infamous as a ‘kleptocracy at its worst’ only to take him back four years later as a saviour of the nation, free of all corruption charges and to install a model kleptocracy for the world?”
Lim’s statement comes after BN’s landslide victory at the Melaka state election last weekend in which BN officially won the state assembly with a two-thirds majority.
BN won 21 seats – 18 UMNO, two MCA and one MIC – while Pakatan Harapan (PH) won five seats, down from 15 in the previous general election.
Federal Opposition leader and PH chairman Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s PKR was wiped out while DAP and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) saw their seats reduced by half, winning four seats and one seat respectively.
Meanwhile, Perikatan Nasional (PN) had managed to secure two seats thanks to Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) while its component parties PAS and Gerakan had failed to win any seats.
Lim however went on to point out that despite the landslide victory, BN failed to gain the mandate of most Melakans to rule the state due to low vote shares and a lower voter turnout.
“BN won a two-thirds majority of the seats in the Melaka state assembly, but it did not win two-thirds of the votes cast in the polls on Nov 20, 2021.
“In fact, BN secured only 38.39% of the votes cast, an infinitesimal increase of 0.55% of the votes cast, compared to the 2018 general election.
“Clearly, the BN does not have the mandate of the majority of Melakans, let alone a two-thirds majority from the Malaccans to rule the state,” Lim added.
The voter turnout in the Melaka state election is 19% lower than in the 14th general election (GE14) – 83.52% in GE14 as opposed to 64.56% in the recent Melaka state election.
According to Lim, DAP lost Pengkalan Batu by 131 votes, lost Duyong by 200 votes and lost Gadek by 559 votes; PKR lost Paya Rumput by 629 votes, lost Kelebang by 876 votes, lost Machap Jaya by 938 votes, lost Rembia by 860 votes; Amanah lost Durian Tunggal by 559 votes; Bersatu lost Tanjung Bidara by 364 votes and lost Pantai Kundar by 827 votes while PAS lost Serkam by 789 votes.
“If these 11 seats had been won by Harapan and PN, the distribution of seats among the three coalitions in Malacca on polling day would have been Harapan 13, BN 10 and PN five,” he remarked. – Nov 23, 2021
Photo credit: The Star
