The economics of winning elections

 Pakatan Harapan cannot win GE16 with identity-based policies in the face of electoral pacts between political opponents. Universal economic policies are needed before time runs out.

When it comes to politics and elections, economists are often told to stay in our lanes and stick to inflation and taxes.

But whether it is political economy, public choice theory, or the Bill Clinton mantra of “it’s the economy stupid!”, economics, politics and elections are intimately related.

With election speculation rife and Budget 2027 on the horizon the question of how economics can break through identity politics to help Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim win the next general election (GE16) is something economists can help to answer.

The secret is simple. In the privacy of the ballot box every voter places their cross against the candidate and the party that puts money into their wallet to help them and their families directly.

The key is to target large voter groups. For example, around a million Malaysian voters with PTPTN loans are currently active in tertiary education or within their one-year post-graduation grace period. Each year, 160,000 to 180,000 new students join the scheme.

PTPTN spends RM3 billion to RM3.5 billion per year in total loan disbursements to cover tuition fees and living allowances for students in public and private higher education institutions.

For 1% of federal operational expenditure or the price of one month of petrol subsidy the government can abolish student loans, pay for higher education directly and recover the cost through higher income taxes from graduates later in life.

Help must also be provided for everyone who is working. By December 2025, the government had successfully raised salaries above the living wage of RM3,100, for almost 190,000 employees in six government-linked investment companies (GLICs) and 37 government-linked companies (GLCs).

However, around three million private sector workers still earn below RM3,100 per month.

The progressive wage model (PWM) exceeded the 50,000 workers target by June 2026. Removing the complexity of the current PWM and extending the RM200 to RM300 monthly payment to all private sector employees earning below the living wage would cost only around RM9 billion.

Restructuring the RM15 billion STR-SARA scheme into a steady monthly payment would provide a guaranteed reliable income benefitting nine million people with 22 million benefitting from the SARA untuk Semua scheme as one-off payments at no additional cost.

Targeting older age voters, there are around three million people over 60 years old and around 2.1 million over 65 years old excluding retired civil servants who already get a pension from the government.

A monthly state pension of RM500 would cost only RM18.2 billion for those over 60 years old and only RM12.5 billion for those over 65 years old. Just three months of the petrol subsidy bill.

Most of these changes just involve some creative thinking and reasonable accounting, mostly within current budget possibilities or savings from subsidy rationalisation, cutting wastage, leakages and corruption or simply making better use of the natural increase in government revenue from a growing economy.

They target people in their wallet and make them better off by voting for the party that gives them these policies. They help individuals directly as well as through their wider family circles.

In most cases they are simply fiscal transfers and redistribution policies which do not reduce or even add to spending power and address the cost of living in meaningful ways beyond rhetoric and bluster.

The crucial issue in terms of the economics of winning elections is that these are universal policies that benefit all Malaysians irrespective of identity.

As his political rivals form unassailable electoral pacts across the country which have already wiped out his coalition in recent state elections, the economic message to Anwar and Pakatan Harapan is blunt: introduce universal policies or lose the next election. - FMT

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