PH faces uphill battle to keep Sungai Petani in GE16

The State Elections just concluded last Saturday. As stated by Perikatan Nasional Elections Director Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor, Kedah will contribute a remarkable outcome to the Perikatan Nasional (PN) before the candidate nominations.

The prediction is accurate, with PN obtaining 33 seats, an increase from 18 in the previous General Election (GE). Meanwhile, the Pakatan Harapan (PH)-Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition lost 18 seats that they won in the previous GE14.

The results of the state polls are a continuation of PH's heavy defeat in the previous GE15. PH only managed to secure one Parliament seat through Dr Taufiq Johari.

He gathered 50,590 votes, defeating Dr Robert Ling from PN, who garnered 49,465 votes.

What's interesting about the Sungai Petani Parliament, even though in the previous GE, the Sungai Petani Parliament was won by PH with a majority of 1,115, in this state polls, it's the opposite.

The votes for the three state assembly constituencies under the Sungai Petani Parliament, Pantai Merdeka, Bakar Arang, and Sidam, went to PN, totalling 71,336. At the same time, PH-BN received 52,282 votes, with a majority of 19,054.

This significant difference should concern PH-BN because if PH takes no action to retain the Sungai Petani Parliament under the Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Barisan Nasional (BN) alliance in the five years before GE16, it's bound to falter.

PH failed to secure votes from its BN ally, gaining only 1,702 votes from the previous GE15, while PN's votes increased by 21,871.

This shows that the PH-BN alliance failed to secure total votes from both PH and BN supporters.

During the previous GE15, BN received 27,391 votes, and PH received 50,580. However, in the Kedah elections, PH should have received 77,971 votes but instead received less, indicating a decrease in PH-BN votes by 25,689.

Among the factors for this decline are protest votes from BN and a small number of PH supporters.

PH-BN still has time to regain the support of the Sungai Petani people for GE16 in the future.

A strong strategy needs to be formulated by PH to ensure that Sungai Petani remains a 'fixed deposit' for PH, a seat that has been won since GE13.

If PH delays its actions, Sungai Petani will likely fall in the upcoming GE16.

*Muhammad Ehsan Shaari is a Research Officer at Yayasan Kedah Sejahtera.