Collaboration a winning strategy for future polls

ADUN SPEAKS | How can a constituency with a landslide victory assist a neighbouring marginal seat that is closely contested?

In the recent six state elections, we see constituencies like N13 Berapit (93.73 percent) in Seberang Perai, N34 Paya Terubong (91.58 percent) in central Penang Island, N28 Sri Kembangan (88.89 percent), N30 Kinrara (80.6 percent), N31 Subang Jaya (81.03 percent), and N34 Bukit Gasing (85.58 percent) in Selangor, achieving huge margins.

However, we also see instances like Selangor, with 22 constituencies where Perikatan Nasional won by less than 5 percent (with four being less than 1 percent), with the majority ranging from 30 to 2,978 votes. The Pakatan Harapan-BN coalition won one seat with a thin majority of 467.

So, how can nearby constituencies collaborate to capitalise on the “cluster effect”? In a campaign, strategies such as publicity, pamphlets, ceramah, press conferences, and candidate manifestos should be closely coordinated and integrated to secure victory in closely contested seats that neighbour landslide victory constituencies.

Candidates from the same alliance in neighbouring constituencies should engage in “collaborative campaigning” to enhance vote transferability and voter recognition.

Looking at the map, despite the lower proportion of Chinese (12.03 percent) and Indians (19.85 percent) in N33 Taman Medan, where a mere 30 votes determined the result, it is part of the same Petaling Jaya parliamentary constituency as N34 Bukit Gasing (85.58 percent). It also borders N30 Kinrara (80.6 percent) and N31 Subang Jaya (81.03 percent) in the Subang parliamentary constituency.

Taman Medan, with 68 percent Malays voters, is one of Selangor’s 32 Malay-majority constituencies with a Malay make-up of 60 percent.

In the three state constituencies that make up the Petaling Jaya parliamentary constituency, the combined majority votes of Bukit Gasing (24,972) and Sri Serdang (11,331) amounted to 36,303, but this was unable to prevent the narrow loss of Taman Medan by 30 votes.

Traditionally, as was done during Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s leadership, neighbouring high-support voting areas were re-delineated to neutralise lost majority votes.

In my Mengkibol state constituency under the Kluang parliamentary seat, it absorbed neighbouring areas dominated by Chinese voters during the 2018 delineation, resulting in a higher percentage of Chinese voters (61.47 percent) while the neighbouring Mahkota seat’s Chinese voter percentage had reduced to 33.77 percent.

Hence, I often invited the neighbouring assemblyperson, who won by only 1,668 votes in 2018, to collaborate and attend mixed-voter events but, unfortunately, it was not adopted.

In the 2022 Johor state elections, although candidates were jointly announced and some campaign activities for two constituencies were jointly carried out, my constituency garnered over 10,000 majority votes, but it was too late to rescue the neighbouring constituency.

Despite my campaign team and campaign director being deployed from my area to help in Yong Peng during the second week of the two-week campaign period, the collaborative strategy was implemented too late.

Nevertheless, I believe that with early deployment, especially in mixed-voter areas (where residents might be voters in neighbouring areas), collaborative strategies should effectively benefit closely contested seats.

For the Harapan-BN alliance under the unity government, to enhance vote transferability and voter recognition in the next general election, coordinated deployment must start now. - Mkini

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CHEW CHONG SIN is Mengkibol assemblyperson.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.