Why Umno continues to demonise DAP

“Political marketing […] plays to people's emotions, not their thoughts. It operates on the belief that repeating a catchy phrase, even if it's untrue, will seal an idea in the mind of the unknowing or uncaring public. It assumes that citizens will always choose on the basis of their individual wants and not society's needs. It divides the country into 'niche' markets and abandons the hard political work of knitting together broad consensus or national vision.”

―  Susan Delacourt, ‘Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them’

QUESTION TIME | The statistics show beyond any shadow of a doubt that DAP cannot form the government without the support of Malay-based parties. For Pakatan Harapan or any other coalition of which the DAP is part, to win the elections, they need to have a large amount of support from the Malay voter base even if the Malay votes are split.

Put in another way, the only way DAP will help to form the government is if the electorate decides so and this cannot be done without Malay support. This implies that if DAP comes to power in a coalition, the number of Malay MPs will always exceed the number of Chinese MPs.

This is simply because Malays form just over half of our population while the Chinese, from which it cannot be denied that DAP gets most of its support, form about 23 percent of the population. 

While the Chinese form the majority of its members, it is undeniable that DAP has a significant number of other members. At GE13, DAP won 38 seats (see table below), or 17 percent of the seats, which is lower than the Chinese population share of 23%.

Decrease this by the eight non-Chinese MPs, and DAP’s seats held by Chinese form just 13.5 percent of the seats. PKR and PAS, the other members of the coalition then, held 51 seats and together exceeded DAP’s total by 13 seats, or by 21 seats if we take the non-Chinese DAP MPs out. 

While DAP has only two Malay MPs and therefore little Malay representation, it has a significant presence and representation of Indian MPs at six, more than the Indian representation of BN MPs at only four. In fact, for many Indian issues, DAP MPs, both of Indian and non-Indian origin, have done a better job and have been more outspoken than MIC.

While the Chinese voted solidly behind DAP and Pakatan Rakyat including PAS in the last elections, that alone will never be enough to take control of government - there has to be a substantial swing of the Malay vote to Harapan parties or a Malay tsunami if you will.

This is what the opposition is hoping for with Harapan having three Malay-based parties in its fold - Anwar Ibrahim’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat or PKR, PAS splinter Parti Amanah Negara and Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Parti Pribumi Bersatu. While PKR is a multiracial party with a Malay base, the other two are almost completely Malay. On the other hand, DAP is a predominantly Chinese multiracial party.

Ill-considered promise

So talk by Umno of Lim Kit Siang or his son Guan Eng becoming prime minister are very far from the truth and fear-mongering of the basest kind, playing to age-old insecurities of the Malays that they might become dominated by the Chinese who have economic power.

It is a tactic that Umno has used over and over again to demonise DAP and garner Malay support through a targeted attack to feed the emotional and irrational fears of the Malays.

These days, with Mahathir in opposition, effort has been made to paint him a traitor because he deals with the DAP. But the double-edged sword that race is, it cuts off the support to BN from non-Malays at the same time.

With Britain voting for Brexit and Donald Trump unexpectedly becoming US president, an increasing number of studies have come out to indicate that emotions matter more in elections than reason and rationale with voters picking their choice based on emotional reasons instead.

That would provide more reason for Umno to take this line too although the issues in Brexit and the Trump win are more complicated than that. But Umno leaders are going full steam ahead with their efforts to tar and feather DAP together with their collaborators.

Witness Umno vice-president Hishammuddin Hussein who questioned Guan Eng’s ill-considered promise to two Chinese MPs - Perak DAP chairperson Nga Kor Ming and Johor DAP chairperson Liew Chin Tong - to make them cabinet ministers if they won their seats.

Here’s how Hishammuddin’s convoluted logic went: “If Dr Mahathir is the opposition’s prime minister-in-waiting, then surely Lim cannot be the one determining who should be in the cabinet. I want to ask why is Lim so arrogant.

“If he really wants Dr Mahathir to become PM, then surely it would be the PM’s prerogative on who would be appointed to the cabinet […] the question is who is using whom? If he (Lim) can ignore Dr Mahathir on this matter, it means that Dr Mahathir is being used by DAP,” he said.

What a leap Hishammuddin has made but not enough to jump over the crevasse. Surely if Harapan wins, its component parties are entitled to name their candidates for ministers and as secretary-general of DAP, Lim can name some of them.

But Lim naming candidates way ahead of time is not particularly astute and he should have realised there will be political ramifications. DAP sometimes needs to pay attention to Malay insecurities and behave accordingly if they don’t want their allies in the coalition to be needlessly handicapped.

Will Umno’s old ways of putting down cooperation with DAP as traitorous to the Malay race still hold with the Malays? One hopes it has become time-worn, frayed and tearing at the edges, exposing it for what it is - naked fear-mongering.

Meantime, Malaysians who want change will do well to remember these words by Michelle Obama whose husband handily won two US presidential elections: “Elections aren't just about who votes but who doesn't vote.”

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P GUNASEGARAM hopes there will be a high turnout of voters for GE14. E-mail him at: t.p.guna@gmail.com. -Mkini