Can Khaled do what Ghani did in handling a Malay tsunami?

According to this Bernama story,

Johor BN Will Focus Efforts To Recapture Seats From Opposition

JOHOR BAHRU, May 20 (Bernama) -- Johor Barisan Nasional (BN) will focus its efforts to recapture seats lost to the opposition in the last 13th General Election (GE13).

Johor BN chairman Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said BN would ensure victory, despite the opposition´s confidence of capturing 5 parliamentary seats in the upcoming 14th General Election (GE14).

"Ask the opposition to specify which areas (15 seats) that they want to capture in Johor," he told reporters after launching the Mega Sale �Muafakat Johor´ Carnival 2017 at Pasir Gudang Indoor Stadium, here today.

The Johor Menteri Besar was commenting on a statement by Pakatan Harapan that expressed confident to capture 15 seats in the state in GE14 after a special meeting of the Pakatan Harapan Johor yesterday.

In the GE13, Johor BN won 21 of 26 parliamentary seats. The five opposition seats are Kulai, Gelang Patah, Kluang, Batu Pahat and Bakri and Pagoh.

On the Mega Sale Carnival, Mohamed Khaled said the carnival would be expanded to Iskandar Malaysia as it would help the people in the face of rising prices of daily necessities at the moment.

Not a very well written story, but never mind.

Well, since Khaled asked where are the five parliament seats the opposition is confident of capturing,
let me take a wild guess....errr, one of them should be at his own division of Pasir Gudang where BN's majority was slashed in 2013 from over 20,000 to less than 1,000.

It's 935, to be exact.

The others should be Ledang (1,967), Tebrau (1,767), Muar (1,646), Segamat (1,217) and Labis (353).

Out of the 25 parliament seats won by BN by less than 2,000 votes in the last general election, six are in Johor.

That makes it one extra more than what Khaled asked for.

There are several other places in Johor where BN's majority had been significantly reduced, but let's save those for another story.

Can BN win back its lost parliament seats in Johor?

For that, maybe we can just look at the majority won by the opposition in Gelang Patah, which is 14,752, Bakri (5,067), Kluang (7,359), Kulai (13,450) and Batu Pahat (1,524).

Maybe Batu Pahat can be taken back by BN.

In the first place, BN was not supposed to lose that seat in the last general election but the Umno headquarter's decision to ignore Johor liasion committee's recommendation not to field Mohd Puad Zarkashi there handed the seat to the opposition.

For more on that, read this,

Meroyan kalah pilihanraya

So, what could possibly be Khaled's strategy to avoid BN from losing more seats, or to put it as he said, to recapture those now with the opposition?

If we look at all those 50-50 seats, they are mostly racially marginal.

That means BN, or to be more precise Umno can't rely solely on Malay unity in Johor.

It needs to win back some non-Malay votes in the state, especially among the Chinese.

I'm not sure how they can achieve that, but definitely not by the approach of some who went around saying that the next general election will be about Malays versus Chinese.

Some people told me that the Bangsa Johor campaign led by the palace may do the trick as it makes the Chinese happy.

Maybe kut.

Well, I don't know. Only the Johorean Chinese can tell whether they are happy or not.

As for Malay unity in Johor, it  has always been unity in Umno.

Nothing to do with Umno-Pas unity. That's why I couldn't care less about all those perpaduan ummah talks. In Johor, it's perpaduan Melayu didalam Umno, okay.

Khaled personally told me that 83 per cent of Malays in Johor voted for BN in the last general election.

That's how strong was Malay unity in Johor.

I believe if not for that, the Chinese tsunami of 2013 would have swept away the state from BN.

In light of the Umno rebellion led by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the opposition is expecting a Malay tsunami against BN in the next general election.

They expect Johor to be hit hard by it, thus their confidence in capturing more parliamentary seats in the state.

The last time there was something which could be described as a Malay tsunami was during the 1999 general election.

It was estimated that less than 40 per cent of Malays voted for BN in that election

The ruling coalition was saved by the Chinese who went all out to vote for it after being spooked by the violent mostly Malay-led Reformasi riots of  Anwar Ibrahim.

Umno, nonetheless, lost a lot of seats with Pas capturing Terengganu that year.

Johor was however untouched by that Malay tsunami.

Johor BN, led by then MB TS Abdul Ghani Othman, won all the parliament and state seats in that 1999 general election. It was an amazing 100 per cent victory at the height of a Malay rebellion against Umno.

Back then, Johor was truly the tiang seri of Umno.

Lets see if it is still so, and whether Khaled can do what Ghani did in leading Johor into what the opposition believe will be another Malay tsunami.

I do hope for Khaled's sake that he agrees with me that in Johor, it is not wise to stop a Malay tsunami by saying "you are with us or against us", 'no retreat, no surrender" and other such stupid things now very popular among some clever Umno people and supposed supporters.

Bear in mind that back in 1999, there were many Johorean Malays who disliked Dr Mahathir for what he did to Anwar, but they still voted for BN because of their loyalty to Umno.  It helps that Johor Umno, then under Ghani, never witch-hunted them.

Maybe Khaled can learn from that.