After six months, Umno decides it won popular vote in GE13

It must have been a busy six months at the Umno headquarters because they finally calculated and decided that Barisan Nasional, and not Pakatan Rakyat, won the popular vote in the May 5 general election.

The way Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak puts it, the Barisan Nasional (BN) won the popular vote in nine states compared to PR's four states.

And the Prime Minister also said Umno as a party got more votes than any of PR's three parties - PKR, DAP and PAS. Let's not forget Umno also gained nine more seats in Election 2013.

It is all true of course, if one decides to calculate according to performance of each party and go state by state. No one can dispute that, although BN only gained seats in four states - Kedah, Kelantan, Negri Sembilan and Perak.

It lost more state seats in the other states, or does that count in Umno's world?

Also, does it take six months to finally come out of a funk and say, hey, we actually won?

If that is a feel-good factor for Umno, by all means trumpet the victory. After all, Umno and BN took a long time to be the most prepared for the last election with its slate of "winnable candidates".

How, then, does it explain losing more federal seats in the country, more seats in Selangor and Penang?

We can only presume that does not matter to Umno, because it does not think the whole is greater than the sum of all its parts.

And it probably thinks the Election Commission (EC) was wrong then about BN winning only 47% of the popular vote against PR's 51%. Wonder if the EC can recalculate according to the Umno way.

Perhaps this is Umno's world view. Only its performance matters and not of its allies in BN. Only the fate of the Malays matter, and not other Malaysians.

Why then even come up with an idea of 1Malaysia? Or, Endless Possibilities?

The fact of the matter is, Umno and BN still hold sway in a country which it has ruled since Malaya got Merdeka in 1957, and six years later when Malaysia was formed. It holds all levers of power, civil service and the media.

It would actually be a surprise if the opposition PR would have been able to topple BN and Umno from power in the last general election. That PR has managed to twice deny BN its two-thirds parliamentary super-majority is already the stuff of legends.

While Umno crows about its success, perhaps it should consider the fact that its allies did not do so well, especially the Chinese-based MCA and Gerakan. Why did that even happen at a time when Najib and his cohorts were courting the Chinese and Indians under the 1Malaysia concept?

The Umno president and his party colleagues need to do more than just believe they have done well in nine states, rather than the whole country. They are not a fringe party that can only survive on rural support. They are a national party that has seen support ebbing from the urban areas in the past two federal elections.

That should be a matter of concern as much as the inability to get back its super-majority in parliament. Would Umno want to see the day when its president says it won the popular vote in just eight states or less?

That is only something to be proud of if the party is a "jaguh kampung", or village hero. Umno is not a jaguh kampung but a party that helped gain Malaya's independence with its allies way back in 1957.

It should not be proud that it can snatch some semblance of respectability from an election that it was sure to win back more states and its super-majority. BN gained Kedah and kept Perak, but it lost a fair number of seats including in birthplace Johor.

That calls for introspection if it wants to win big and not lose more in GE14.

After all, politics and running a country is more complex than just a badminton game. - December 5, 2013.