The Choice

Two recent articles analysing Prime Minister Najib Razak and UMNO’s GE13 campaign by Clive Kessler published on New Mandala had received more than the usual interesting responses. It must have struck a nerve at the core of the Prime Minister’s office, requiring a response from The Choice, a blog that is supportive of Prime Minister Najib Razak.

The Choice has a two part piece [HERE and HERE] ‘criticising’ Clive’s analysis. Clive has naturally responded in the way that only Clive can — to their two part ‘criticism’ HERE.

New Mandala readers may also want to have a read of Helen Ang’s take of Clive Kessler’s analysis.

I welcome readers opinion on what they think of all these articles.

Now a note from Clive.

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What happened in GE13, and what now? A correction.

Clive Kessler

A correction, if I may now put it on record, to my two-part GE13 retrospective.

Owing to a “glitch” in the GE13 database that I was using, I misstated the numbers of Umno’s overall representation in the Dewan Rakyat and its overwhelming preponderance in BN’s peninsular representation.

Somehow, the seats that Umno won in Labuan and East Malaysia were included with its peninsular successes.

This error should not be allowed to stand uncorrected.

I originally suggested that Umno now holds 88 of 100 peninsular seats that were won by BN.

In fact, Umno now holds 74 of BN’s 86 peninsular seats, plus 14 more in Labuan and Sabah.

Interested readers should note the change in those numbers. I apologise for the error in my original account of the situation.

This change in numbers does not change the nature, or the basic force, of my overall argument about the increased domination of government ranks and parliament that Umno achieved at GE13, despite the decline in BN’s Dewan Rakyat representation from 140 to 133.

I thank Andrew Khoo for calling this error to my attention.

* Clive Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology & Anthropology at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.