Kian Ming: Pakatan victory in Sg Pelek impossible without BN’s support

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 22 — Former Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming today said that Pakatan Harapan (PH) would not have been able to win the Sungai Pelek seat in the Selangor state election without Barisan Nasional’s (BN) support.

A 25 per cent vote transfer from BN supporters was enough to ensure that the ethnic Chinese PH candidate won the Malay-majority seat with a 1,458 vote majority in a fight against the Perikatan Nasional (PN) candidate who was a well-known former local Umno leader, he said in a statement.

“PH would not have been able to win N56 Sungai Pelek seat without support from Umno especially in the Malay majority areas of Jenderam Hulu, Salak, and Hulu Cucuh,” he said.

He explained that 5 per cent out of the 25 per cent of Malay support given to BN in the 15th general elections (GE15) swung to PH in the Selangor state election. Similarly, around 5 per cent of the Chinese vote and 10 per cent of the Indian vote had also swung to PH from BN, he said.

“All in all, a vote transfer of approximately 25 per cent of total BN votes from GE15 went to PH in the 2023 state elections, with the remaining 75 per cent going to PN,” he said, using the abbreviation for the state elections.

“Given that Perikatan Nasional won a negligible amount of the non-Malay vote in this 40 per cent non-Malay constituency in GE15 and in the 2023 state electionsand given the 25 per cent vote transfer from BN to PH (including 5 per cent out of 25 per cent or 20 per cent BN’s Malay support in GE15), this was sufficient for PH to win this seat with almost 52 per cent of the popular vote,” he added.

Besides that, the cooperation between PH and BN leaders at the grassroots level was strengthened by the presence of state and national leaders.

“I experienced this when International Trade and Industry Minister, Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz, came to Sungai Pelek to campaign with the PH candidate, Lwi Kian Seong, together with Ng Sze Han, the DAP Selangor state secretary and recently sworn in as Selangor executive council member.

“Zafrul was able to mobilise the local Umno leadership and grassroots to throw their support behind the PH candidate,” he said.

On the other hand, PH’s aid on the campaign trail and vote transfers from it to BN would have also helped the former rival win other seats, such as in Dusun Tua, he said.

DAP had originally won Dusun Tua in the 14th general elections and the seat was given to Umno to contest in the recent state elections, he said.

He went on to explain that DAP leaders including its Selangor chairman Gobind Singh, Ng Sze Han, Kampung Tunku assemblyman Lim Yi Wei and Taiping MP Wong Kah Woh had campaigned for the Umno candidate there, Datuk Johan Abdul Aziz, who won the seat with a 3,014 vote majority.

PH won 32 out of Selangor’s 56 seats while BN won two. This gave PH a simple majority with which to form the state government, but it was denied a two-thirds majority. Meanwhile, PN gained ground in the country’s richest state with 22 seats.