A thrilling battle is building up for the 13th General Election

Kenny Gan

The 13th general election will be the most watched and anxiously awaited event in the annals of Malaysian political history. Previous general elections have been tame affairs where the result was never in doubt; it was only a matter of how many seats the opposition could wrest away from BN. But the next election will be different as BN faces a real threat of losing power to a united opposition.

Malaysian politics has always been a one party system with the ruling coalition facing no creditable challenges from a fragmented opposition. But with the rise of Pakatan Rakyat a nascent two party system has evolved ending the domination of one party which allowed it to perpetrate all manner of abuses and corruption.

To be sure, this is not the first time that the opposition parties have grouped together to challenge BN. In the 1990 general election, Tengku Razaleigh’s Semangat 46 forged a coalition with other opposition parties and in 1999 DAP, PAS and Keadilan formed Barisan Alternatif to take advantage of public revulsion over Mahathir’s cruel treatment of Anwar.

But these opposition pacts did not even manage to deny BN its customary two-thirds majority. They failed because the social forces at that time were just not in their favour. The minorities were controlled by racial and religious fears and the mindset of the people then could not accept being governed by any coalition other than BN.

Things are certainly different now. Never before has there been such a nexus of events to influence the political destiny of the country. The coming together of the opposition, the dissipation of racial and religious fears, the loss of minority votes, the sea change in mindset, the political awakening of Sabah and Sarawak and yet another sodomy outrage on Anwar have coalesced into the perfect storm to oust BN.

The Tyranny of Numbers

Although chances to unseat BN have never been better one should not be mistaken into thinking that ousting the behemoth is easy or inevitable. In Malaysia there is no such thing as free and fair elections. The playing field is wholly tilted to BN which has almost unlimited funds and controls the mass media and all the levers of power which it shamelessly uses to its advantage. If these advantages are not enough a little help from postal votes and phantom voters are in order.

There are 222 parliament seats so a party winning 112 seats gains a simple majority to form the government with the other side ending up with 110 seats. Of course such a slim majority is not workable in practice as a single defection will lose the majority.

To gain a reasonable majority of say 20 seats, PR would need to win 121 seats with BN ending up with 101 seats. After the 2008 general election, PR held 83 parliament seats to BN’s 139. This means PR must retain all the seats it won in 2008 plus an additional 38 seats. On the surface this looks rather optimistic.

But numbers can be deceptive. Our election system is based on “first past the post” which means that a win by 1 vote is still a win. Hence a small swing in vote share can result in a large number of seats changing hands. An alternative system is proportional representation where seat allocation is based on the proportion of votes secured but the disadvantage of such a system is that it tends to result in weak governments.

After the 2008 election there were many marginal seats won by both sides which could change hands with just a small swing in voter support. Based on data on marginal seats sourced from Malaysiakini, a 6% swing to PR will result in PR winning 112 seats to BN’s 110 but this is too weak to govern, a 7% swing means PR having 118 to BN’s 104 which is still very dicey so an 8% swing is needed to give PR 125 seats to BN’s 97 seats with a workable majority of 28 seats.

An overall 8% swing is a large swing and this must come on the back of the 2008 swing against BN. To put this in perspective the overall swing to and against BN in past general elections are as follows: (sourced from The Star)

1995 - 11.8% swing to BN due to Dr. M's liberalization policies
1999 - 8.7% swing to opposition due to Anwar factor
2004 - 7.4% swing to BN due to new PM Badawi
2008 - 10.7% swing to opposition due to tsunami.

So an 8% swing is within the range of possibility but the crux is that swings have alternated between BN and opposition from election to election. Since the last election saw a swing of 10.7% to the opposition an additional 8% swing in the same direction seems unlikely or very optimistic due to a limit in fence sitters. Even more ominous, a mere 1.2% swing to BN will see BN regaining its two-thirds majority. Is BN safe in Putrajaya after all?

The Keys to Putrajaya

The key to break this tyranny of numbers is Sabah and Sarawak. To put it another way, Sabah and Sarawak hold the keys to Putrajaya.

In the above analysis we have assumed that the voting pattern in the two East Malaysian states will not differ greatly from 2008 subject to a moderate percentage swing. In 2008 and the opposition only managed to capture only a single seat each in Sabah and Sarawak.

But Sabah and Sarawak are experiencing a political awakening in the wake of the 2008 tsunami. The notion of the two states being “fixed deposits” for BN is set to be seriously challenged. The loss of BN’s stronghold Sibu in a by-election is a signal that political changes are afoot in Sarawak. The mood in Sabah against the federal government is anger at the hordes of illegal immigrants and Sabah is ripe for political change.

Hence we should treat Sabah and Sarawak differently on the basis that their normal voting pattern is going to be upset from the usual trend. Sabah has 26 parliament seats and Sarawak 31, numbers which are disproportionate to their population.

The number of seats which PR can capture in these two states varies between political analysts but even conservative estimates indicate that both these states are likely to lose at least one-third of their seats to PR. The coming Sarawak state election will give a strong pointer. If BN loses its two-thirds majority in the state assembly it spells trouble for BN in the next general election.

If we assume that PR can capture 10 seats in Sabah and 12 seats in Sarawak and adding these to PR’s 81 Peninsula seats in 2008, this brings the total to 103. From the table of BN’s marginal seats and excluding those seats in Sabah and Sarawak, we find that a 4% swing will yield PR an additional 14 seats while a 5% swing will yield another 19 seats in the Peninsula.

Crunching the numbers this means that a 4% swing will give total of 117 seats for PR against BN’s 105, a majority of 12 which is probably too thin to govern as BN will waste no time in toppling the government with wheelbarrows of money and attacks with their cohorts in the civil service. However a 5% swing yields a total of 122 seats for PR and 100 seats for BN with a majority of 22, not great but workable giving PR time consolidate its position by making much needed changes to the police, judiciary MACC and other enforcement divisions.

A 5% swing is still significant but begins to look more attainable although we must remember that this must come on the back of a 10.7% swing in 2008 in the same direction. The next question is, “Will there be enough fence sitters to execute the swing given that a large number have already swung away from BN in 2008?”

Hard Core Supporters and Fence Sitters

Politics in Malaysia is characterized by hard core supporters and fence sitters. These terms merit some description.

Fence sitters may be best understood by distinguishing them from hard core supporters. Both BN and PR have their flock of hard core supporters who will vote for their party come hell or high water. No amount of negative news or shameful acts attributed to the party they support will make any difference to their vote, not even fielding a disbarred lawyer in a by-election.

Fence sitters are not strongly aligned to any party. Their vote may go either way depending on how they weigh the parties. They are usually well read, well informed from many sources of information and their views are shaped by current events, exposes, scandals and perception of injustice or unfairness. They will vote for the better party or failing that, the lesser devil.

Every partisan action by the police or MACC, every controversial court decision, every racist outburst, every unfair application of the law and every crime that goes unpunished means BN pushes some fences sitters off to PR’s side.

To BN’s great shame it has learned nothing from the 2008 tsunami but has continued to offend the sensibilities of fence sitters left, right and centre. It goes without saying that PR will win the fence sitters’ battle.

The Racial Battleground

Among the Malays there appear to be few fence sitters. This is why PR finds it hard to increase its Malay vote share. On the other hand even overt racism and ultra nationalism do little to enlarge Umno’s Malay base. The Malay ground is very hard to shift either way but a little means a lot due to their demography.

Analysis of BN’s Malay vote share in past general elections show 49% in 1999 due to the Anwar crisis, 59.1% in 2004 due to the new PM factor (or because Mahathir was gone) and 55% in 2008. Umno’s baseline Malay support appears to be about 55% and it can shift up or down by about 5%. This means that in 2008 it may have declined down to it base support level and it possible to shift further to PR by a further of 5%.

But the possibility is not the deed as there must be something to shift the Malay ground. Is there any likelihood of a cataclysmic event which will swing the Malay vote away from BN as what happened in 1999? Yes, there is - Anwar’s sodomy II which is almost certain to end with his imprisonment.

A more drastic consequence of the Malay vote falling below 50% with the minority votes with PR is that BN will lose all the non-Malay majority seats and mixed seats in the Peninsula while all the Malay majority seats will be up for grabs thus giving PR an easy victory.

The Chinese community can be considered to be won by PR with up to 80% support in by-elections. Comparing this with the 65% Chinese support for the opposition in 2008 it can be seen that there is considerable latitude for further swing from the 2008 baseline.

It is generally believed that the Indian community voted overwhelmingly against BN in 2008 but the numbers show that Indian support for BN was split down the middle at 48%. This was of course a huge swing from their normal 80% support level. Right now the Indian vote is ambivalent and still split down the middle although by-elections have detected a slight drift back to BN. In the Hulu Selangor by-election BN managed to capture 55% of the Indian vote.

It is regrettable that the Indians who claim to be the most marginalized race cannot stand with the Chinese in getting rid of a regime which is responsible for their economic under performance. In ousting BN all races are important; there are many mixed seats which would be won easily if the Indians vote with the Chinese. Hindraf and their offshoot HRP’s incessant attacks on PR in their ill-advised quest for political power has confused the Indians. The lack of a charismatic Indian leader in PR has not helped.

The Final Analysis

So what sort of overall swing from the 2008 baseline can be realistically expected? Assuming that the Anwar sodomy factor will result in a 4% swing to BN among the Malays, a 75% support level from the Chinese (10% swing) and a 0% swing from the Indians (hopefully no negative swing) and basing on a demography of 66% Malay, 26% Chinese and 8% Indian, the overall swing can be calculated as 5.24%.

This is just sufficient to push PR into Putrajaya with a practical majority to govern. Of course this is based on the assumption that BN will dig their own grave by sticking Anwar in prison on a parody of seeking justice for a consensual sodomy victim and that the Indians do not help to perpetuate a system which has sidelined them.

Why did I choose 4% for the Malay swing? As can be seen this number is crucial as it will make or break PR’s bid for Putrajaya. It is not because ‘4’ sounds like ‘death’ in Chinese dialects to signal the death of BN. In 1999 Malay support for BN dropped 6% but there appears to be less anger now. 4% is within the estimated 5% of Malay fence sitters. Yes, it may well be 1% or 2% but I cannot believe that Malays are much less compassionate now over injustice and humiliation heaped on a popular leader. The 4% swing reflects not just the Anwar factor but also disgust for Umno’s racism, chauvinism, bigotry, corruption, institutional abuse and double standards. It is a reasonable figure and my purpose is to show that BN can be ousted with reasonable assumptions.

It is clear that the 13th general election will be a battle for the Malay vote. Only the Malays themselves can determine who governs them. There are no races acting as kingmakers.

A New Dawn for Malaysia

The road to Putrajaya is long and arduous so PR must stay focused and cohesive. There is no room for petty squabbling or in-fighting. Unseating BN with their absolute control of money, media and machinery is hard even with the opposition coalition at its optimum. Anything less and BN may even gain back their two-thirds majority instead of being ousted.

Along the way PR will be helped by young voters entering the electoral rolls who are repelled by BN’s corruption, abuses and racism, wider access to online sources of information, increasing urbanization of rural areas, rising cost of living against depreciation of real income and BN’s continuing sandals. Although PR supporters are anxious to kick out BN more time may actually be favourable to PR.

For too long has Malaysia suffered under the domination of one party and a race based political system with a government that uses corruption as its lifeblood and racial discrimination as a state policy. It is time for a new dawn for Malaysia, a new government that is inclusive, pluralistic and capable of driving Malaysia to new heights without the baggage of the past.