Don’t repeat mistake, avoid 3-cornered fights, says think tank

Merdeka Center's Ibrahim Suffian says opposition could have won a few more state, parliamentary seats if the total opposition votes were taken into account.

KUALA LUMPUR: A political analyst has cautioned opposition parties against repeating the same mistake made during the last general election in 2013.

Merdeka Center for Opinion Research executive director Ibrahim Suffian said it was imperative that two opposition candidates are not contesting in three-cornered fights in a constituency.

He said it was important for the parties to take the “failures” of losing seats that had such three-cornered races as a lesson for the next general election (GE14).

“If the opposition fail to understand the history, they will tend to repeat it,” he said.

Ibrahim said PKR and PSM both fielded candidates against BN for the Semenyih state seat in Selangor which was eventually won by the BN candidate Johan Abd Aziz.

He said if the two parties had combined the votes from their supporters for a single candidate, the total would have surpassed the votes obtained by BN.

Johan won with 17,922 votes, gaining a 4,757 majority, compared to PKR’s Hamidi A Hassan (13,165 votes) and PSM’s S Arutchelvan (5,568 votes) in the election on May 5, 2013.

This scenario was played out in Sabah too, in a few seats which were won by BN.

PSM recently announced that it will contest the Semenyih seat again, along with the Kota Damansara, Port Klang and Sri Muda state seats.

The party wants to also run for the Subang, Hulu Langat and Hulu Selangor parliamentary seats, paving the way for likely multi-cornered fights between PSM, Pakatan Harapan and BN.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia lecturer Faisal S Hazis concurred with Ibrahim’s view that three-cornered battles would only split the votes that are cast in favour of the opposition.

He said BN was presented with a boon when contesting such seats.

“It seems as though the only way for BN to win the election is to divide the opposition instead of winning the voters’ hearts and minds,” he said.

The views expressed in the contents are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of FMT.

Sumber Don’t repeat mistake, avoid 3-cornered fights, says think tank

Jualan Baju Raya Dah Bermula!!!

Baju Kanak-Kanak Harga Murah

Jubah raya cantik dan murah !!

Green Hijab memang Ohsem memang cair.

Tweet