GE15 ushers in a waiting game

 

The general election results indicate a number of trends that will shape the future political landscape. With no coalition holding enough parliamentary seats to form a simple majority, some form of inter-dependent politics will be needed before any government could be formed.

There were no uniform trends. Different parts of the country voted in different ways. Those politicians who didn’t perform well or who were branded traitors by their former party were severely punished.

These included Azmin Ali and Zuraida Kamaruddin, who played a leading role in the Sheraton Move, and Maszlee Malik, who performed poorly as education minister.

With a turnout of 75%, there were no “giveaways” before the results were released on which coalition would benefit. A low turnout was expected to favour Barisan Nasional, while a high turnout was expected to favour the opposition, Pakatan Harapan.

Instead, the turnout didn’t favour any group, with the youth vote not being the game-changer the opposition had hoped for.

In fact, the overall percentage vote for PH declined.

DAP, which held 47 seats before the election, won 40 this time, with its vote share falling from 19.94% in 2018 to 18%.

The hardest hit was Anwar Ibrahim’s PKR, which won 31 seats, a loss of 11. PKR’s vote share dropped from 18.92% to 14%.

Amanah lost three seats while winning eight, and Upko won two seats, a gain of one.

What makes PH the largest group heading into the new Parliament is not its outstanding electoral performance, but rather the split in the vote within the Malay heartlands, formerly the territory of Barisan Nasional and Perikatan Nasional.

BN had dominated this section of the electoral map since independence. PAS had built a foothold, winning 18 seats in 2018, and Bersatu, under the leadership of Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 2018, was able to take 13 seats from Umno, the dominating member of the BN.

Umno’s dominance of the Malay heartlands this time dropped from 54 seats to 20 in West Malaysia, with an additional seven won in Sabah. Umno’s vote fell from 20.9% in 2018, to just 12%.

The real winner of the night, as many pundits were expecting, was PN.

Muhyiddin Yassin’s Bersatu, the lynchpin of PN, went from 13 seats to 24 seats, going from 5.95% to 11% of the vote. PAS, led by Abdul Hadi Awang, gained a massive 31 seats to finish with 49 seats in the new Parliament. The PAS vote has risen from 16.82% to 22%.

PAS is now the senior party in the PN coalition, and Hadi is a candidate for prime minister.

Over in Sarawak, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), which already governs the state, won 22 out of 31 parliamentary seats. This is up from 19 in 2018. GPS has held meetings with both PH leaders Anwar and Loke Siew Fook, and separately with Muhyiddin and Hadi about forming a government.

The political landscape of Sabah is now clearly divided between three groupings. Umno Sabah has seven seats, Gabungan Rakyat Sabah has six, and Warisan three, with the remainder held by DAP (two), PKR (one) and Bersatu (one).

It looks like Sabah, unlike Sarawak, will not be rid of the influence of peninsula-based political parties.

Perlis experienced an electoral tsunami, as PN wiped out the BN state government. All state parliamentarians, including the menteri besar Azlan Man, lost their seats. The loss occurred after Shahidan Kassim, dropped from Umno’s candidate list, promised a wipe-out of BN from the state.

State elections in Pahang and Perak left the state legislatures hanging in the balance, with a BN-PN coalition government likely.

Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had forced the nation into a general election during the monsoon season.

His poor leadership has led to widespread calls for him to resign. Should he do so, the absence of political protection will leave him open to forthcoming prosecutions against him.

Although Zahid just scraped into his seat of Bagan Datuk by fewer than 400 votes, he is now personally open to the full weight of the law.

PN had been able, with PAS as the anchor, to make major inroads into the Malay heartlands. Umno’s grip on political power in Malaysia could be coming to an end.

It’s clear that civil servants, the military, Malay professionals and young Malay voters have thrown their support behind PN, evidenced by its win in Putrajaya.

Malays have accepted the political Islam-Malay nationalist approach propagated by Hadi.

PH made many mistakes in candidate selection. However, this would not have made up the numbers in the final seat tally.

The Malaysian electoral map has clearly changed from the voter sentiment displayed in the Johor state election early this year. There was the absence of jailed former prime minister Najib Razak, who led the Umno crusade during the Johor and Melaka campaigns.

In contrast, Ismail Sabri Yaakob stayed in his own electorate to safeguard his own seat of Bera. Zahid did the same. It almost appeared that Khairy Jamaluddin, who was given the unwinnable seat of Sungai Buloh, was the unofficial leader of Umno.

BN’s state of affairs was in contrast to the role taken by Anwar, who made whistlestop tours around the nation by helicopter during the campaign, displaying the old “reformasi” fervour he was famous for.

With the new political landscape in mind, Sarawak’s GPS is the obvious kingmaker of any new government. There are two basic choices for GPS to make. There are positives and negatives in both choices.

On the PN side, PAS is not welcome because of their political Islamic policies. DAP, on the PH side, is disliked because of what is seen as chauvinism.

However, there could be an unexpected coalition cobbled together before any anti-hopping laws take effect, once inside the Parliament. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.