‘Excited Najib not a fool’

Even though Sarawak came through for BN, the voter breakdown would have been 'sobering' for Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and his people.

The most important headline to me said: ‘Najib is excited, but will consider all aspects.’

I presumed that’s spoken in the context of responding to urgings that we hold general election soon.


The urgings came mainly from people who believed in self-hype and those still green in politics.

They are taking on the PM who said that the elections in Sarawak will factor into a decision to have nationwide elections.

With over 30 years practical experience in politics, Najib is not going to rush in where fools do so amidst exuberant and jubilant whoops of joy.

Even though victorious, he and his people must have gone through the election results with sobering attitude.

They are looking more at signals not trumpeted by the mainstream media and the chorus singers.

But first things first. Congratulations are in order for Taib Mahmud and his gang for winning all the 35 seats PBB contested.

Its partner political parties, SUPP, PRS and SPDP – all under BN – won a further 20 seats.

The Pakatan Rakyat people won 15 seats and an independent won one seat.

Mocks and sarcasms

How did PBB succeed in retaining all the 35 seats? We can advance all sorts of reasons.

We can if we want to justify our position taken if were prompted to win an argument for argument’s sake.

If we do, then having seen our analyses proven wrong, we are likely to be fazed.

But clearly, if the position and stand we have taken were prompted by basic beliefs, then the mocking and sarcasms expected to be raised by gleeful asinine commentators at my previous article, will leave me dismayed.

Fortunately, they will not because as I explained, I was moved not by a desire to win arguments for augments sake, but more moved by basic beliefs.

I will expand more on that in my own blog sakmongkol.blogspot.com.

So why is Najib excited but not enough I think to decide on a general election?

At first instance, this reaction is to be expected.

Anyone wishing to vanquish his opponent doesn’t expose his strategic thinking and forfeits the element of surprise.

Look closer at the results. BN managed to get 372,379 votes (54.5%) in total while the opposition raked in 300,288 votes (45.5%), with the DAP getting 142,847 votes of those.

At the 2006 state election, BN obtained 63 seats, DAP won six, SNAP and PKR one each.

More loses

This time around, BN lost an additional eight seats to the opposition compared to the 2006 polls.

BN lost 16 seats, DAP notched a 100% increase in the number of its seats, PKR improved three-fold by taking in three seats.

SNAP which was hastily resurrected before the elections got nothing. PAS won nothing.

BN won some seats by courtesy of postal votes. The postal votes went against PKR contestants.

Popular votes for BN were reduced by 8% from 63% to 55%. The popular votes for Pakatan rose to 45%.

Looking at the results will not cause one to rush in prematurely. Najib and his cabinet literally made Sarawak their 2nd home for more than a week. Putrajaya moved to Kuching during that time.

Najib must have also realized that Umno has almost taken over the election operations.

He must have also revived feedbacks, that Umno’s involvement at ground level was not well revived by Taib’s own ground forces.

In a general election setting, the fact that state elections had to be won by sending in the cavalry from Peninsula is not that encouraging.

The Sarawak state election must be seen as by elections of 71 state seats undertaken simultaneously.

You can concentrate resources and forces at one place but that cannot be done in nationwide general elections.

Perhaps these are the reasons that excite Najib but not sufficient for him to abandon pragmatism.

Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz