The Chinese want whoever they think can give DAP a ride to Putrajaya — Mahathir … or Anwar or KuLi or Shafie Apdal or Syed Saddiq or Rafizi Ramli or whichever Datuk Keramat is the flavour of the month.
They want Malay faces with which to lend a diversity window dressing to DAP, e.g. Dyana, Syerleena, Marina, Rara Syefura, etcetera.
‘DAP’s principles not abandoned to woo Malays, Guan Eng tells critics’ is the top story headline this morning in Malaysiakini.
The critics are mostly right to say that DAP will do anything to woo Malays.
Where the critics are wrong is to think DAP is abandoning its principles to fish Malay votes. The truth of the matter is DAP never had any steadfast principles to begin with.
BELOW: Ng Kor Sim – DAP’s winning candidate in Jementah, Johor – dressed in baju kurung and called herself by nama timangan ‘Ayu’ to woo the Malay vote
Chinese updating who they want
Tomorrow the DAP will choose a younger set of leaders to bring more changes to the party. Its delegates will be convening to elect the party’s exco baru for a new term.
Sekali air bah, sekali pasir berubah. Sekali DAP kalah, sekali dema pekik ‘Ubah!’
Adakah ini juga yang Cina mahu? Ubah ini, ubah itu: Changing themselves beyond recognition just so that a handful of DAP grifters can acquire power.
Thankfully MCA has not resorted to the contortions adopted by such DAP Christian carpetbaggers as have collected a boutique-full of tudungs.
On the other hand, the gauche MCA exceeded public expectations by snagging four seats in the Johor 2022 election.
BELOW: Third best performer, MCA is behind top finishers Umno and DAP in its number of seats
MCA won Pekan Nanas beating a Cina DAP, won Paloh beating a Melayu DAP and won Bekok beating orang India DAP.
The above are rather amusing statistics! Urm, how are we to interpret it? That the MCA’s appeal cuts evenly across racial lines? Or that MCA’s Chinese canvassers did not have to wear tudung or songkok when campaigning recently in Paloh.
Furthermore, MCA won Pekan Nanas with a 4,835-vote majority, Paloh with a majority of 3,176 and Bekok 3,569. In all three seats, MCA’s majority was in the comfortable four digits.
Skudai
Disenchanted Johor Chinese in Skudai recorded possibly the lowest election participation at 36 percent turnout — which is much lower than the state wide turnout of 54.9 percent. So what went wrong for DAP there?
In last Saturday’s election, DAP retained Skudai which it had won consecutively in 2008, 2013 and 2018. However its Melayu winner Marina Ibrahim prevailed by garnering a mere 26,359 votes in a constituency that has 102,828 registered voters.
Meaning: DAP’s Marina is going to become a YB although receiving only a quarter (25.6%) of the support from Skudai’s total number of eligible voters.
Her trifling endorsement from the electorate does not necessarily make Marina an unpopular Adun but her performance was undoubtedly lacklustre. Alarmingly lacklustre and something for the DAP bosses to ponder on with regard to their multikulti tactic.
Skudai is the second most Chinese saturated (Cina pekat) seat. This DUN is a ward under the Iskandar Puteri parliament constituency where Lim Kit Siang is MP.
As mentioned, DAP’s Marina received only 26,359 votes compared to DAP’s Tan Hong Pin who had received 47,359 votes in 2018 when he stood in Skudai.
At the same time, Marina’s MCA opponent Lim Soon Hai received 12,416 votes compared to Tan Hong Pin’s MIC opponent Kanan a/l Suppiah who had received 12,233 votes in GE14.
BN’s 12,000-plus Skudai votes – for MCA in the recent state election and for MIC in the last general election – are both about equal.
Maintaining its 12k votes each time indicates that the BN candidate – be he a Chinese (2022) or an Indian (2018) – will still get support from all the races.
The same cannot be said for the performance in Skudai of DAP’s Marina Ibrahim (2022) compared with the performance of DAP’s Tan Hong Pin (2018). Here the DAP incoming Melayu Adun received a whopping 21,000 fewer votes than the outgoing Cina DAP incumbent had done previously.
What does this DAP intra-party discrepancy say? The backlash against Marina suggests that its loyal Chinese base is getting tired of DAP taking them for granted.
And what does the BN inter-party consistency tell us? Answer: Umno, MCA and MIC have got a better level of cooperation in harnessing their respective ethnic bases to turn out for an allied component.
Ladies and gentlemen, MCA is making a slow and steady comeback. Yup. MCA truly took on DAP in Johor. The two parties went head-to-head in 14 seats.
Cina lawan Cina
MCA contested altogether 15 seats. In Puteri Wangsa, MCA’s main opponent was Muda and there was no Harapan candidate.
Below is the ethnic breakdown according to their percentage of Chinese voters (bracketed) listed in descending order.
15 Johor seats contested by MCA:
- Bentayan (73.8%) — Gan Qi Ru
- Skudai (64.3%) — Lim Soon Hai
- Senai (62.3%) — Kenny Shen Poh Kuan
- Mengkibol (61.4%) — Kelly Chye Pei Yee
- Penggaram (60.0%) — Ter Hwa Kwong
- Yong Peng (59.6%) — Ling Tian Soon
- Stulang (54.8%) — Ang Boon Heng
- Jementah (50.1%) — See Ann Giap
- Bekok (51.0%) — Tan Chong
- Puteri Wangsa (49.95%) — Ng Yew Aik
- Tangkak (49.3%)— Ong Chee Siang
- Johor Jaya (47.3%) — Chan San San
- Pekan Nanas (45.1%) — Tan Eng Meng
- Perling (43.4%) — Tan Hiang Kee
- Paloh (37.1%) — Lee Ting Han
Of the above seats contested by MCA, nine (Nos.1–9) are Chinese majority and three seats (Nos.10–12) are Chinese plurality.
Of the remaining three seats contested by MCA, two (Nos.13 & 15) are Malay majority and lastly, seat No.14 is Malay plurality.
How is MCA progressing?
Data on our most recent election in Johor indicate an upwardly positive showing by MCA.
In the Cina totok seats Nos.1–5, DAP was predictably victorious. Nonetheless, reception for DAP was lukewarm even in these hardcore Chinese areas despite the DAP’s wins.
Bentayan
The seat in Johor with the highest ratio of Chinese in its electorate is Bentayan. It has 34,728 voters today thanks to Undi18 and the automatic registration. Four years ago in GE14, Bentayan had 27,856 voters.
DAP received only 10,973 votes last week whereas it had received 18,278 votes in 2018. DAP won Bentayan with a majority of 7,476 votes in the recent state election compared to its majority of 13,629 votes in GE14.
Observe that DAP’s majority in Bentayan – the most Chinese of Johor seats – has been halved.
By contrast, MCA in Bentayan collected 3,497 votes in the state election last week compared to 4,649 votes in GE14.
The DAP’s vote deficit between the two elections of 2018 and 2022 in Bentayan is minus-7,305. MCA’s vote deficit between the two elections is minus-1,152.
The attrition in support for DAP is huge while the attrition in support for MCA due to low turnout is far less substantial.
Yong Peng
MCA won Yong Peng with a 2,741 majority this time although the seat had fallen to DAP in 2018 and 2013.
DAP’s loss in Yong Peng does not augur well for the party’s Johor chief Liew Chin Tong should he think to again challenge Wee Ka Siong in Ayer Hitam in GE15.
(Note: Yong Peng is a DUN ward under the Ayer Hitam parliament constituency where MCA president Wee is the sitting MP.)
Yong Peng was one of the several seats that saw three-cornered, all-Chinese battles between MCA, DAP and Gerakan.
Semua Cina slugfests occurred in Yong Peng, Bentayan, Skudai, Mengkibol, Johor Jaya, Perling and Senai.
These are bare-knuckled Cina-lawan-Cina brawls in the Chinese heartland. The score:
- DAP — 6
- MCA — 1
- Gerakan — 0
- Warisan — 0
Although there is little chance for DAP to be dislodged in their Chinese fixed deposits, the party no longer has the iron grip it used to have.
Johor Jaya
Take the results in Johor Jaya, for example. This is the constituency of origin for a viral video clip on social media showing a Chinese market trader giving his DAP Adun an earful when she campaigned there recently.
In Johor Jaya, Liow Cai Tung (DAP) obtained 19,782 votes and Chan San San (MCA) obtained 17,860. DAP’s winning majority was an unimpressive 1,922.
Back in 2018, Cai Tung won Johor Jaya obtaining 32,342 votes. Her majority then was 15,565.
In 2018, MCA’s Tan Cher Puk obtained 16,777 votes in Johor Jaya. MCA increased its votes by 1,083 last Saturday compared to its result four years ago.
Whereas DAP in the Johor Jaya state election is less 12,560 votes compared to its general election result of 2018.
Will Chinese continue backing the DAP’s ubah ini dan ubah itu, pakai baju kurung dan tudung?
Time and GE15 will tell.
For the present, expect more ubah from DAP as the party doubles down and digs in.
One ubah to be carried out at the DAP conclave is the party’s ‘awokening’ to its need for more women wearing more tudung to be more prominent in the public eye.
The woke DAP has decided that increasing the volume of female voices in its highest council, the Central Executive Committee or CEC, is the progressive thing to do.
This year for the first time, DAP will see a minimum nine or more women sitting in its CEC. At their congress tomorrow (March 20) in Shah Alam, delegates will be picking women to fill the CEC female quota now set at 30 percent.
DAP’s revised requirement for the CEC to comprise at least one-third women leaders means that The Yoyo (Hannah Yeoh and Yeo Bee Yin) have a good chance of making the grade.
DAP might also decide to pay lip service to darker skin, in which case Kasthuri Patto is likely to be included in the CEC line-up as a sop to the Indians.
Kasthuri is Kit Siang’s goddaughter – literally (her baby pix above) – and she started her political career as his pol-sec.
There is every reason to suppose Kasthuri could also be one of the beneficiaries of DAP’s newly introduced 30 percent female CEC quota, and she has additionally the race card up her sleeve.
The way the DAP internal election usually works is by means of ‘cai dan’ (菜单). Party warlords – the Father & Son, obviously – issue a ‘menu’ of the Dishes of the Day and on it are all the names of Team Lim’s preferred candidates.
Like the yoyo (Yeoh & Yeo), Kasthuri is yet another one of DAP’s many youngish Christians in the second echelon.
On another front, Lim Guan Eng will be forced to relinquish his position as DAP secretary-general.
Guan Eng, who is a Born Again Christian, has already been the party sec-gen for 18 years and the DAP constitution stipulates that one can only hold the post for a maximum three terms.
Therefore DAP will have a new sec-gen this weekend. Frontrunners for the job are Nga Kor Ming (a Christian) and Anthony Loke.
The evangelicals make DAP a very “flexible” party. Its brain trust aka Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming (also Christian) has revealed how he sees the oppo coalition will go forward.
BELOW: Chinese voters are bounced like a yoyo by DAP dictating their ‘ubah-up-ubah-down-ubah-all-around’ groupthink
Hyper flexibility of the DAP
Analysing Harapan’s dismal results in the Johor election, DAP strategist Ong Kian Ming stated in his March 14 review: “My proposal is for Harapan to adopt a flexible approach moving ahead in the following three areas – flexibility in our negotiation strategies with other opposition parties and coalitions at the state and federal levels, flexibility in our campaign strategies, and flexibility in our timeline for GE15”.
So far, the power-hungry DAP has been flexible enough to work with S46 and PAS, then with Mahathir and Bersatu, then to consider an offer of across-the-aisle cooperation with Muhyiddin and PN (which DAP ultimately rejected) only to subsequently sign an MoU with Ismail Sabri and most recently offer to extend this arrangement through MoU 2.0.
Siapa lagi Cina mahu?
Oh, the power crazy DAP will latch on to anybody. Matlamat halalkan cara, asal menang.
In fact, DAP is so very flexible in its quest for federal power that if the party were a snake or an Iguana Eng, it would already have swallowed its own tail before reaching Putrajaya.
Reptilian metaphors aside, you can also get a mental picture of the DAP’s flexibility by imagining a yoyo.
Take the long-running saga of DAP telling Chinese that PAS was extreme, and then switching tack to assure Chinese that PAS was moderate, and then about-turning to declare PAS as being extreme, and reverting again — in other words, bouncing up and down like a yoyo.
Currently the DAP is bouncing Muda up, and telling its Chinese base to embrace youth in order to Save Malaysia 2.0. The 29-year-old Syed Saddiq is even being hailed as a political messiah.
BELOW: Former minister Bee Yin as flexible as Hannah about wearing tudung
Cina DAP possess an astounding agility to bounce from one Malay party to another, and from one Malay saviour to another. To pivot here and pivot there.
There is an English idiom that says a person is ‘tied to mommy’s apron strings’.
In our Malaysian context, the Chinese is being jerked on DAP’s bouncy yoyo string.
BELOW: Can we add ‘yoyoism’?
Kalah tetap kalah lah
Guan Eng blames PKR’s use of its Keadilan eye logo for the Harapan losses in the recent Johor polls.
Kian Ming, on the other hand, prefers flexibility in his framing of their Johor electoral performance. The Bangi MP is speaking from top down to shape the narrative.
DAP delegates in the party’s assembly tomorrow are expected to send an equally flexible message from bottom up.
They will quite conceivably nudge Lim Sr off centre stage at long last. Aged 81, it is really time for Kit Siang to move out of the spotlight.
Lim Jr however will likely cling on by making himself the party chairman.
BELOW: Sore losers DAP have been torturing the Johor stats until the poor numbers cry “Uncle, mercy please!”
Apa pula yang DAP mahu?
DAP wants to win again.
According to DAP strategist Ong Kian Ming, “the combined vote of Pakatan Harapan (including Muda) and Perikatan Nasional (PN) of approximately 750k outnumbered BN’s votes of approximately 600,000 by 150,000”.
Through their creative accounting, DAP is informing its base that although the expanded Harapan (which includes Muda) won only 13 seats versus the 40 seats won by BN, nonetheless Harapan ought not to be regarded as ‘losers’ in Johor.
This is because Harapan had 750k votes vs BN’s 600k.
It smacks of sheer desperation when the DAP spindoctor has to invoke a calculation that DAP + PKR + Amanah + Muda + Bersatu + PAS + Gerakan (total seven parties) collected more votes in Johor than Umno + MCA + MIC (three parties).
It’s kinda lame for Kian Ming to mitigate the Harapan losses by insisting that their seven-party Big Tent collected more votes than three-party BN.
The fact is that MIC alone produced three Indian Aduns to become a part of Johor’s new government.
The seven opposition parties name checked by Kian Ming were unable to produce a single Indian Adun between the whole lot of them.
BN more multiracial than Harapan
If they were not so brainwashed by DAP, the Chinese electorate would have realised that it is BN which is now occupying the middle ground.
To BN’s right is Perikatan Nasional (PN) where its Islamist component PAS is the party with the strongest grassroots and machinery on the ground.
To the BN’s left is Pakatan Harapan (PH) where its evangelist component DAP is the party with the largest number of YBs and the most ferocious army of Red Guards.
Both PN and PH are located on the periphery. It is BN which is centrist.
DAP apologists have been all over the media trying to explain away the Harapan defeat.
They’ve also downplayed BN’s multiracial victory in Johor and refused to give credit where credit is due.
Aside from MIC’s three Aduns, there is no denying that Umno performed outstandingly and MCA has glimpsed light at the end of the long, dark tunnel.
BN has moreover remained true to its consociational formula practised for decades. By contrast, DAP is forever tinkering with ‘ubah’. Watch their antics tomorrow and watch this space too.
Helen Ang 
chinese vote pattern swing base on how umno shifting it ground, at least dap make some slight transformation to adapt, forestall by a never retire emperor though. mca however no matter how many times leadership change took place, still remain a umno pet; loyal, waiting to be fed and bark when ordered to do so, pity.
HA. Excellent in depth analysis on the Johor State Elections, a mirror of things to come in the 15th GE ! As I always said, I like UMNO to be paramount with a refreshed Leadership. Their complete historical record was not bad at all – 1946 – 2022. The DAP has to reform themselves to turn into a Premier Multi-racial Party of Malaysia, shedding their Frankenstein image and should not be in the Opposition helping erstwhile friends. Politics is not a social welfare business. The DAP needs a super-Malay Leader as President to CLEAN.ALL DISINFORMATION. A sort of Caesar’s wife without a peer. Those born again fellows since 1976 have a role to play too within themselves. Politics is National Interest and self-interest. By the grace of UMNO, the MCA won 3 State seats in Johor State. UMNO can marry the reformed DAP as well, with Gerakan out of the way. Realpolitik at play to get 100% support for UMNO. Who complains.? With strong support, Malaysia is one of 4 important small countries of the World being the UK, Japan, Switzerland and Malaysia. Singapore definitely likes a stable and prosperous Malaysia. What say you, BK, the one-man think tank of Singapore ? Per ardua. Ad astra !
I hope they learn that winning through lies and slander won’t last long. They will have to work hard to regain that trust, more than just donning tudung or songkok.
HA. We are all waiting for your in depth analysis of the latest DAP set-up arising from its GE on Sunday with the retirement of Pater but Fil promoted. How many born again fellows in control ?