PAS seen splitting opposition votes

POLITICAL analyst Tang Ah Chai says PAS will have a problem winning 30 constituencies, let alone securing enough seats in the 14th general election (GE14) to form the next government.

Tang was commenting on the opposition party’s boast that it can contest at least 130 seats and has set its sights on winning a simple majority in Parliament to form the next government.

He said PAS might end up splitting the opposition’s votes for Barisan Nasional (BN), China Press reported yesterday.

Tang said PAS has never won more than 30 parliamentary seats in any election except with the help of DAP and PKR when it was part of the opposition coalition.

“Now that it wants to go solo (again), it is quite impossible for it to garner 30 seats, let alone win a simple majority of 112 seats,” he said.

He said all these while, Chinese and urban voters have been “afraid” to vote for PAS, for fear that the Islamist party might get the chance to implement hudud, which it has long planned to do.

Tang said PAS’s brag about obtaining a simple majority on its own, coming from none other than president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, has no basis and is aimed only at wooing Malay voters, particularly those who feel strongly about their religion.

On the possibility of PAS and BN forming the next government, Tang said that it is possible but unlikely, saying Umno will not ignore the feelings of its partners in BN.

Another political analyst, Datuk Cheah See Kian, said Umno will remain in the federal government as long as it has the support of BN component parties from Sabah and Sarawak.

“In GE13, Umno won 88 seats. This (which Umno is expected to at least retain) and more than 30 BN seats expected from the two East Malaysian states are enough for a simple majority government,” he said, in concurring with Tang on why he thought it was unlikely for Umno to ignore the feelings of its East Malaysian partners and opt to forge an alliance with PAS.