Since the Barisan Nasional landslide victory and PKN rout in the Indera Kayangan by-election, different PKN leaders have been issuing conflicting and contradictory versions about the voting trends in the latest electoral contest between the Barisan Nasional and the Barisan Alternative which are simply ridiculous, as the claims are so conflicting as to range from an increase of Chinese voters for the PKN as far apart as some 240 votes to 840 votes as compared to 1999.
What the PKN leaders do not seem to realise is that when they make inflated claims of increase of Chinese votes, it must involved a proportionate decrease in Malay votes - as for instance, reducing PKN’s Malay votes in Indera Kayangan by-election to a mere 24% if the PKN website claim of securing 35% of Chinese votes is to be believed.
For instance, a PKN Chinese leader told the press on the night of the by-election polling that the PKN candidate had secured an increase of about 800 votes but the Malay votes for PKN had plummetted from 60 per cent in 1999 to 30 per cent. (Sin Chew Jit Poh 20.1.2002)
Is this the official PKN stand that in the Indera Kayangan by-election, Malay support had plummeted to only 24% of the Malay voter turnout?
It is important that the PKN top leadership stop its leaders from giving diametrically conflicting analysis of the by-election result, causing all the PKN analysis to lose credibility as nobody knows which one represents the official PKN stand - let alone whether it is a correct and fair interpretation of the voting trends on Saturday.
The top PKN leadership should come out with an official and authoritative analysis of the Indera Kayangan by-election result, providing answers specifically to the following five key issues:
Firstly, what percentage of the Malay votes did PKN get in the by-election. The PKN by-election official website, http://ik2002.info, claims that PKN’s percentage of Malay votes slipped from 65% in 1999 to 40 per cent last Saturday. Is this the PKN official stand? Or does it agree with what a few PKN leaders have said in the media, some forthrightly while others implicitly, that the percentage of Malay votes in Indera Kayangan had fallen to 30 per cent and even as low as 24%?
Secondly, what percentage of Chinese votes did PKN get in the by-election. The PKN official website claims 5% in 1999 and 35% last Saturday, while PKN vice president Azmin Ali had claimed that Chinese support for PKN had increased from 20 per cent in 1999 (or 300 votes) to 33 per cent last Saturday. Going by the claims of Azmin and the PKN official website, the number of Chinese votes secured by PKN last Saturday should be between 930 to 990 votes - which however conflict with the latest public figure of 620 Chinese votes given by a PKN leader on the electronic media on Monday. These differences are great and important, for they also involve differences in the increase of Chinese votes for the PKN candidate, ranging from about 240 to 840 votes (depending on whether PKN won 150 or 300 Chinese votes in 1999).
Thirdly, was it true that PKN did not get a single Indian vote, whether last Saturday or in 1999 - as admitted by the PKN official website?
Fourthly, PKN got 22 while Barisan Nasional 700 post ballots last Saturday. The Perlis Mentri Besar, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim had said that PKN had won more postal votes than BN in 1999 while a PKN leader had said it was the other way round. What is the true position.
Fifthly, is the by-election analysis on the PKN official website the official stand of the PKN top leadership? The PKN website claims that PKN secured 40% of Malay votes and 35% of Chinese votes cast, as well as 22 postal votes. This however does not tally with what should be the total votes for PKN, as such a performance should give the PKN some 2,155 votes when PKN actually got only 1,687 votes. Where did the balance of about 500 disappear to?
DAP officials responsible for elections are prepared to sit down with their counterparts in PKN to work out the voting trends in the Indera Kayangan by-election, as we must have as true and correct a picture as possible on the voting pattern last Saturday, to consider how to work out an effective strategy to counter to the two Barisan Nasional electoral trump-cards, the 911 terror card and the Taliban card, from now to the next general elections in 18 months’ time.
(23/1/2002)