Umno will never regain Selangor - Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz

If the voter swing remains at 7% in the coming general election, then Barisan Nasional will likely be left with less than 90 seats.

The general election is expected to be held very soon and that will be the best time for Umno.

Later dates would place Umno in a very precarious position to do damage control on issues that are coming out of the woodwork.

Also, Umno thinks that what it has done in terms of handing money and cash to the public is sufficient to bring back the voters that it lost in the 2008 general election.

We are not going to dispute that assessment. But we are not going to overrate its chances in getting back what it has lost either.

On average, the vote swing towards the opposition in 2008 was around 12%.

With all the money it has given out, all the propaganda it is dishing out through the audio-visual and Umno-owned new media, it has probably succeeded in getting back at the most 5%.

That still leaves a 7% vote swing in favour of Pakatan Rakyat on the whole.

If the swing remains at 7%, Barisan Nasional will likely be left with less than 90 seats. They are out!

Umno will never regain Selangor

Meanwhile, in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur Federal Territory with 11 parliamentary seats, Pakatan still has a surplus of 15%. That is assuming that while Umno went on the offensive, Pakatan has been sleeping.

In Selangor specifically, bearing in mind the water issue, I predict the vote swing will stay around 15%.
With a 15% vote swing, how will Pakatan fare in Selangor?

Umno can only retain the current six parliamentary seats it has if over the past four years Umno has managed to regained 18% of the swing votes it lost in 2008.

But that is very unlikely given the gangster-style manner Umno is taking to recapture Selangor.

Even if Umno has recovered 10 percentage points, Umno will never regain Selangor. Noh Omar, Dr Khir Toyo and others hanging on to their seats will be enjoying life as private citizens.

This is what will happen in Selangor under different vote swing scenarios. This was taken from a private intelligence study on the impact of vote swings on the future of BN and Pakatan.

The writer is a former Umno state assemblyman but joined DAP earlier this year. He is a FMT columnist.