NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Muhyiddin: Don’t underestimate 3 million strong Umno
Umno vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin reminded opposition parties, including Pas, not to belittle Umno, while admitting the party’s need to improve various areas. Muhyiddin, who is also International Trade and Industry Minister, said the rise and fall of power is part and parcel of life and had happened to all parties.
“That is his opinion. For us in Umno, the party has been long established with more than three million members and can be regarded as the biggest political organisation.”
“Every political organisation will have its seasons. Sometimes we are strong, sometimes we will face problems. Opposition leaders will not respect us. We don’t expect them to make positive comments or statements although problems also exist in PAS and Pakatan Rakyat,” he said.
Muhyiddin was commenting on Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat’s statement describing Umno as a dying tree, after attending a Chinese New Year open house organised by Umno Kalabakan.
He said Umno and Barisan Nasional’s (BN) defeat in several by-elections are not indicators that the party is weak and cannot rise again. “We admit our weaknesses, but it does not mean that we are hopeless cases. After the general election we realised this and have started to make internal changes and reforms. Don’t underestimate Umno’s strength,” he said.
He said BN and Umno hoped to send a message to the people that the party is not static and are willing to make improvements necessary with the country’s changing political landscape. Muhyiddin added that he is confident the people will accept the party’s changes and ensure victory for BN in the next general election for continuing development in the country. — Bernama, 3 February 2009
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Okay, today, let’s get away from the Perak political crisis for the meantime while we wait for the official announcement as to whether we are going to see two by-elections or we are going to see the Perak State Assembly dissolved to make way for fresh state elections. If the Elections Commission ‘rejects’ the resignation letters of the Changkat Jering and Behrang State Assemblymen, then Pakatan Rakyat would have no choice but to dissolve the Perak State Assembly and hold fresh state elections.What I want to talk about today is the statement by the incoming Deputy Prime Minister who will serve under incoming Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak. The incoming Deputy Prime Minister meant here is Umno Vice-President cum International Trade and Industry Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin. And his statement is about the three million members that Umno has.
Actually, Umno may have three million members, as they always proudly claim, but if you were to include the members of the 13 other component members of Barisan Nasional, then it would come to 5.5 million, or so they claim.
A short digression to this subject but still related to the issue: in the two weeks that we spent in Kuala Terengganu in the run-up to the by-election last month, we noticed that almost EVERY Chinese citizen of Kuala Terengganu is an MCA life member. Yes, that’s right, almost all the Chinese in Kuala Terengganu are life members of MCA.
Going by these statistics, Barisan Nasional should have garnered at least 90% of the Kuala Terengganu Chinese votes. But they didn’t. Isn’t this telling? Boasting about how many members you have is one thing. Whether your own members will vote for you is more important. If you can’t get even your own members to vote for you then what chance do you have of getting the ‘fence-sitters’, those who are not card-carrying members of any party, to vote for you? And we are not yet even talking about winning over the votes of the opposition supporters. This would be as remote as seeing Umno abandon Ketuanan Melayu and the New Economic Policy.
Barisan Nasional is supposed to have 5.5 million members, three million in Umno alone. But in the 8 March 2008 general election, Barisan Nasional garnered only 4,082,411 or 50.6% of the popular votes. Pakatan Rakyat managed 3,796,464 or 49.4% of the votes with only one million members.
What happened? How come Barisan Nasional won only 4,082,411 votes against the backdrop of 5.5 million party members? And surely, in an election, not only your own members vote for you. Surely the ‘fence-sitters’ or non-card-carrying voters of any party also vote for you.
Let us work out the arithmetic. Barisan Nasional has 5.5 million members and Pakatan Rakyat about one million or so. That comes to 6.5 million voters who are card-carrying party members. So about 4.5 million voters are not card-carrying members of any party. This would be the ‘fence-sitters’ or uncommitted voters that both coalitions would want to win over.
In the 8 March 2008 general election, 222 Parliament seats in 12 states (including the Federal Territory which has 13 seats) and 505 state seats in 13 states were up for grabs (Sarawak did not hold state elections in the 2008 general election). There were 10,922,139 registered voters (an increase of 600,000 over the 2004 general election), which includes the 221,085 postal voters. So the ‘real’ voters came to only 10,701,054.
The total votes garnered by Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat combined were 7,878,875. This comes to a voter turnout of 70.71%, a very low turnout indeed. If we minus the 221,085 postal votes, which are ‘bonus’ votes for Barisan Nasional, the ‘genuine’ voters would come to only 7,657,790.
This means if we minus the 221,085 postal votes, Barisan Nasional actually garnered only 3,861,326 votes against Pakatan Rakyat’s 3,796,464. This comes to a majority of only 64,862 votes.
Okay, Barisan Nasional has 5.5 million members. This means they should get at least 70.71% of this (calculated on an across-the-board basis according to the voter turnout). Therefore, Barisan Nasional should have garnered 3,889,050 votes if all their members voted for them and if calculated on a 70.71% voter turnout. Then they got the 221,085 postal votes. So the total votes for Barisan Nasional should have been 4,110,135 votes.
This means three things. Firstly, about 30% of Barisan Nasional’s members did not bother to come out to vote for their own party. Or, secondly, many of their members voted for the opposition. Thirdly, if we assume that all your members voted for you and not for the other side, this means NONE of the non-card-carrying voters voted for you. ALL voted for the ‘other side’.
Whatever it may be; it is impossible for the opposition to win 100% of the uncommitted voters. Many would also vote for Barisan Nasional even if they are not members of any of the 14 component members of the coalition. This would then mean many Barisan Nasional members did not vote for their own party. Or probably these members do not exist in the first place.
Pakatan Rakyat has just one million members or so. Yet they garnered 3,796,464 votes. The bottom line is: Pakatan Rakyat got almost four times the votes compared to the members it has, while Barisan Nasional could not even get the same number of votes as it has members.
Muhyiddin Yassin’s boast about Umno having three million members, or of Barisan Nasional having 5.5 million, means nothing if you can’t translate these numbers into votes. Hell, only 70.71% came out to vote on 8 March 2008. About 30% or three million people stayed home, many of them Barisan Nasional members as well. You not only could not get your own members to come out and vote, even those that did come out to vote did not all vote for you, their own party.
Anyway, everyone knows that Umno’s and Barisan Nasional’s ‘members’ are ‘paper’ members only. They only exist on paper. In many instances they can’t even hold general meetings because they can’t get the quorum at branch level and many meetings are mere ‘paper’ meetings.
Umno has 20,000 branches within 191 divisions. So they need to fabricate members to allow these branches to exist. The members do not really exist. They are just names to make up the numbers so that the branches can be created and thereafter perpetuated. Many branches are mere signboards to give an impression that they exist. There is really no branch activity as such.
Either way it is a farce. If the members do exist then that is bad news because your own members did not vote for you. And if the members do not exist then you are just kidding yourself. Both do not augur well for the ‘largest Islamic party in the world’, as what Umno claims to be. - Malaysia Today
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