Three days ago, I posed the question whether PAS could lose Kelantan in the next 14th General Election.

I said that based on the 13th General Election performance, if there is a 4% swing of voters against PAS in Kelantan in the next poll, PAS will lose power in the state it had governed for 25 years since 1990.

Is a 4% swing in a state an unlikely happening?

In the 13th General Election in Kedah, PAS and Pakatan Rakyat lost the Kedah State Government because there was a 3.8% swing of the voters against PAS.

The voter swing against PAS was even more overwhelming as it was nearly four-fold during the 2004 General Election in Terengganu, where there was a 15% swing of voters against PAS, sweeping out the Terengganu PAS State Government after only one term of Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi as the Terengganu Mentri Besar.

Pakatan Rakyat is no more, and time will tell whether this is a blessing in disguise or otherwise.

There is no doubt however that Pakatan Rakyat would have been wiped out in the next general election if it had contested the next polls in total disregard of the violation of the PR Common Policy Framework by one of the component parties.

In fact, if there had been a violation of the PR Common Policy Framework before the 13th General Election, the results on May 5, 2013 would have been very different – and PR would have even lost the Selangor state government, reverting back to UMNO/Barisan Nasional.

According to one calculation, the 89 Parliamentary seats nation-wide and 229 State Assembly seats in Peninsular Malaysia won by Pakatan Rakyat would have been slashed to 46 Parliamentary seats nation-wide and 134 State Assembly seats in Peninsular Malaysia.

Selangor’s 44 State Assembly seats (made up of DAP 15, PAS 15 and PKR 14) would have been slashed to 21 seats (DAP 11, PKR 5, PAS 5) and lost the State Government to UMNO/BN; while Johor’s score of 18 State seats (DAP 13, PAS 4, PKR 1) would have been pulverised to only 4 seats, all DAP with nil seats for PKR and PAS.

The results in other states will be equally grim, with PAS’ five state assembly seats in Perak slashed to one, PAS’ three seats in Pahang slashed two, PAS’ one seat in Malacca reduced to zero.

The PAS Muktamar resolution on June 3 to sever ties between PAS and DAP, coupled with PAS repeated violation of the PR Common Policy Framework, resulting in the death of Pakatan Rakyat, has created a new political scenario.

There is now great expectation among the people throughout the country awaiting the Gerakan Harapan Baru (GHB) movement to rekindle new hopes of political change in Malaysia – hopes many had feared would be buried with the death of Pakatan Rakyat on June 3, 2015.

[Speech (2) at the Penang DAP Hari Raya Aidilfitri Open House in Kepala Batas on Sunday 19th July 2015 at 2 pm]