Disappointment in Malaysia Politics and How Pakatan Rakyat can Win (next time)

First of all, I have apologize to post an article on politics on my blog that relates to grad school. This will be the first and last time that I will be doing on this blog.

When I first heard of Pakatan Rakyat and the buzz they have been creating, I was excited. I was hoping for new change in the government and a new system that allows Malaysia to have 2 major parties (BN and Pakatan Rakyat) that compete against each other fairly. If you look at US and Canada, that is how they maintain competitive politics. I was convince that Pakatan Rakyat would have an upper hand in this election (2013) because of Google Trends.

 

I am showing a graph with the search interest from Malaysia that shows the popularity of Pakatan Rakyat versus Barisan Nasional. When I saw this graph, I had big big hopes for Pakatan Rakyat. The popularity of Pakatan Rakyat is twice as much as Barisan Nasional. This implies that for people who uses internet for every 3 person, there is 2 person who is more interested in Pakatan Rakyat. It is highly likely that this people who cast a vote for Pakatan Rakyat. Of course, we don't really know what the people that doesn't have internet thinks.

Knowing this, I was convince that the election will be a tight one and there is a good chance that Pakatan Rakyat can win the election. But, it turned out that Barisan Nasional won 133 seats and Pakatan Rakyat won 89 seats. In Malaysia, you need 112 seats to form a government. I was devastated to hear this news. How can this be? For Paktan Rakyat to win the election, they need to take another 23 seats from Barisonal Nasional. Even if Barisan Nasional cheated, it is hard to create such a gap when there is so many people having interest in Pakatan Rakyat.

I have to figure out what was Barisonal Nasional's trick and it wasn't hard for me to find this out. I got the following score card from http://live.undi.info/. I want to show you what is the main reason Pakatan Rakyat lost. I believe the cheating of Barisan Nasional in West Malaysia did not have a large impact on Pakatan Rakyat lost.

Seats number 167 to number 222 are from Sabah and Sarawak. You check them on wiki. From the graph above, notice that out of 56 seats of East Malaysia, 47 seats are all Barisan Nasional. Pakatan Rakyat only won 9 seats, which include Kuching and Kota Kinabalu. So, what happened in East Malaysia? Why can Pakatan Rakyat win Kuching (195) and Kota Kinabalu (172), but not the other districts? I have a theory - there are too many uneducated people in the rural areas and they don't have internet access. They don't understand what Barisan Nasional is doing to Malaysia. They don't understand where Malaysia is going to be in the next 10 years.

So, let's consider the case if Sabah and Sarawak were to disappear from Malaysia. Would Pakatan Rakyat win? We know Barisan Nasional has 133 seats, taking away 47 seats from East Malaysia, that would be 86. For Pakatan Rakyat, they have 89 seats, taking away 9 seats from East Malaysia, that would be 80. Without Sabah and Sarawak, a coalition  will need 84 seats to win. Therefore, Barisan Nasional would still win. However, let's consider some of the tricks that Barisan Nasional might have played. It may not be hard for Pakatan Rakyat to regain 4 "stolen" seats from Barisan Nasional, which allows Pakatan Rakyat to form a government.

With this in mind, I would strongly say this election is an extremely tight race and Pakatan Rakyat could very well formed a government if it wasn't because of Sabah and Sarawak. Thus, for Pakatan Rakyat to win, they have find a way to not allow the seats from East Malaysia to affect the final result of the election. One possible way to kick away Sabah and Sarawak from Malaysia, which is too controversial.

However, I have a better suggestion. Make the Malaysia into a country with 2 governments, namely the East government and the West government. The way it work is as follow. Who wins the election in West Malaysia is solely based on the number seats in West Malaysia, and who wins in East Malaysia is solely based on the seats in East Malaysia. The coalition that wins the election in West Malaysia form the West government and vice versa. Both government have only control over their own territory. Simple.

Since East Malaysia likes Barisan Nasional so much, they might as well rot with them. Personally, I think it is unfair for the East Malaysians to determine the faith of the whole country. East Malaysians are satisfied with a little temporary growth, but we, West Malaysians, are not.

In summary, majority of East Malaysians do not share the same goal as the West Malaysians. It is time we do something about it. I proposed one solution that I think sounds reasonable that could help Pakatan Rakyat to win and help progress Malaysia forward.

If you agree with my opinion, please share it with your friends. Let them know we are extremely near the line of changing a government. All that's left is to do is find a way to stop East Malaysia from influencing West Malaysia. Whether Barisan Nasional cheats, that is secondary.