Chinese voters abandon Harapan at more than double the rate of Malay areas

TG PIAI POLLS | The Tanjung Piai by-election was Pakatan Harapan's ninth electoral outing since the 14th general election and its fourth defeat after Cameron Highlands, Semenyih, and Rantau.

In all those previous by-elections, BN won on significantly improved Malay support, whereas changes in Chinese votes have largely been marginal.

In the Tanjung Piai by-election, however, Harapan was drowned by a wave of protest votes that cut across racial lines, with a substantial number of Malays and Chinese shifting towards BN.

Notably, Chinese-majority polling districts were abandoning Harapan at a rate more than double than that of Malay-majority polling districts.

The outcome was Harapan losing in all of the 27 polling districts in Tanjung Piai, compared to the 11 that it won in the last general election.

In the Cameron Highlands and Semenyih by-elections, Harapan was still able to win most urban centres; and even in the Rantau by-election, which is an undefeated BN stronghold, Harapan was able to retain at least one polling district.

To illustrate the severity of Harapan's defeat in Tanjung Piai, the decline in support for Harapan in polling districts with more than 80 percent Malay population ranged between two percent and 12 percent.

In contrast, in polling districts where Chinese similarly make up more than 80 percent of constituents, the decline ranged from a whopping 27 to 38 percent.

An example is the Malay-majority polling district Pengkalan Raja Pontian. Votes for Harapan fell from 19.45 percent to a mere 10.65 percent — the 8.8 percentage point drop is one of the worst in a Malay-majority polling district.

Meanwhile, the Chinese-majority polling districts of Bandar Pekan Nenas Timur and Bandar Pekan Nenas Selatan saw Harapan's support plummet by 38.01 percentage points and 27.48 percent points respectively.

Harapan's vote share in Bandar Pekan Nenas Timur went from 72.15 percent - a safe area - to 34.14 percent; while in Bandar Pekan Nenas Selatan, it fell from 54.85 percent to a measly 27.37 percent, which is less than what BN received in the last general election there despite the strong anti-establishment sentiment at the time.

BN increased its votes in Bandar Pekan Nenas Selatan from 39.62 percent to 63.37 percent.

The turnout in all Chinese-majority polling districts was also lower than the overall average of 74.5 percent, suggesting that many stayed home while outstation voters did not return.

Even if outstation voters did return, considering voter anger, there is no guarantee that they would vote for Harapan.

The only saving grace was Harapan improving its vote share among advance and postal votes from 20.09 percent in the last general election to 36.32 percent in the by-election.

Harapan has always struggled in making inroads amongst Malay voters outside of the Klang Valley.

However, the slow but incremental progress it made in the Malay community coupled with strong Chinese support helped sweep the coalition into power in the last general election.

While the limited decline in Malay support in Tanjung Piai can be explained by Harapan's small support base as BN already controls majority Malay support in those areas, Harapan's Chinese support fell to levels almost similar to that of the Malays.

The rapid evaporation of Chinese backing left Harapan with no support, resulting in its crushing defeat in Tanjung Piai.

BN's Wee Jeck Seng, who is from MCA, won by a landslide, securing his old parliamentary seat with a 15,086-vote majority. He lost the seat last year by only 524 votes.

With 25,466 votes, Wee secured 65.6 percent of the vote share compared to Harapan's Karmaine Sardini, who only won 26.7 percent of the votes.

Gerakan's Wendy Subramaniam came in third with 1,707 votes, Berjasa’s Badhrulhisham Abd Aziz bagged 850 votes in fourth place, and independent candidates Ang Chuan Lock and Faridah Aryani Abd Ghaffar received 380 and 32 votes respectively.

Mahathir's hurt and voters' pain

It is unclear how significant a role PAS' backing of BN has had in the by-election as Malay support for Harapan had already been on the decline in past by-elections, fueled by a lack of catalyst and aid for the rural economy as well as concerns over race and religion.

As for the evaporation of Harapan's Chinese support, it preceded a series of controversies such as the government's mishandling of the introduction of khat lessons in vernacular schools and Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's attendance at the Malay Dignity Congress.

Mahathir had lamented that he felt hurt with being labelled "racist" for attending the Malay Dignity Congress but appeared oblivious that the hurt, particularly amongst non-Malays, was not because it was a Malay event but the inflammatory speeches made there.

It should be noted a similar event, the Bumiputera Economic Congress, was organised in September last year and was also attended by Mahathir as well as Economic Affairs Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali and PKR president Anwar Ibrahim.

The event's narrative stuck strictly on how to uplift the bumiputera community, and while there were pockets of criticism, it concluded without incident.

The Port Dickson by-election, which came a month after that Bumiputera Economic Congress, saw Harapan's support remain largely intact.

The signs of Harapan's declining support amongst the Chinese was evident since the start of the Tanjung Piai campaign with MCA, which in the past struggled to attract a handful of people to its ceramah, saw larger crowds than Harapan.

Many voters whom Malaysiakini spoke to also expressed their intention to cast protest votes against Harapan to "teach the coalition a lesson".

In the face of this, Harapan deployed its top guns to Tanjung Piai, made multiple appeals to voters against casting protest votes and ramped up its attacks against the MCA, sometimes encroaching the realm of racial politics.

Harapan appeared confident of its own strategy as MCA began to be unsettled by the onslaught. It was further convinced by its own internal survey that Chinese votes have only declined marginally and that overall, it was ahead by nine points.

Protest votes can turn into fixed deposits

In contrast to Harapan's optimism, many voters, even on the last day of the campaign, were still undecided.

Undecided as they, including those at Harapan's ceramah, were weighing whether to vote for BN.

"I admit, last year I followed the trend (of supporting Harapan), but this time I need to make a more careful choice, so I'm listening to both Harapan and MCA ceramah sessions to compare for myself," a voter at Harapan's finale ceramah had told Malaysiakini.

"Mahathir is very anti-Chinese. A lot of policies he proposed are geared towards a singular direction and are not inclusive." 

When they finally decided at the ballot box, the outcome was nothing short of a disaster for Harapan.

The fact that Wee, who had served in the constituency for two terms, is well-known as a hardworking and popular leader by the local communities also helped their decision.

BN chairperson Ahmad Zahid Hamidi hailed the Tanjung Piai by-election as the return of Chinese support for the coalition, which has struggled to court them for more than a decade.

While BN's opponents may argue that they voted not in support of BN but out of anger for Harapan, which is true for many voters whom Malaysiakini spoke to, it was very much the same for Harapan before.

In 2008, the then disparate opposition had little governance record to show for, but voters, angry at then prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, casted protest votes in droves, sweeping the opposition into power in three previously BN-held states.

From there, Pakatan Rakyat and its successor Harapan consolidated support, resulting in a solid Chinese support base for a decade, until now.

Harapan will now have to face the double headache of arresting the decline of support amongst both the Malay and Chinese communities.

Tanjung Piai's Indian population comprises only 0.9 percent of the electorate, which makes it a poor measure for Indian support.

But the government position on controversial preacher Dr Zakir Naik and the crackdown on sympathisers of the now-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, all of whom are Indians, are unlikely to score points for the ruling coalition.

Malays make up 57.6 percent of Tanjung Piai's electorate, while Chinese make up another 41.4 percent. - Mkini