Umno’s fixed deposit

So stop flogging the Indians, Chinese and Malays from West Malaysia. Sure, try to increase the votes another few percentage points by all means. Aim for an additional 20 seats or so. But without winning at least 20 or 25 seats from East Malaysia we are not going to see a change of federal government.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Sabah Umno chides LDP for 'vote bank' comments

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was chided on Wednesday, May 19, for its criticism of the Barisan Nasional (BN), with Sabah Umno Youth chief Azman Ruslan saying it could invite negative perception among the people.

Azman said as one of BN's component parties, the LDP should show exemplary way of strengthening the ties and cooperation between the state and federal governments and not the opposite.

"Sabah Umno Youth takes this issue seriously because we don't want a situation to exist as though the people of Sabah are ungrateful for all the efforts done by BN to develop the state," he told Bernama on Wednesday.

Azman said Sabah Umno Youth had no intention to stop LDP from voicing its opinions but as a BN component party, LDP should be "honest and fair" in its criticisms.

He was commenting on the remarks by LDP deputy president Datuk Chin Shu Pin on Tuesday asking the federal government not to treat Sabah and Sarawak merely as a "fixed deposit".

Chin said that the ruling coalition's shock defeat in last Sunday's Sibu parliamentary by-election should serve as a warning.

"The result of the Sibu by-election serves as a strong signal to the ruling BN coalition," he said.

BN candidate Robert Lau Hui Yew lost to DAP's Wong Ho Leng by a margin of 398 votes in the by-election. -- Bernama

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Umno is pissed with LDP. LDP said that Umno should not treat Sabah and Sarawak merely as ‘fixed deposits’. So this angered Umno because the Prime Minister (or was it the Deputy Prime Minister?) had earlier announced that these two East Malaysian states are Barisan Nasional’s ‘fixed deposit’.

Actually this is very true. Whoever wants to form the federal government must first conquer Sabah and Sarawak. With 25 and 31 parliament seats respectively, or 56 out of a total of 222 seats, no one can form the federal government without conquering Sabah and Sarawak.

The debate currently raging in Malaysia Today is whether the Chinese have sold out or whether it is the Malays who sold out or whether the traitors in our midst are the Indians.

Considering that 90% of the Indian voters voted Barisan Nasional in the past and now only about half do so means that the opposition has made significant inroads with the Indian voters. So we can safely leave the Indians alone and not whack them too hard. All we need to do is to try and increase that another 10% or so and get 60% of the Indian votes. That itself is enough.

As for the Chinese, they have always ding-donged from one extreme to the other. But with 66% plus-minus Chinese votes I doubt we need to beg for more. Two-thirds of the Chinese voting opposition is already great and don’t bagi betis nak peha (meaning: give you the calf and you want the thigh -- and after you take the thigh how much higher you want to go?…hmm).

Now, the Malays have been consistently voting 50:50 since 1999. We can’t just look at one or two seats (like Hulu Selangor) but must look at the average all over Malaysia. For some seats it goes above 50% and some below 50%. But on average it is 50:50 across the board.

In that case, where do we squeeze those extra votes if the Indians, Chinese and Malays have already reached optimum level? Are we able to squeeze an extra 1% or 2%?

Even if we can it does not matter because we are still talking about West Malaysia. Be happy with 50:50 for the Indian and Malay votes and 60% or so for the Chinese votes. The extra must come from East Malaysia. The opposition must try to win at least 20-25 of the 56 parliament seats in East Malaysia. And with an additional 20 from West Malaysia (assuming the opposition manages to retain its existing seats) then it can form the federal government with a simple but comfortable majority.

So stop flogging the Indians, Chinese and Malays from West Malaysia. Sure, try to increase the votes another few percentage points by all means. Aim for an additional 20 seats or so. But without winning at least 20 or 25 seats from East Malaysia we are not going to see a change of federal government.

And this is where we have to break Barisan Nasional’s ‘fixed deposit’, their 56 parliament seats in Sabah and Sarawak.