From:
Date: 01 Dec 1999
Time: 03:34:41
UMNO Celebrates Landslide Victory
Malaysia today joyously celebrated UMNO’s landslide victory in the country’s tenth general elections. In a crushing display of strength and popularity, UMNO not only managed to successfully lose 24 Parliamentary seats and 71 state seats but also lost a whole State, in addition to four Cabinet Ministers and five deputy ministers.
“We are thrilled by this victory,” said an UMNO spokesman who, out of acute embarrassment, refused to disclose his identity and wore a paper bag over his head. “The Barisan Nasional started the elections with only 166 seats in Parliament but we have now managed to increase that to 148,” said the spokesperson, who was never very good at maths in school.
“We have lost more seats than any other component party in the Barisan Nasional,” he added. “This clearly demonstrates the leadership position UMNO has in the coalition.”
“We have also managed to destroy the Opposition by doubling the number of seats they have in Parliament to 45 and, in the case of PAS, even tripling their state seats. We can thank only UMNO for this achievement,” he noted.
“We have even managed to have more Opposition parliamentary seats than UMNO ones in the Prime Minister’s own home state of Kedah, “ he declared proudly. “The future of UMNO looks bright there.”
When asked if the election results were, in fact, a Pyrrhic victory for UMNO, the spokesman said. “Let me stress that it was a clear Barisan Nasional victory, not a Pyrrhic victory. In fact, I don’t believe the Pyrrhic Party even won a single seat,” said the spokesman, whose knowledge of English idiom left a lot to be desired as well.
UMNO also managed to significantly slash the majorities it held in the seats it was defending. Even popular Kubang Pasu MP, MAHAFIRAUN, successfully slashed his majority from 17,000 to slightly over 10,000. “Due to the hard work and commitment of our candidates, we have managed make major cuts in these embarrassingly large margins,” said Education Minister Najib Tun Razak, who was still wiping the pee stains from his trousers when he narrowly held his seat by a wafer-thin majority of 241 votes – about a third of the number of spoilt votes in his constituency.
Some UMNO candidates were so good at reducing BN majorities that they even lost their seats, such as the Former Religions Affairs Minister Abdul Othman Hamid who was beaten by national laureate and satirist Datuk Shahnon Ahmad in Sik. When asked to comment on the shock defeat, all Othman could say was “Shit!”
On the other hand, UMNO parliamentary candidate and former deputy minister in charge of legal affairs Ibrahim Ali thanked the people for allowing him to be soundly trounced in the Pasir Mas contest. “The good folks at Pasir Mas obviously recognise the valuable service I am doing for them in the UMNO Anti-Defamation Committee and don’t want me to waste my time with trivial matters such as being their member of Parliament,” Ibrahim observed. However, he still hopes to be an MP some day and said that he is contemplating hopping over to the MCA soon in order to give himself a better chance of getting elected next time.
UMNO candidate for Peringat, former Rural Development Minister Annuar Musa, who lost his seat to Keadilan, attributed his defeat to having a name that sounds like the name of two former deputy Prime Ministers. “Those two names spell bad karma, man, especially when you’re in UMNO” he noted.
Former Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Megat Junid attributed his loss in Parit to rising seafood prices, due to the current arsenic scare. Former Second Finance Minister Mustapha Mohamed blamed his shock defeat on mistaken identity. “Voters probably mistook me for the *First* Finance Minister,” he said.
The lone successful UMNO MP for Kelantan, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, was asked to comment on the future of his much-publicised ‘Rampas Kelantan!’ (‘Capture Kelantan!’) campaign. ‘It has as much future as my chances of being deputy PM now, I suppose,’ he remarked philosophically.
In the neighbouring state of Terengganu, Opposition parties were still reeling from the crushing death blows it received from UMNO. “It was a disaster,” said new Terengganu Chief Minister Hj Abdul Hadi Awang of PAS. “UMNO’s victorious onslaught left us with every single one of the eight Parliamentary seats and 28 of the 32 state seats. UMNO skillfully outflanked us and we suddenly find ourselves stuck with leading a State Government and burdened with half a billion ringgit in annual oil revenues. Those guys were good.”
In a related development, Barisan Nasional’s Seputeh candidate Sua Chong Keh gracefully accepted his defeat by DAP’s Teresa Kok. Sua caused some controversy during the run-up to the polls when he remarked that he was standing as a candidate while his opponent, being a woman, was squatting. “I accept the verdict of the people,” Sua declared in a press conference in a public lavatory in Taman Seputeh. “I promise that I shall now squat when I urinate.”
Meanwhile, Internet satirist Sabri Zain warmly welcomed the Barisan Nasional’s victory in the general elections. “The people have spoken,” he declared. “And they want me to poke fun at the Barisan Nasional for another five years. I shall not disappoint them.”
By a special correspondent of Not The New Straits Times