BN can win back the Chinese like in Sarawak

I'm not in Sarawak, so my take on the just concluded state election there is going to be quite simple.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, okay.

This is the result last night:
BN    - 72
DAP  - 7
PKR  - 3

You can compare it with the result of the state election in 2011:
BN   - 55
DAP - 12
PKR - 3
Ind   - 1

As expected, BN won with a landslide. This is after all Sarawak.

Nonetheless, it's quite clear that there had been a swing to a certain extent as far as the Chinese votes were concerned.

DAP suffered quite a lot while BN's Chinese-based party, namely SUPP did rather well.

That's for me is the biggest significance of the Sarawak election.

It gives BN the signal that there's real hope of winning back the Chinese votes in other parts of the country too.

Some may argue that Sarawak is different from the other states, but do remember that back then, the pattern of Chinese votes in the Sarawak election in 2011 was the same as the Chinese tsunami of the general election in 2013.

For me, Sarawak BN, led by TS Adenan Satem did the right things to win back a significant amount of the Chinese votes as seen last night.

It presented a good state government, was firm against corruption and even more importantly showing genuine sincerity towards the Chinese.

I believe that the best example of that genuine sincerity was the recognition given by the Sarawak government to the Chinese education system, particularly the Unified Examination Certificate.

Equally important was that Adenan and his people didn't try to punish the Chinese for overwhelmingly siding with the opposition in 2011.

They didn't play the bumiputera card against the Chinese.

That's what likely turned a lot of Chinese around, back to supporting BN in the Sarawak election.

Hopefully the BN leadership in KL will learn the right lessons from it.

Umno in particular, should not forsake its old friends especially the Chinese-based MCA and Gerakan because of the Chinese tsunami of 2013.

It should not submit to the insidious goading of those whose motives were suspect by turning itself into an ultra-Malay-Islamic party or joining forces with such as that.

BN needs to stay the way it has always been - a moderate multi-racial coalition representing all Malaysians.

It's the only way it can remains relevant.

There's still hope for it as could be seen in Sarawak last night.

And of course Umno and its BN friends need to clean up their act.

True, they are in a mess now, but so do the opposition parties.

There's still slightly over two years from the next general election.

If they work hard, be clean and sincere, I believe they can be like Adenan and his people last night.

As proven in Sarawak, the Chinese like hardworking, clean and sincere people and they aspire to be such too.

BN should strive to be like that and win them back.

Of course there are a few Chinese who prefer to be insincere hate mongers and not very clean, but I believe most of the others are not so.