Any majority is usually enough

TheSun 16Dec2005 Any majority is usually enough Scene: Tanglin Food Court, KL. MOHAN: So PAS rules Kelantan with a one seat majority. After failing to retain Pengkalan Pasir its majority is really paper thin now. Why doesn't it just resign? Azman: That's what the Barisan Nasional leaders campaigning in the just concluded Pengkalan Pasir byelection had been saying. Lose Pengkalan Pasir, resign. Chong: What do you think, Cikgu? Do you think the PAS government should just resign and go to the people again for a new mandate? Zain: I don't understand this obsession. PAS has been given the mandate to rule. A small mandate maybe, but a mandate nevertheless. Everyone should respect that mandate. It is the people's mandate. It would be very irresponsible of PAS to resign. Tax payers will have to pay, don't forget that. Chong: I agree with you. Elsewhere, a majority of one is good enough. It is credible enough. In fact there have been occasions when a party without a majority but won the most seats in the legislature have been invited to form the government. That is really precarious. But they managed to rule ­ and sometimes remarkably well, too. But here we seem to think a government is not good enough if it does not control two-thirds of the seats in the legislature. Too much obsession with two-thirds. What for? A majority of one is enough for the government to run the state. You need the two-thirds when you want to amend the constitution. But there is no need to amend it all the time. Zain: Well done, Chong. I am really proud of you. Azman: I think many people have forgotten the situation in 1969 when the Alliance, the forerunner of the BN, suffered huge reverses in many states. In Selangor, for instance, it won only 14 seats in the then 28-seat legislative assembly. DAP won nine, Gerakan four and independent one. Of course, you know what happened lah. Mohan: So what you are saying is that the PAS gover nment in Kelantan should just go on with the business of ruling the state? Zain: Yes. And uninterrupted. It now has 23 seats to BN's 22. In terms of administering the state, it is not incapacitated in any way. Mohan: So the BN will just have to wait. Zain: Yes. All its elected representatives have to perform remarkably well so that those in the PAS constituencies will tell each other how good the BN reps are and in the next general election let us return the BN candidates. Chong: But some BN guys are talking about two PAS assemblymen who are in a bad shape health wise. They are talking about another byelection soon or two by-elections. So maybe the BN may not have to wait until the next general election to rule the state. People are saying anytime now. Azman: Wishful thinking. They are talking about "anytime now" ever since last year's general election. Those two gentlemen had been sick even before then. They were expected to provide the by-elections. And the BN guys were already boasting that they will win the two seats whenever they become vacant. Mohan: Not sure yet the BN will win both seats to force a state election. After all while they were expected to provide the elections, it was another person who quite unexpectedly provided the by-election in Pengkalan Pasir. And again, who knows? The PAS government may just survive up to the next the general election. Azman: Also remember that even though they are sickly, they may even survive many people including leaders of the BN. Zain: I think it is not nice to talk about sick people like that or in those terms. Where is our morality? Mohan: But I heard BN guys were talking about them in the north Kelantan town of Pasir Mas, which is in the Pengkalan Pasir constituency during the by-election. Zain: I know. I was there with Azman. Azman was there to report on the by-election while I was there to visit relatives and gape. Anyway I met a few old friends there. I also met a cousin of sorts ­ a teacher in one of the pondok schools near Alor Setar. He was in Pasir Mas to cam paign for PAS. Chong: Since you were there Cikgu why do you think PAS lost? BN had a lot of problems ­ disunity, PAS' personal attacks on Kelantan Umno chief Datuk Annuar Musa, too many cooks ­ and so should have lost. Yet it won. Zain: Everybody talks about BN's problems but few talk about PAS's problems. Mohan: PAS has problems too? Azman: Everyone has problems. You know that Mohan. Zain: PAS' main problem is its candidate, Hanifah Ahmad. This was what PAS members in Pasir Mas told me. They said they recommended the names of a few young ones with strong religious background. Young people have no baggage they said. When Mentri Besar Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat vetoed them and chose Hanifah, they were quite disappointed. They said the guy was CEO of the State Economic Development Corporation. Naturally he had some baggage. But Nik Aziz refused to listen to them. So from the beginning the PAS leaders responsible for the election had to fight two things ­ BN and those in PAS who did not like Hanifah. Mohan: How do you know all this, Cikgu? Zain: It was talked about in the foodstalls in Pasir Mas. Open knowledge among PAS members in the town. And as I said, I have relatives and friends there. And after the vote they pointed to me the number of spoilt votes ­ 160. People don't know how to vote? Surely not, they say. BN and PAS conducted several courses on how to mark the ballot papers before the election. They said the voters purposely spoilt the ballots. Mohan: Why did they go to the polling station if they did not want to vote? Why take the trouble to go and then not to give their vote to anybody? Zain: Well. Let's say it was the PAS voters who spoilt their votes. They had to go as they were taken to the polling stations. So they could not refuse even though they did not like the candidate. So they spoilt their vote. Even though they protested against the selection of the candidate, they would not vote for BN's Hanafi Mamat or independent candidate Datuk Ibrahim Ali. Azman: Among the spoilt votes could be those who did not like Hanafi but would not give his vote to Hanifah. Zain: Could be. Chong: What are the other factors that helped the BN in Pasir Mas? Zain: Besides fewerpeople voting for Ibrahim, BN had Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib, an organisational man. He did his best to keep the campaign organisation going. He and his Selangor boys deserve a lot to credit. Also like in Kuala Brang, the first by-election since the massive general election victory last year, it was the relentless house-tohouse campaigning by members of Puteri Umno that helped. They say the best form of flattery is copying. Thus Parti Keadilan Rakyat has its puteri brigade and PAS has Sri Kandi. But in Pasir Mas they were no match for Puteri Umno.