After the DAP Special Congress on September 29, 2013 to re-elect the DAP national leadership, the UMNO national elections in October and the 59th PAS Muktamar last weekend to elect the PAS leadership for the next two years, the national focus for the coming weeks will be back on the DAP.

Beginning this weekend, most of the DAP State Conventions will be electing the new DAP State leaderships – and true to form, the Umno/BN plotters and conspirators are already working overtime to demonise the DAP leaders to cause maximum dissension, division and damage to the DAP in particular and Pakatan Rakyat in general.

But just as the UMNO/BN plotters and conspirators, through their media, printed and Internet, had failed in their sinister design to destroy Pakatan Rakyat and the component parties of DAP, PAS and PKR, whether before, during and in the half-year after the 13th General Elections, DAP delegates to the DAP State Conventions in the coming weeks must mobilise to rally behind the national DAP leadership to send out one clear and unmistakable message not only to Umno/Barisan Nasional but also to all Malaysians.

This clear and unmistakable message all DAP State Conventions in the coming weeks should send out to all Malaysians is that the DAP at all levels in the country are one with the DAP national leadership and the other Pakatan Rakyat partners, PAS and PKR, to conquer Putrajaya in the 14GE to achieve the Malaysian Dream – a Malaysia for all Malaysians regardless of race, religion, class or region where democracy, good governance and socio-economic justice could flourish to allow every Malaysian to achieve his or her fullest potential for the collective good and greatness of the nation.

I had said yesterday that all the three parties of DAP, PAS and PKR have benefitted from the partnership in Pakatan Rakyat.

From a regional party confined largely to its “Northern” heartland of Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu, PAS has gone “national” in the 13th General Elections with parliamentary and/or state assembly representation in every state in Peninsular Malaysia, except for Negri Sembilan.

Performance of DAP (1999 to 2013)

DAP has also benefitted from being in Pakatan Rakyat and needs the Pakatan framework of cooperation and mutual reliance to continue to win more seats.

DAP has come a long way since 1999 in terms of the number of parliament and state seats won.

From 10 parliament and 11 state seats in Peninsular Malaysia in the 1999 general elections to 11 parliament and 15 state seats in the 2004 general elections, DAP took a big jump to 26 parliament and 72 state seats in Peninsular Malaysia in the 2008 general elections.

DAP made further gains in the 2013 general elections by winning 31 parliament and 91 state seats in Peninsular Malaysia. (See Table 1 below)

Table 1: Number of Parliament and State Seats won by the DAP in Peninsular Malaysia (including seats with <60% Chinese voters)

The growth in the number of seats won by the DAP in 2008 and 2013 have come in places where the DAP had previously failed to win, in ethnically mixed seats where the percentage of Chinese voters are less than 60%.

In 1999, for example, only one out of the 10 parliament seats won by the DAP had less than 60% Chinese voters (Nibong Tebal in Penang with 47% Chinese voters) and only one out of the 11 state seats won by the DAP had less than 60% Chinese voters (Bachang in Melaka with 45% Chinese voters).

In 2004, none of the 11 parliament seats won by the DAP had less than 60% Chinese voters and only one out of the 15 state seats won by the DAP had less than 60% Chinese voters (Sekinchan in Selangor with 57% Chinese voters).

This changed in 2008 when 11 out of the 26 parliament seats (42%) won by DAP in Peninsular Malaysia had less than 60% Chinese voters. Three out of these 11 parliament seats (Puchong, Seremban & Bakri) had more than 40% Malay voters.

Of the 72 state seats won by the DAP in Peninsular Malaysia in 2008, fully one-third or 24 seats had less than 60% Chinese voters. Two out of these 24 seats had more than 40% Malay voters (Sekinchan and Bachang).

Although Pakatan Rakyat had not been created prior to the 2008 general elections, DAP clearly benefitted from coordinating with PAS and PKR in avoiding three-cornered fights and also working with each other through movements like Bersih 1.0.

The formalized cooperation via Pakatan Rakyat helped DAP to win more seats in 2013.

Of the 31 parliament seats won by the DAP in Peninsular Malaysia, 16 (52%) had less than 60% Chinese voters. In fact, 9 out of these 16 seats had less than 50% Chinese voters (See Table 2 below).

Many of the parliament seats won by the DAP in 2013 which it did not win in 2008 are ethnically ‘mixed’ including Kluang (49% Chinese), Gelang Patah (52% Chinese) and Kulai (56% Chinese).

DAP also managed to win the Malay plurality parliament seat of Raub (49.7% Malay, 40.3% Chinese), a breakthrough for the DAP in many ways.

Of the 91 state seats won by DAP, just under half – 44 (48.4%) – had less than 60% Chinese voters. 15 out of these 45 state seats had less than 50% Chinese voters. (See Table 3 below)

Significantly, DAP won three state seats which were Malay majority seats, namely Derga in Kedah (56% Malay), Mentakab in Pahang (52% Malay) and Duyong in Melaka (50.3% Malay).

DAP would not have won the additional state and parliament seats without an increase in Malay support as a result of working within the framework of Pakatan Rakyat, particularly in the seats with a significant number of Malay voters.

It is this Pakatan framework of cooperation and mutual reliance that will strengthen the DAP and improve its performance in the 14th general election.

Table 2: 16 DAP parliament seats that had less than 60% Chinese voters in the 2013 GE

(*) Seats with <50% Chinese voters

Table 3: DAP state seats that had less than 60% Chinese voters in the 2013 GE

(*) Seats with <50% Chinese voters

Tomorrow, we will continue our discussion of the strategic importance of Pakatan Rakyat to DAP, PAS and PKR not only in Peninsular Malaysia, but also in Sabah and Sarawak for the whole of Malaysia.