Malaysian General Elections: Can This Man Overthrow a Tyrant?
Wednesday, May 09, 2018
"At
the twilight of his political career, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is
aiming to make a comeback at age 92 by trying to demolish the party that helped
him transform Malaysia into one of Southeast Asia’s most-prosperous nations.
During
his 22-year-rule that began in 1981 – the longest in Malaysia’s history –
Mahathir delivered prosperity with solid backing from the United Malays National
Organization, or UMNO, the anchor party in a ruling bloc that has
dominated Malaysian politics since independence from Britain in 1957.
But
Mahathir, a former medical doctor popularly known as “Dr M,” quit UMNO and came
out of political retirement two years ago, in protest over allegations of
financial malfeasance directed against Prime Minister Najib Razak, his former
protégé. He said UMNO needed to be vanquished.
“It
is not easy for me to destroy the party that I loved for 60 years,” Mahathir
said, referring to UMNO. “But now, today, I am fighting to take it down.”
The
longtime leader made the statement during a convention speech in January, in
which he accepted to lead the main opposition bloc in a battle against the
ruling Barisan Nasional (BN, or National Front) coalition, led by
Najib, in the May 9 general election.
Mahathir
stunned the nation when he bolted to the opposition and joined forces with his
arch nemesis, former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, whom he once sent to
jail on a sodomy charge. Mahathir is leading Pakatan Harapan (PH), an
amalgam that includes the Malay-led multiracial People’s Justice Party (PKR),
the Democratic Action Party (DAP), the Malaysian United Indigenous Party
(Bersatu) and the faith-based National Trust Party (Amanah)."
- EuroAsiaReview
-
In the last General
Elections (GE) in 2013, the Opposition managed to put up an unified front known
as Pakatan Rakyat (PR) or People's Alliance, increasing the Index of Opposition
Unity (IOU). While PR won the popular
vote with 50.87% against BN's 47.48, the ruling coalition romp home with 133
seats to PR 89 seats. The Opposition won mainland or peninsular Malaysia while
BN swept East Malaysia viz. Sabah & Sarawak in Borneo to storm back to
power.
There are two
primary reasons for this highly skewed vote-seat conversion rates viz.
1. The constituencies
historically had been delimited with very wide variation in population size. At
the time of formation of Malaysia, East Malaysia viz Sabah & Sarawak were
offered more seats despite both states have significantly lower population
densities than in the mainland. Over the years by further delimitation
exercises the ruling coalition tried to skew vote-seat conversion in their favor.
Urban opposition supporters are corralled into ‘ghetto constituencies’ of
150,000 voters or more to dilute their voting power.
2. Muslims, the
majority of whom are ethnic Malays, make up about 60 percent of Malaysia’s
population of 32 million. Ethnic Chinese and Indians, who are Buddhist,
Christian or Hindu, account for most of the rest. The elections are fought and
won in the rural Malay heartlands (and in the ‘amenable’ rural constituencies
of Sarawak and Sabah that helped secure UMNO’s last victory) where
constituencies often consist of a quarter of that number.
What has changed in
2018?
1. If in India, we
vote mostly by caste, in Malaysia they do by ethnicity. Both the ruling
coalition and the opposition front are ethnicity based. PR contained ex Dy PM's
Anwar’s Malay-dominated PKR (People’s Justice Party), the leftist Chinese DAP
(Democratic Action Party) and the Islamist PAS besides one or two minor parties.
They each had their own appeals but all had very different and contradictory
visions for Malaysia. What has basically changed is that the Islamist PAS has
now left the alliance to contest as a third alternative and its's splinter
group Amanah joined the alliance now known as Pakatan Harapan (PH, or Alliance
of Hope).
2. The ruling
coalition BN has tinkered with delimitation even further, skewing the vote-seat
conversion rates even further, making it even more difficult for the opposition
to win Malay or Muslim dominated constituencies.
3. A new Fake News
Act makes it difficult for the opposition to level charges against the
government. Mahathir himself faces charges of Fake News for simply expressing concerns
of his personal safety.
What the polls
indicate?
Malaysia's premier
pollster Merdeka Center for Opinion Research predicts the
ruling coalition would scrape through though experiencing a whopping 7%+ swing
away from their 2013 performance, while the opposition front PH would again
lead the popular vote. BN seat tally could however see a massive erosion in
their seat tally by 33 seats.
Though BN is ahead,
Muslim votes, their backbone is threatening to move away. Though polls however show
that this churning has not reached a level that could threatened their come back,
it is fast moving towards one.
The general
perception is that of the Index of Opposition Unity (IOU) being lower than 2013, should
able BN to scrape through with much lower vote share this year. The flip side is
that much depends on the performance of the Islamic Party PAS. Though on one
hand as a third alternative, PAS lowers the IOU, by targeting Muslims, PAS is
in fact splintering the backbone of BN's vote base. The higher splintering of
Muslim votes, the higher chances of PH winning a constituency in Muslim
dominated areas.
While most
commenters and pollsters do not give any chance for a BN defeat, but in the
opinion of this blog, a small window of opportunity exists for PH to carve out
a spectacular win. 16-20% of respondents are playing their cards close to their
chest and not revealing their vote intentions and who knows, they may opt for
change?
1 comments
As per current trend of Malaysian election Pakatan Harapan is lead age but its not confirm that they will won this election
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