Malaysia 2022 General Election Nov 19th

[jaichind]

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/dr-mahathir-claims-of-anwar-zahid-secret-pact-to-form-government-post-ge2022

"Mahathir claims Anwar, Zahid have secret pact to form govt after polls"

These types of accusations are typical in Malaysia, especially during multi-cornered battles.

[jaichind]

List of alliances and party symbols


List of PM candidates and leaders of each of the large blocs

[jaichind]

A bunch of WARISAN candidates in Peninsular Malaysia seem to be DAP rebels/has-beens.  It seems their plan is to capture the Chinese vote where there are PKR incumbents and in some cases DAP incumbents.  It will most likely not work but might split off enough Chinese votes to cost PH a few seats.

[Joseph Cao]

List of alliances and party symbols

List of PM candidates and leaders of each of the large blocs

There was a version with the leaders' faces at the bottom of the coalitions chart somewhere.

A bunch of WARISAN candidates in Peninsular Malaysia seem to be DAP rebels/has-beens.  It seems their plan is to capture the Chinese vote where there are PKR incumbents and in some cases DAP incumbents.  It will most likely not work but might split off enough Chinese votes to cost PH a few seats.

WARISAN seems to be scooping up the disaffected politician vote. The big name obviously is the MCA fellow but there's a bunch of ex-PKR, ex-UMNO, ex-DAP, ex-PPBM candidates. We'll see if that works, many of them are at least a decade removed from prior political activity.

[Joseph Cao]

Kelantan

P019 Tumpat: The final few miles of the headlands between the Golok River forming the Thai border to the west and the Kelantan River to the east. The East Coast Railway terminates in and a bunch of highways come out of this seat to act as transport links that drive most of the industry in the town itself. Those links have taken a fair number of local worthies out of the seat, including Ibrahim Ali and current Bandar Tun Razak MP Kamaruddin Jaffar; both also left behind the party that monolithically dominates this seat at all levels.
Incumbent Che Abdullah Mat Nawi is now following their path. Originally elected under PAS, he was dropped by the party committee last week and in response is recontesting under the UMNO label, for which he has been expelled from PAS; he will face off against his party replacement state exco Mumtaz Mohd Nawi and various gadflies from AMANAH, WARISAN, and Ibrahim Ali's PUTRA. Given PAS's strength in this seat there's no reason to think Abdullah's deputy portfolio will save him. PN hold

P020 Pengkalan Chepa: A chunk of headland in the north (where the Japanese landed on December 7 1941, the first act of war against Malaya) intruding down to northeastern neighborhoods of the city, the seat takes its name and a large number of university- and airport-related industry from the town of Pengkalan Chepa lying near the mouth of yet another river. Like Tumpat this has always been PAS-dominated, and like Tumpat this was once the seat of political giant Nik Aziz Nik Mat.
Incumbent Ahmad Marzuk Shaary will be the latest in a long line of comparatively anonymous PAS men to successfully defend the seat, this time against challengers of the UMNO, PEJUANG, independent, and AMANAH variety –the last of which is Nik Faizah Nik Othman, the founder of the white flag movement to raise white flags outside of the homes of people in need which saved a lot of people during COVID when a certain government with which PAS is now allied was off beclowning itself. Sadly this means virtually nothing in electoral math. PN hold

P021 Kota Bharu: Covers the entire city center on the east bank of the Kelantan River, to which Kota Bharu city owes its status as a royal town, the state capital, the state center of trade and industry – much of its history really – and that is reflected in every facet of the city down to its nasi kerabu, that world-famous blue rice with sambal and fried fish originating from 15th-century Chinese traders and their local spouses which the discerning people of the state now sell to tourists at an immense markup.
Last time round the incumbent, PAS sec-gen and minister Takiyuddin Hassan, got a comparatively stiff challenge from former PAS bigwig and former AMANAH vice-president Husam Musa. That's not happening this time and Takiyuddin has nothing to worry about against state PH deputy women's chief Hafidzah Mustakim of AMANAH, divisional UMNO Youth chief Rosmadi Ismail, Kuala Lumpur business professor Che Musa Che Omar of PUTRA, or the two independents rounding out the ballot. Not bad for the man who might have singlehandedly collapsed the Muhyiddin government because he couldn't be bothered to live up to his seat's royal pedigree and telephone the Sultan. PN hold

P022 Pasir Mas: Most of the vehicles heading into Tumpat must pass through Pasir Mas; like its neighbor to the north Pasir Mas town has built up a reputation as a transport hub. En route out of his hometown Ibrahim Ali spent twenty years representing this seat, which stops just short of Highway 3 to its south, and the PAS dominance he represented continues apace.
Husam Musa is contesting here this time – notably under a PKR ticket instead of his AMANAH – but it is hardly better prospects electorally compared to the more urban Kota Bharu. The incumbent, PAS Youth chief Ahmad Fadhli Shaari, should have no trouble dispatching him and the UMNO and PUTRA candidates. PN hold

P023 Rantau Panjang: There is a funny jog north in the seat boundary just before the Thailand border to keep all of the duty-free zone town of Rantau Panjang in this seat. It livens up the seat, the remainder of which stretches east all the way to the river without much interruption.
Three-term incumbent Siti Zailah of PAS also does her best to liven up Parliament, having done all of the following within the COVID era alone: suggesting that husbands should strike their wives gently to punish unruly behavior, trotting out the 1 percent fatality chestnut, and focusing on making airline uniforms sharia-compliant as the entire industry was going under. Despite that, and despite Olympic-medal chauvinist Ibrahim Ali himself going up against her (joining UiTM professor Zulkarnain Yusoff of UMNO, doctor Wan Shah Jihan Wan Din of PH, and a socialist rando), she will remain untouchable. PN hold

P024 Kubang Kerian: The trunk of highways exiting Kota Bharu run vertically through this seat, although the part of the seat that sticks out into the bend in the river is more integrated with other towns. Notably the highways are useful for ferrying students and parents to the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) hospital and campus which drives most of the eponymous town's industry. This is of course an asset for Kelantan PAS as it could not be in nearly every other state; in the past it has also led to a strain of clearer-thinking PAS MPs including Mat Sabu and Salahuddin Ayub who mostly decamped for AMANAH later on.
As befits the local industry, PAS incumbent Tuan Ibrahim serves as environment minister and hence has had his share of moments where his party label and portfolio clash. Local USM professor Wan Ahmad Kamil Wan Abdullah is contesting for AMANAH and will be joined on the ballot by Puteri UMNO veep Nurul Amal Mohd Fauzi and PUTRA's Mohd Rizal Razali. Should be a fun race for second place. PN hold

P025 Bachok: A mostly agricultural and fishing coastal stretch east of the Kota Bharu area. I'm not going to make a specific comparison here but even within the state the view of this area seems to be a weird region with popular beaches and specially walleyed fundamentalists, a sort of Kelantan's Kelantan. If the Kota Bharu coast is a PAS more associated with "Tok Guru" Nik Aziz Nik Mat (who nevertheless declared Bachok an Islamic tourism town when he was chief minister a decade ago), this part of the coast is more aligned with the PAS of his son, one-term incumbent Nik Mohamad Abduh Nik Aziz.
The younger Nik has agitated for closer relations with the blue team which does not suit PAS's current direction from Hadi's point of view. And after being dropped Nik changed his Facebook profile photo to a blue Earth and posted a poem about "the decaying green" and "the blue sea". PAS is green and BN is blue, obviously – someone isn't happy. The prospects for parachuted PAS replacement Mohd Syahir Che Sulaiman, formerly of Selangor, do seem rather worse against UMNO divisional leader Mohd Zain Yassim, and this is a very marginal seat for PAS that won't change with the presence of PKR activist Nur Azmiza Mamat or the PUTRA and independent gadflies. BN gain from PN

P026 Ketereh: If anyone is keeping track, we're finally reaching the part of the state where UMNO actually manages to win elections. This is at least partially the legacy of former UMNO chief minister Mohammed Yaacob who broke the PAS stranglehold on the state back in the 1970s and 1980s from his base in this area, although the Ketereh constituency itself only dates to 2004. In any case it is not markedly different in industry or demographics from the surrounding areas which PAS still dominates.
Communications and multimedia minister Annuar Musa has kept himself firmly in the media spotlight by openly defying Zahid on several counts, including over his affinity for the erstwhile UMNO-PAS alliance (Muafakat Nasional or National Concord), for which he inevitably got dropped by the party selection committee last week. He has now started a new outfit called… Muafakat Nasional, which was registered in 2019. He swears it's just an NGO and not a separate political party. He also says he's willing to support state Puteri UMNO chief Marzulai Ardila Ariffin in any way possible against PPBM's Maj. Gen. (rtd.) Khlir Mohd Nor, PKR engineer Rahimi Muhamud, and PUTRA somebody Hanif Ibrahim. Annuar still has plenty of pull in the seat. Despite the media storm it should be fine. BN hold

P027 Tanah Merah: The Peranakan Chinese settlements and their distinct influence on Kelantanese culture reach their end here, notably in Tanah Merah town itself, although the constituency's name traces back to a 7th-century lost kingdom of the same name recognized in China. There's not much of either of those in evidence today in a primarily agricultural, very rural, very Malay seat with a consistent UMNO base which has however made the party sweat in previous elections.
Ikmal Hisham Abdul Aziz, the deputy defence minister, was one of the post-election UMNO defectors to PPBM and is defending under PAS colors against UMNO assemblyman Mohd Bakri Mustapha, PKR divisional leader and multimillionaire Mohamad Supardi Mohd Noor, PUTRA lawyer Nasir Abdullah, and an independent. None of the last three seem like particular electoral threats to UMNO regaining the seat. BN gain from PN

P028 Pasir Puteh: This has always been a rural and farming-oriented seat, making use of the many tributaries of the Semerak River that flow through the area and butt up against the Terengganu border, the kind of place that produces rebellions against British taxation like the one that occurred in 1915. Nowadays it has dispensed with that last bit. The periodic annulment fever that afflicts Malaysian elections struck here in 2004 in favor of the UMNO candidate, but aside from that PAS has won by small but durable margins in recent years.
One-term PAS incumbent Nik Muhammad Zawawi Salleh has made use of his junior rural ministries portfolio the best he can. It remains to be seen whether that will suffice against UMNO divisional leader Zawawi Othman Salleh and AMANAH's Muhammad Husin who won this seat as a PAS man in 2008, or how relevant PEJUANG's army captain Wan Marzudi Wan Omar will be. In a seat like this I don't see the nonincumbent vote being consolidated much. PN hold

P029 Machang: Not a meaningfully different seat from the previous two, on either side of it, either in economic terms (rubber plantations, palm oil, rice paddies) or in the continued transition away from PAS land. Although PAS holds all the state seats here and despite a brief one-term interruption by PKR's Saifuddin Nasution, UMNO has generally drawn inside straights at the federal level.
UMNO state chairman Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub faces the usual motley crew of candidates. Another former PAS comms chief: PKR's Rosli Allani Abdul Kadir. Another army man: PUTRA's Maj. Muhammad Seman. Another… oh, wait, this is PPBM youth chief Wan Ahmad Fayhsal coming from left field into a state he has zero connections to! More motley than I expected. Walkover for the incumbent. BN hold

P030 Jeli: At a certain point the Election Commission just started naming seats after the largest settlement amenable to the logging industry. There isn't much else of note in this seat if you discount the mountainside logging and the rubber plantations and the other logging to clear space for more rubber plantations. Since its creation in 1995, those living in the seat have known which party in power to thank for opening the forest up.
The beneficiary of this has been five-term incumbent Mustapa Mohamed who locked this seat down aside from being unseated for one term in 1999; the other time the UMNO stranglehold was broken was by old Tok Pa himself, by bolting to PPBM after the 2018 election. He's gotten some flak since then and is standing down ostensibly for health reasons. PPBM replacement and Mustapa's secretary Zahari Kechik (the brother of a local UMNO assemblyman) is hugging his boss close but this is the kind of seat where the party label is likelier to carry Puteri UMNO divisional leader Nor Wahida Patuan to victory against AMANAH divisional party chair Mohd Radzi Wahab and PUTRA's Mohammad Daud. BN gain from PN

P031 Kuala Krai: Like every other constituency in southern Kelantan this is coterminous with its district. Unlike every other constituency in southern Kelantan this one gets the brunt of the Kelantan River's damage when it floods from the effects of all the industrial drainage into it. Also unlike every other constituency in southern Kelantan this one is genuine PAS territory, maintained in part by Mohd Hatta Ramli before he left for AMANAH and higher political ground on the West Coast (of which more later), and currently held by longtime PAS mover in the area Abdul Latiff Abdul Rahman.
The other candidates are UMNO divisional leader Mohd Zulkepli Omar; Save Kelantan activist Mohd Hisyamuddin Ghazali, last seen contesting a state seat in 2018, for AMANAH; and PEJUANG's Norashikin Che Umar, who I think is the first woman GTA candidate we've seen, trailing every other coalition. Not that any of that matters electorally; PAS will win this. PN hold

P032 Gua Musang: It is very hard to think of a place to start with this one. Gua Musang is the only constituency with an autonomous Orang Asli enclave, the only one named after a cave rather than forests or plants or what have you, the largest by area in West Malaysia, and of course the seat of the most larger-than-life member of Parliament we currently have short of maybe Mahathir: thirteen-term incumbent and Father of the House Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. Highly recommend reading his Wikipedia page if you haven't, I can't do it justice here.
Ku Li's influence has carried Kelantan UMNO for a very long time even if at one point it threw UMNO control of the state away, although again I can't go into that here without typing 500 more words. This seat is UMNO from top to bottom; fiefdom doesn't begin to describe it. Say a prayer for the PAS, PEJUANG, and PKR challengers. BN hold

Running tally: BN 14 (+7), PH 6 (-2), PN 11 (-3), GTA 1 (-2)

[Joseph Cao]

Terengganu

P033 Besut: The broader world's impression of Terengganu tends to stop at the Perhentian islands and their activities in tropical vacationing/conservation/emptying of tourists' wallets, which all fall within the seat of Besut. The seat itself stretches half the length of the Kelantan border, with its population centers and fishing and utilities and tourism and being the landing point for Perhentian-related business and what-have-you clustered along the coast. It has likewise been a tropical paradise for UMNO: since 1969, shortly before an unfriendly state seat was excised from the constituency, UMNO's hold has only been broken once in 1999. Incumbent MP and former Terengganu chief minister Idris Jusoh's base in the seat has kept that tradition alive and well.
Idris has supposedly wanted to retire for a while and is taking advantage of UMNO's internal push for new candidates to do so. Assemblyman Nawi Mohamad is defending for UMNO. Facing off against Nawi, though unlikely to threaten him, are former UMNO MP for the neighboring seat of Setiu, Che Mohamad Zukilfly Jusoh, under the PAS banner; PEJUANG's Wan Nazari Wan Jusoh, who also serves as his coalition's state chair; and AMANAH's Abdul Rahman @ Abdul Aziz Abas who unlike the 2018 PH candidate is not named Jusoh, which may be a setback for him the way this is playing out. BN hold

P034 Setiu: The Electoral Commission, as often as it operates on shady grounds, might perhaps be forgiven for starting with Setiu District and adding arms into Jabi in the west and Batu Rakit in the east to bring it nearer the population threshold. But what we end up with is a seat containing parts of two completely separate urban areas (Besut and Kuala Terengganu), joined by a whole lot of nothing in which the primary economic driver is a swamp. Maybe there is a Perhentian refuel point—Redang Island refuel point community of interest here somewhere.
It's a recipe for a deeply anonymous PAS incumbent, one-term Shaharizukirnain Abdul Kadir, who faces former UMNO senator and exco member Abdul Rahman Mat Yasin, Kuala Nerus PKR division deputy Mohamad Ngah, and PEJUANG's Wan Adnan Wan Ali. The stature of the UMNO challenger is unquestionable and UMNO got within four points last time; this one's ripe to flip. BN gain from PN

P035 Kuala Nerus: The west bank of the Terengganu River has been growing fast enough that the Kuala Nerus Administrative District was created as recently as 2014. It's not hard to see how the western half of the Kuala Terengganu area is driving the economy in this seat and inviting a huge diversity of commercial interests ranging from ecotourism to oil.
Two-term incumbent Khairuddin Aman Razali has been chasing those interests in various capacities: as the former plantation industries and commodities minister, as a member of PAS's central committee with a hand in the Terengganu and Kelantan state governments, and as a high-profile flouter of the COVID quarantine rules for overseas returnees. It has also drawn him close to the kings of follow-the-money. This enthusiastic support for UMNO and disapproval of coalition partner PPBM led PAS to expel him from its central committee in March, following which he left the party and is now setting up camp under the UMNO banner. He will defend his seat although local UMNO is said to be blindsided at his becoming their candidate; that may hinder his efforts against long-serving assemblyman and state exco member Alias Razak of PAS, Platinum Oil CEO Suhaimi Hashim of PKR, and Manir local Azaha Wahid of PUTRA. It's not impossible for Khairuddin to win, but Alias is far more electorally entrenched than he is and PAS will be fired up to turf him out. PN hold

P036 Kuala Terengganu: The Terengganu River estuary – from which the royal and state capital takes its name – provided an excellent fishing location. It provided the basis for Seberang Takir's keropok lekor (fish sausage) and Kampung Ladang's nasi dagang (rice, coconut milk, fish curry, other delicious stuff), both of which you absolutely must try before you leave this earth. It provided a confluence point for manufacturing industry of all kinds and and the ecologic base for the palm oil and rubber that continues to support its surrounding areas. With it has come transport links, universities and schools, bank headquarters, a nontrivial Chinese population, everything a city could ask for except the political culture of literally any city outside Terengganu or Kelantan. Not that this matters a great deal to the constituency, which extends out south of the city center on the east bank of the river as far as the UiTM campus and adjacent towns.
One-term PAS incumbent Ahmad Amzad Hashim has been content to serve quietly with his deputy portfolio. He can afford to; in the contest against UMNO divisional chief and 2013 candidate Mohd Zubir Embong, AMANAH 2018 candidate and PH state chair Raja Kamarul Bahrin, and PUTRA's Mohamad Abu Bakar Muda, the PAS cushion in the seat will let him withstand whatever gets thrown at him. PN hold

P037 Marang: Hadi Awang's seat is a land of contrasts. Unluckily for the man who sees Chinese Communist DAP members under his bed, his seat's named for a Hokkien trader who did extremely well out of selling dried seafood to the locals, the only one in his state named after a Chinaman. Worse, it's the seat in his state with the longest coastline abutting the South China Sea. Worse still for the leader of an insular party, it's economically dependent on tourism. Perhaps worst of all for the self-appointed chief of the morality police, its shape reminds you of…
Nevertheless, even outside of his six terms in Parliament and one as the state's chief minister, Hadi has demonstrated a remarkable ability to ignore political inconveniences that his seat is happy to help him overlook – it is the safest for PAS in the state and he will stomp the first-time UMNO, AMANAH, and PUTRA candidates easily, equally valid religious credentials though they might hold. PN hold

P038 Hulu Terengganu: A seat covering the Hulu Terengganu District stretching from the tripoint with Kelantan and Pahang toward the coast, with an arm down the Kelantan River into neighborhoods south of Kuala Teregganu. For all the natural beauty within the seat's boundaries its two most famous attractions are the man-made lake and the man-made Terengganu Inscription Stone, the latter in particular having become an incredible touchstone of the national Islamic culture.
The man-made seat occupied by one-term incumbent Rosol Wahid also presents problems of his own making. He defected from UMNO to PPBM as part of the post-GE14 wave and thus burnt most of his bridges from previous service as an UMNO assemblyman in a state seat just a stone's throw away from where the Inscription Stone was found. Now the UMNO assemblyman serving the lake, Rozi Mamat, is hoping to teach him a lesson and looks likely to succeed without too much trouble from his fellow educators – either PKR state information director, local civil servant, and onetime Utusan journalist Alias Ismail, or PUTRA's Mohd Kadri Abdullah. BN gain from PN

P039 Dungun: The Dungun River used to hold together this seat. The river's headlands on the Pahang border took it past the iron-ore mines of Bukit Besi where the ore could be sent down a railway to the port town of Kuala Dungun at the river's mouth and taken to the outside world. There is still commerce of a kind in the state's largest night market, but only as a punctuator of the primarily federally managed FELDA-and-palm-oil monotony that has become the seat's primary driver of industry ever since the mines and the railway closed.
Whether this suits PAS, who last held this seat consistently during that golden period, isn't clear. Fittingly for the Dungun River district, two-term incumbent Wan Hassan Mohd Ramli of PAS chaired the National Water Service Commission; he's seemingly done very little else and challengers UMNO Youth divisional leader Nurhisam Johari, ophthalmologist and state PKR councilmember Mohd Johari Mohamad, PEJUANG woman Noor Aisah Hassan, and independent lawyer Ghazali Ismail will want to make that case. They'll need a lot more than that to flip a strongly PAS seat. PN hold

P040 Kemaman: It may be important for people entering this seat via the knot of highways over the Pahang border to remember the four F's that operated the local economy in chronological order, although all are still around: fish, farming, fuel, and Fe – iron ore. Fishing still goes on in the coastal villages, and the rubber and timber where a young Rafizi Ramli's father worked still brings in revenue. But it's the offshore oil and natural gas that has made Petronas filthy rich and caused a petrochemicals boom and reoriented the local economic center of gravity, so that Dungun to the north and Pahang communities to the south now see locals making the commute to work here; it's also fueled the development of iron and steel production to supplement the works happening on- and offshore.
All very attractive to those lining up against PAS incumbent Che Alias Hamid, who is not terribly entrenched and only narrowly flipped this seat in 2018; in contrast, UMNO's Ahmad Said has a pedigree as former chief minister, state UMNO liaison, assemblyman, and current state opposition leader, in all of which capacities he proved an internal rival to Idris Jusoh at the other end of the state (where Rafizi was born). He is still hammering the message of development and employment that proved so successful previously. PKR division committeemember Hasuni Sudin and PEJUANG's Rosli Abdul Ghani will try to hold their own. But this seat is pegged by almost everyone to fall. BN gain from PN

Running tally: BN 18 (+10), PH 6 (-2), PN 15 (-6), GTA 1 (-2)

[Joseph Cao]

Penang

P041 Kepala Batas: Like the corner of Kedah immediately to its north this seat's industry has been shaped by the Muda River's constant flooding, which makes the land basically unavailable for any agriculture other than rice paddy fields. It owes its name to the dirt barriers that keep these paddy fields usable. It also owes its political name to former PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who held this seat for eight terms; the human capital development that he is lauded for nationally has substantially lifted this seat from its rice farming roots, although it continues to be the rice bowl region for a state with many mouths to feed but little in the way of farming land.
Badawi left the seat in the hands of BN's Reezal Merican Naina Merican, who has won consistently but not with the absurd margins that old Pak Lah enjoyed. Those should suffice against second-time PAS candidate Siti Mastura Muhammad, MUDA's Muhammad Danial Abdul Majeed who's seeing a bit of a flood against him over past support for BN, and BERJASA's Hamidi Abu Hassan who used to serve as the local head of Malaysian Muslim Solidarity (ISMA). BN hold

P042 Tasek Gelugor: Of course much of that lauded human capital development in Penang had been going on prior to Badawi. This part of the state grew fast enough that the southern half of Badawi's seat reaching down to the Kulim and Perai Rivers was split off in the redistribution during his second term, with the eastern two-thirds comprising the Tasek Gelugor area and its farmers market and the western third near the coast falling into Butterworth's orbit. Notably the Butterworth Air Force Base and a couple of other places typically associated with the city are actually in this seat. Interestingly the voting pattern here has tracked its parent seat to the north quite closely prior to GE14.
Two-term incumbent Shabudin Yahaya has courted controversy several times – when claiming during debate over a child sexual harassment bill that rape victims could marry their rapists, which saw his margin in the following year's election crash hard; in the ensuing recount which saw him winning by 81 votes; and almost immediately after when he jumped ship to PPBM. He is now standing down "to make way for the younger generation" which one hopes will prefer taking his seat in Parliament over marrying their rapists. Presumably that suits UMNO's local assemblyman and state opposition leader Muhamad Yusoff Mohd Noor just fine; he will be riding high against the defending candidate, PPBM sec-gen Wan Saiful Wan Jan, and biomedical executive Mik Abdul Razak Nik Mohd Ridzuan of AMANAH, doctor Abdul Halim Sher Jung of GB under the GTA umbrella, and Mohd Akmal Azhar of WARISAN. BN gain from PN

P043 Bagan: Butterworth port city lies on a peninsula at the mouth of the Perai River. The port was relocated here in 1974 from George Town, which the city originally existed to service as a transport hub dating from the colonial era. Even before then the local settlers recognized its position on the straits as an excellent fishing spot, building a village which now lends its name to the constituency as the busiest port in northern Malaysia takes its roots in ocean commerce into the twenty-first century.
The city growing as it did has made this into a heavily Chinese seat that stuck with DAP even in the nightmare year of 2004; previous heavyweights have held the seat but incumbent Lim Guan Eng, former DAP leader, former chief minister, former federal finance minister etc. etc. has to be the biggest fish of them. MCA state vice-chair Tan Chuan Hong may not lose his deposit but the other small fry from PPBM (lol) and IMAN (lmao) almost certainly will. PH hold

P044 Permatang Pauh: The interesting thing about this seat is its internal ties. With so much going on at the seat's western end just across the river from Butterworth, a world away from its eastern end at the state border, the comparatively new suburb of Seberang Jaya has had to keep commerce flowing down the Batu Kawan Expressway linking both ends of the seat. The original village of Permatang Pauh has developed with it, and the whole is integrated enough that the constituency got an extra state seat in the 1986 redistribution thanks to economic and population growth in its eastern half.
The familial ties extend far back too, as anyone passingly familiar with Anwar will know. His father represented the area during the 1960s and it fell to Anwar to carry that from 1982 onward; since then his wife has held the seat during his prison terms and his daughter Nurul Izzah Anwar took it over in 2018. It must be noted that the political machinery in the eastern part owes much of its existence to Anwar himself; there are deep reservoirs there that will follow him and PKR to the end. For that reason Nurul Izzah shouldn't have much trouble (despite narratives to the media to the contrary) against local UMNO division leader Mohd Zaidi Mohd Said, or against first-timers PAS's Muhammad Fawwaz Mat Jan or PUTRA's Mohamad Nasir Osman. PH hold

P045 Bukit Mertajam: The colonial decision to open central Penang up to industry and commerce brought the Chinese in and they never left. On the ground, Bukit Mertajam itself can seem used or passé for a place serving as the administrative center of all of mainland Penang – but its food, its people, its schools, and the bright sparks heading to universities all over the world are good precisely because of standing this test of time. All this contained within a constituency stretching down south and east to the administrative border of its district.
Two-term DAP incumbent Steven Sim is known for balancing parliamentary excellence with working the ground extremely hard, making use of the tightly knit city institutions, and it shows in the absurd margins he runs up. The novelty of "fresh faces" or PAS showing its own ugly face in Penang (with a Chinese candidate, no less!) won't threaten him. PH hold

P046 Batu Kawan: Penang is defined by its relationship with the sea, with the opportunities it brings that have transformed Perai and Batu Kawan into industrial parks serving the port, and with the connections between the island and the mainland upon which the economic future of the state depends. These are neatly symbolized by the two bridges that have helped put Penang leaps and bounds beyond the mangrove swamps where both join the mainland. The immense traffic passing over these links of course has opened up a substantial investment corridor within the Batu Kawan seat, which stretches south and east from Butterworth down half the length of Federal Route 1 within the state.
The congestion issues plaguing these links have also snared successive state governments, notably Lim Guan Eng's ongoing graft trial over construction of an undersea tunnel, and in the wake of two-term incumbent Kasthuriaani Patto's retirement (from a seat as tied to Butterworth as her father's was) Guan Eng's successor as chief minister Chow Kon Yeow will step in to fill this vacancy himself. It will bring the issue of Penang's development and connections even more front and center, as well as Chow's efforts to move it along, since arguably no other seat has grown as fast for any other reason. DAP's margins have been very good so the MCA "new face" Tan Lee Huat, the acting GERAKAN Youth chief Wong Chia Zhen, the WARISAN and former PKR assemblyman Ong Chin Wen, and the PRM man Lee Ah Leong look set to take an electoral nap with the fishes. PH hold

P047 Nibong Tebal: It's still the transport routes that keep this area going. It was true when British sugar production overwhelmed local sugar planting on the strength of superior transport, it was true when the railways and immigration demand fed off each other to take workers into the burgeoning settlement of Nibong Tebal, and it's true now when the high-tech RND firms and paper mills and universities here depend on the highways to bring new people to their doors. This seat is what remains of South Seberang Perai District after Batu Kawan took a bite out of it, and if the voting patterns are any indication this applies politically as well – PKR gets vote shares in the high 50s rather than the 70s and 80s that the rest of the mainland PH seats see.
PPBM incumbent Mansor Othman, whatever he might think of the above, is not stepping aside even if he's burnt his bridges with his former PKR colleagues who are all out for blood. They're fielding senator and Wanita PKR chief Fadhlina Sidek against him, and although president of rando BN-affiliated party R. Thanenthiran and independent (and former PKR MP) Goh Kheng Huat aren't threats, both are taking up part of the non-PKR vote share that the incumbent desperately needs. PH gain from PN

P048 Bukit Bendera: Francis Light didn't come to Penang Island for holidaying. Very early on under his supervision a military outpost was established on Penang Hill, the highest point on the island, with views of the entire island and the Straits. But as more Brits moved up here for the relatively cooler climate it became the first in a series of hill stations established across the Malayan colony, and tourists still flock to see the historical buildings and Light's strawberries and do enough other stuff that Penang Hill-related tourism helps carry the economy of this area. Alongside George Town's northwestern suburbs with an arm as far as the inner suburb of Pulau Tikus, this forms the seat of Bukit Bendera.
Since flipping hard to DAP in 2008 several one-term MPs have planted their flags on this hill in quick succession. The latest, incumbent Wong Hon Wai, is heading for state government and will swap places with assemblywoman Syerleena Abdul Rashid of the southern suburbs. Here to make hay out of the seat-swapping arrangement are GERAKAN treasurer H'ng Chee Wey, rando BN affiliate president Richie Huan who was last seen contesting the by-election after Karpal Singh's tragic death, PRM candidate and former DAP assemblyman Teh Yee Cheu, and an independent – but the disgusting margins that this seat gives the DAP should render them moot. PH hold

P049 Tanjong: George Town's past might not save its future. The historic town is being hollowed of its inhabitants beneath the tidal wave of tourists and artificial "preservation" and Komtar-style bureaucratic mismanagement, even as the new economy that drives the urban ring around the city center carries its workers just fine. Together they form the smallest constituency in Malaysia; if incumbent DAP MP Chow Kon Yeow as chief minister of the state is concerned about the flagging livelihood of its biggest international draw he sure isn't doing much effective about it. Though maybe there isn't any such thing to be done.
Having racked up the highest vote share of any opposition MP in the state to match his stature in the state party, Chow is leaving this open as he goes across the strait to Batu Kawan. The privilege of defending that majority goes to another party bigwig: Senate member Lim Hui Ying, daughter of former seat occupant Lim Kit Siang. Nepotism at its finest, but it won't help GERAKAN media spokesman H'ng Khoon Leng or MCA newbie Tan Kim Nee, whose similar stature might mean they split the remaining vote evenly enough to both lose their deposits. PH hold

P050 Jelutong: The neighborhoods immediately south of George Town running out of it as far as the outer ring of highway circling the city, basically the entirety of this seat, are very distinctly their own thing – far more rough-edged (actually far far more so historically) with a linguistic/culinary/religious melting pot to match. It's drawn tourists out of George Town and making the most of the opportunity. The subsequent upscale trend along the seafront and on Karpal Singh Drive (named for the late former occupant of this seat) is pulling part of the "new economy" with it, but it would be a shame to lose the neighborhood's current pulse.
Incumbent RSN Rayer of DAP has been very outspoken in Parliament in at least partial memory of Karpal. Until Election Day he will at least be matched in volume by yet another rando BN affiliate president, Loganathan Thoraisamy, GERAKAN vice-president Baljit Singh, WARISAN state information chief Martin Lim, PRM sec-gen Koh Swee Yong, and an independent. But the number that talks louder than any of them is the 75 percent average vote share that DAP has gotten in this seat since 2008. PH hold

P051 Bukit Gelugor: On an island of these dimensions, with a city of this stature, almost any built-up area becomes a suburb. So runs the fate of the neighborhoods outside the outer ring that butt right up against the hills and those running down the highway as far as USM and the Penang Bridge, which are awkwardly linked together in the leftovers seat of Bukit Gelugor that was carved out of Bukit Bendera and Bayan Baru in 2004. The state seats within it have launched such luminaries as Rayer and Syerleena. Importantly it provided a landing spot for Karpal Singh, fresh off a 1999 loss, and then for his son Ramkarpal Singh after Karpal's death.
Ramkarpal as the incumbent has been busy in Parliament, and to my knowledge on the ground. That plus the North Korea margin in this seat should easily dispatch MCA state vice-chair Wong Chin Chong and PPBM candidate P. Thinaganarabhan. PH hold

P052 Bayan Baru: The bridges coming from the mainland both make landfall in the southeastern part of the island, where incoming visitors are treated to the sight of a massive industry park and estate with various orbiting institutions like a sports stadium and a golf club and the Penang airport. Most of this built-up area running down the southeastern coast at the foot of Penang's chain of hills goes into the seat of Bayan Baru.
If anyone is capable of holding all this together it would be three-term incumbent Sim Tze Tzin and his exemplary parliamentary work. It's also instructive to note which parts of the seat are prioritized by different candidates. Sim is all over the streets and interchanges and has made a priority of the traffic issues. MCA newbie Saw Yee Fung, who friendly media are hyping up, launched her campaign at the golf club and is now venturing down to where the people live. 80-year-old PRM social activist Ravinder Singh, formerly of the Consumer Association of Penang, and GERAKAN state chairman Oh Tong Keong are down at the southern residential tip. I'm not sure where WARISAN's Jeff Ooi is – might still be out blogging – and the independent is around somewhere. These are shaping up as moderately stiff challenges when all's said and done but Sim will put in the work needed to improve his electoral position, which is already decent. PH hold

P053 Balik Pulau: The "island's back" is aptly named as far as its relationship with the rest of the island is concerned – sparsely populated, mostly dependent on fishing, hard to navigate, reaches into settlements at the northern and southern tips of the island, covers the entire west half of Pulau Pinang, a behemoth compared to the micro-sized seats on the east side. The challenge for the opposition has been cracking this seat, which has only flipped to them in national waves.
These are not great headwinds for one-term PKR incumbent Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik, who has gone 1-1 for this seat so far. The good news for him is that he got a majority of the vote in GE14. The better news is that his opposition on the ballot will be split even more ways, with former Zuraida aide Muhammad Harris Idaham Abdul Rashid for PPBM, a PEJUANG nonentity, and two independent nonentities instead of the third option that was PAS last time. The bad news is the national headwinds, which are unlikely to be fully shielded by Pakatan doing better in this state. The worse news is UMNO local division chief Shah Headan Ayoob Hussain Shah who will undoubtedly give him a massive fight on the turnout question, one that PKR has recently done very badly on. We'll see. My gut is on this fishermen's seat weathering the BN storm, but the storm could easily prove too much. PH hold

Running tally: BN 20 (+11), PH 17 (-1), PN 15 (-8), GTA 1 (-2)

[Novelty]

Thanks for the write up so far.  Definitely interesting reads.  I'm not sure I fully agree with some of them (I think Boy-boy will probably keep Jerlun, and the back of the island could possibly flip) but then again what you have presented is possible.  Next up seems to be Perak, which is the frontline state this year.  It would be interesting to read your thoughts on it (and on East Malaysia as well, which is always a mystery).

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Thanks for these write-ups. I'm going to through them all, but I'm pre-emetively recommending them in the meantime.

[jaichind]

I will be excited to read about Johor when it comes up.  I think if a BN majority can be stopped it will have to be stopped there with a PH win in Johor.

[Joseph Cao]

Geez, I've broken the character limit. Not for the last time…

Perak

P054 Gerik: The mountains define Perak as the straits define Penang. This area at the northeastern point of the state, where the mountains dominate above all else, was historically separate from the Perak sultanate and only brought in when the British managed to negotiate its transfer along with the other northern states in 1909. It is still not a terribly thriving place although the historical tradition of mining has recently been a focus of the federal government. As one might expect, it votes UMNO hard and always has.
Gerik is currently vacant after UMNO's Hasbullah Osman died of a heart attack in 2020. I noted that the demography of this district helps make this even more of an electoral death sentence for the opposition, and although Howard Lee is no longer running here neither PPBM businessman Fathul Huzir Ayob nor DAP parliamentary committee leader Ahmad Tarmizi Mohd Jam will be more than rocks falling into the void as far as senator and UMNO Youth chief Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki is concerned. BN hold

P055 Lenggong: From the Perak River's source in the mountains the first substantial settlement along its banks is the Lenggong Valley, the relative accessibility of which makes this the furthest reach of mountain-related rubber tapping and tourism and archaeology – the Perak Man, the oldest complete homo sapiens skeleton in Southeast Asia, and other prehistoric remains were found here. These have given it a slightly less UMNO flavor than Gerik.
Except for a single term since the seat's creation in 2004 this has been locked down by UMNO incumbent Shamsul Anuar Nasarah. PKR film director Juery Latiff Rosli (who wants to build a film studio here, among other things) and PAS cleric Muhammad Rifaat Razman may be charismatic candidates on paper but expect Shamsul Anuar's political longevity to continue for another term. BN hold

P056 Larut: The Larut, Matang, and Selama District is a strange bird as administrative districts go. Despite its broad history of tin mining, that activity in the northern half which forms the Larut constituency (stretching south as far as Maxwell Hill) was primarily driven by locals of Thai descent and handed over to the British after its decline. The current seat is so out of step it even contains an autonomous district at its northern end that remains more oriented toward Kedah than its own state.
The three-term incumbent, Home Minister Hamzah Zainuddin, in turn finds himself out of step with the seat after jumping from his former UMNO to PPBM post-GE14 and in spite of his stature there will be a stiff challenge from UMNO comms coordinator Mohd Shafiq Fhadly Mahmud, with the clerics Zolkarnain Abidin of AMANAH and local BERJASA youth Auzaie Fadzlan Shahidi rounding out the ballot. UMNO will run a strong challenge here, they might even win, but I think Hamzah's incumbency and ministerial jewel probably save him. PN hold

P057 Parit Buntar: The Kerian River leaves the Kedah-Perak border at a state tripoint where the town of Parit Buntar faces both Nibong Tebal and Bandar Baharu. That proximity doesn't really translate to a close-knit economy; instead its position on the coast means that half the state's rice bowl is crammed into a seat running down to the fishing village of Kuala Kurau at its southernmost point, just a few miles across – and getting smaller thanks to the quantities of sand being mined to reclaim land on Penang Island's south shore. The seat has retained a deeply religious and conservative flavor that swung it to PAS once UMNO's long-serving Abdul Rahman Sulaiman left the scene.
Three-term incumbent Mujahid Yusof of AMANAH has that to thank for his successful defense of the seat in GE14 under his current party colors. Even then it was a close-run thing with UMNO and PAS splitting the remaining vote evenly. But UMNO hasn't appeared to have found anyone more prominent than local history teacher Imran Mohd Yusof, PAS's Mohd Misbahul Munir bin Masduki is from the other end of the state, and public speaking trainer Rohijas Mohd Sharif of PEJUANG will exert his rhetorical ability in service of splitting the vote even further. PH hold

P058 Bagan Serai: Sometimes size does matter. Two moderately sized settlements in a tiny seat like Parit Buntar is fine for an opposition party (as PAS used to be) to handle. Half a dozen tiny ones in a much larger area with poorer road connections gives a thin advantage to UMNO's better machinery in the straight fights that usually happen here, despite the economic base in these two northwestern Perak seats being basically identical. (Although this seat can boast one famous export: international badminton star and pride of the nation Lee Chong Wei.)
Two-term incumbent Noor Azmi Ghazali is standing down in a cloud of unpopularity after leaving UMNO post-GE14. PPBM found a defending candidate of much better caliber than we've seen so far, the recent PAS MP for Bukit Gantang (immediately to the south) Idris Ahmad. Meanwhile former atomic energy official Zu Helmi Ghazali of UMNO is no relation to the incumbent but is having to fight off that persistent perception among prospective voters. Noor Azmi's dreadful margin last round – less than 200 votes – and the seat's previous history of electing a PKR man in 2008 will encourage former PKR senate member (for Penang) Siti Aishah Shaik Ismail, and the pandemic having hit this area particularly hard will encourage DME supply manager Ahmad Luqman Ahmad Yahaya. Given Idris Ahmad's distinct local brand PPBM should feel the most encouraged. PN hold

P059 Bukit Gantang: The approaching Bintang mountain range and the much messier coastline limit what can be done with this long stretch of the Perak coast. Fishing remains an option thanks to the numerous rivers, Kuala Sepetang/Port Weld at the northern end of the seat is still in operation, and with many of the coastal mangrove swamps still uncleared part of this seat's economy derives from tourism and conservation with farms located further inland. All this greenery suits PAS, which has won narrowly in recent elections.
The exception was 2018, when then-UMNO candidate Syed Abu Hussin Hafiz Syed Abdul Fasal snuck up the middle as the region swung toward BN; he promptly jumped to PPBM after the election. Divisional UMNO Youth chief Mohammad Sollehin Mohamad Tajie will hope to finish that job; AMANAH engineering professor Fakhruldin Mohd Hashim and PEJUANG's Mohd Shukri Mohd Yusoff will want to keep it close. But the trends in this seat don't tell a story that ends happily for them or the incumbent. BN gain from PN

P060 Taiping: This town is incredibly wet, incredibly hilly, incredibly walkable, and incredibly steeped in history, with the resolution of the Larut Wars both lending its name to the town and seat and marking the British entry into dominance of Peninsular Malaysia. It is still a nice quiet place, a small town of friendly locals with a magnificent line of trees around the Lake Gardens that number among the attractions in a seat covering the entire urban area as far east as Bukit Larut (formerly the British hill station of Maxwell Hill).
In what we will shortly see is a trend among Perak DAP, the incumbent Teh Kok Lim is standing down and leaves a nice safe seat open. Substituting in we have Ipoh Timor MP Wong Kah Woh to play defence, leaving GERAKAN state chairman See Tean Seng, MCA's diplomat/former state football team player (brand new phrase) Neow Choo Seong, and three independents in the midfield with nowhere much else to go. PH hold

P061 Padang Rengas: There is much to be said for Taiping and for Kuala Kangsar. Padang Rengas town, about midway between them on the connecting highway, is flagging by comparison; the seat is much the same, poorly connected internally with most of the rubber plantations that drive its economy crammed between the town and the mountains.
Retiring six-term incumbent and Mahathir hater Nazri Aziz stands in sharp contrast to this, with a net worth and lifestyle rich enough to send his kids to school in Paris, holiday there, and bribe officials to waive his quarantine upon returning. How much of this comes from the multiple ministerial portfolios he's held and how much from less savory activities is up for debate. His replacement, state UMNO Youth chief Mohd Arrif Abdul Majid, will easily keep the seat out of the hands of PKR Youth deputy leader Mohd Kamil Abdul Munim and navy captain Azahari Hasan of PPBM. BN hold

P062 Sungai Siput: Eastern Perak has lots of massive constituencies. But this one, although still rural, is notable for having basically its entire population be concentrated in the area around Sungai Siput town. Successive MIC presidents VT Sambanthan and Samy Vellu held it from independence until Samy's unexpected ouster in 2008 by our old friend Michael Jeyakumar of the Socialist Party, avenging its history as the site where communists killed three plantation managers and triggered the Malayan Emergency. Since then it's solidified into a seat the opposition wins with small majority vote shares.
One-term DAP incumbent K. Subramaniam will be testing that against MIC president S. Vigneswaran, the first party president to contest since Samy's loss. In comparison the small fry of PPBM's Irudianathan Gabriel, PEJUANG's Ahmad Fauzi Mohd Jaafar, and three independents are unlikely to make much difference on the ballot. Miracles are not new in this seat but Subra will need another one this time. BN gain from PH

P063 Tambun: The world of Tambun is being gradually lost from multiple sides. The tin mines that originally put it on the map are long closed. The famous limestone hills to the north of Ipoh are being steadily eroded by developers looking to divvy them up. The surrounding forest isn't faring much better, either from flash floods or the same developers which also both threaten the farming and commerce livelihoods of many residents.
This is the hottest of hot seats; as you all know the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is looking to lay the blame for this microcosm of Malaysian mismanagement at the feet of PPBM incumbent Ahmad Faizal Azumu, with his record as chief minister, and the prior UMNO occupants of this seat. There will naturally be an added dimension of revenge against Faizal for his role in the Sheraton Move. Faizal's narrow margin last round will be as swiftly eroded as the mountains here, the UMNO division chief Aminuddin Mohd Hanafiah will further complicate his retention, and PEJUANG's Abdul Rahim Tahir is also on the ballot. We shall see if Anwar can pull enough votes over – I've been bearish on him in the past but he has been adeptly making the case in this seat so far. PH gain from PN

P064 Ipoh Timor: Few places in Perak are more defined by the state's mountains than its capital – from Ipoh's location in the Kinta Valley surrounded by rich deposits of tin, to the lakes and rivers that flow out of them carrying water clean enough to put the city's food on the map. Many of the best purveyors of laksa, hor fun, white coffee, and all the other foods and drink that bear Ipoh's imprimatur may be found in this seat lying east of the Kinta River, centered on the Ipoh New Town developed by tin king Yau Tet Shin in 1909 and stretching northeast to the Tambun area and south to Batu Gajah.
As might be expected, this is a deeply Chinese seat that flipped to DAP in 2004 of all years on the strength of Lim Kit Siang's candidacy which has shuffled among other DAP members since. State party secretary and incumbent Wong Kah Woh is contesting in Taiping and his replacement is assemblyman and former party youth chief Howard Lee, whose recall from Gerik at least guarantees him a walkover against city councilor Nor Afzainizam Salleh of PPBM and MCA divisional deputy chair Ng Kai Cheong. PH hold

P065 Ipoh Barat: Ipoh Old Town retains much of its former history as the city that made many people filthy rich through the tin mining industry. Nevertheless it retains and always has had a remarkably small-town air that reflects well on its people, which can't quite be masked by all the institutions from the older Birch Clock Tower to the newer Ipoh Convention Center that fall within this seat covering roughly the northern and western halves of the city.
Four-term DAP incumbent M. Kulasegaran also managed to flip this seat in 2004 and has steadily blown out his margins thanks to his substantial Indian vote, which will stand him in good stead when he wins against GERAKAN local comms director Chek Kwong Weng, MCA state coordinator Low Guo Nan, and independent BN-aligned relic M. Kayveas. PH hold

P066 Batu Gajah: Ipoh's development as a transport hub to aid the tin industry spurred further development of the city itself; much the same cycle is now playing out with the highways which have played an underrated part in the renaissance of the Ipoh area. More than anything this defines the Batu Gajah seat stretching down Federal Route 5 from university hotspot Seri Iskandar north into Hakka-heavy inner Ipoh neighborhoods.
As with other "highway seats" this raises the floor for the opposition and in this case those inner neighborhoods take the floor into the stratosphere: DAP incumbent V. Sivakumar will have no trouble dealing with GERAKAN and MCA political unknowns Teoh Chin Chong and Woo Cheong Yuen. PH hold

[Joseph Cao]

P067 Kuala Kangsar: We will see a prime example of packing shortly, but the Election Commission has always neatly cracked the royal town of Kuala Kangsar for no good reason at all – even leaving no chance to the town never showing any proclivity toward the opposition. Only the southern half lies in the seat given its name, though at least it contains the Sultan's palace. It still does very well out of the administrative business running through it, the highway traffic running through it, and the Perak River running through it.
The UMNO women's wing has also done well out of it, with long-serving women MPs rising to high positions in government – but that seems to be a liability for current incumbent Mastura Mohd Yazid, who may be too close to Ismail Sabri for certain leaders' comfort. She isn't contesting this time. In her place AMANAH division deputy Ahmad Termizi Ramli will be hoping to repeat his decent performance from last time, and PPBM senate member Iskandar Dzulkarnain Abdul Khalid and UPM veterinary professor Yusmalia Mohamad Yusof for PEJUANG are also hopeful. They shouldn't get their hopes up too high; UMNO assemblyman Maslin Sham Razman will hold this just fine. BN hold

P068 Beruas: Tin mining is all very well, but its workers were inherently transient and the British wanted a more permanent minority population to promote stability. So in 1902 they approved the Singapore Methodist Church's importation of skilled Fuzhou settlers to a point in the state reportedly chosen to be as far away from the mines as possible. It was intended as a primarily agricultural experiment, but the commercial trends of the time toward rubber were quickly permitted; that helped to cement the association of the Methodists with Sitiawan specifically (hi Jason) and the Fuzhou with more northerly coastal towns like Pantai Remis and Changkat Keruing and Ayer Tawar. An unexpected outcome of said experiment was the Malayan Emergency; one of the first generation of settlers born here was a certain Chin Peng.
Although its northern part has naturally been good for DAP on its own, the Election Commission most recently packed Sitiawan into this seat which effectively turned it into a semi-urban constituency. The padding of DAP's margins should protect three-term incumbent James Ngeh Koo Ham (who, in fact, represented Sitiawan) against his GERAKAN and MCA challengers just fine. Hadi Awang recently brought up the 2019 Chin Peng ashes debacle again, which happened here; we'll see what effect that has nationally. PH hold

P069 Parit: The official story of Parit's founding is that two Teluk Intan residents were expelled for losing a bet and had to come here. I don't know how much that tells you, but the seat today doesn't seem too far removed from then: still basically dependent on the Perak River flowing its length for which it is named.
Although the margins for UMNO aren't as eye-popping as elsewhere in the state it is nonetheless very safe and has been subjected to MPs moving around; incumbent Mohd Nizar Zakaria will be the first to win reelection since 1990. PAS division leader Muhammad Ismi Mat Taib, AMANAH Youth women's chief Nurthaqaffah Nordin, and PEJUANG's former PAS assemblyman Faizol Fazli Mohamed lost their respective bets and will consequently be steamrolled. BN hold

P070 Kampar: Ipoh made it rich in tin, but the world number one tin-producing region also brought much of its output into Kampar town only to decline after the 1920s. That "precious gold", the Mandarin name for this seat, could just as easily refer on a smaller scale to the commercial activity here that helps drive Kampar's modern economy. In this as with the UTAR campus, it is sustained by the two minor highways running through the western half of the seat – pathways taken among others by the Japanese invading forces that suffered their first major military setback here in 1941.
It's still a recipe for a majority-Chinese seat but the battles are no longer as evident since DAP defeated MCA's Lee Chee Leong in 2013. Incumbent Thomas Su is standing down; his replacement, assemblyman Chong Zhemin, probably won't have to sweat too much against Lee (on his fourth go-round) or GERAKAN veep and women's leader Janice Wong or WARISAN's Leong Cheuk Lung, brother of PBM assemblyman Leong Cheok Keng (who is also contesting under WARISAN; froggery clearly runs in the family). PH hold

P071 Gopeng: Running east from southern Ipoh suburbs to the Titiwangsa mountains at the Pahang border, the ostensible center of this grab-bag seat is the town of Gopeng which even today remains an Ipoh in miniature –clear Ipoh tin history, large Hakka Chinese population, and mountain views. Incredibly a tiny village down a small road from Gopeng has produced not one but two national giants: PAS giant Burhanuddin Helmy and cartoonist Lat.
That characterization extends to the seat's politics. Three-term PKR incumbent and cardiologist Lee Boon Chye has had health issues recently and is standing down, to be replaced by fellow PKR assemblyman Tan Kar Hing. MCA divisional vice-chair Cally Ting has been spilling to friendly media sources recently; whether those ever become more than pipe dreams, and whether PPBM local youth chief Muhammad Farhan Abdul Rahim and WARISAN podiatrist Balachandran Gopal have any hand in that beyond taking up space on the ballot, remains to be seen since PH has a good if not 100% firm grip on this seat. PH hold

P072 Tapah: The colonial development of Tapah as a rest stop en route to Ipoh or Kuala Lumpur or Cameron Highlands has never really left this place behind, although their predecessors the Orang Asli, of which there are large populations in the mountains, take different views altogether. Transport remains a big draw, both toward the tourism spots scattered around the mountains and the lakes and toward tourism spots in themselves such as old Tapah Road railway station, the second-oldest in the country.
While Sungai Siput was the MIC presidents' seat, this continued MIC stronghold has always been the vice-presidents' seat and is currently held by that position's incumbent, M. Saravanan; as the only MIC MP to survive 2018 he got run within two percentage points by PH, its best result ever, so PKR vice-president K. Saraswathy is projecting confidence in her prospects. Tanjong Malim councilor Muhammad Yadzam Mohamed is carrying the PPBM banner, Ipoh businessman Mohamed Akbar Sherrif Ali Yasin is contesting for WARISAN, and PEJUANG state chairman Mior Nor Haidir Suhaimi and an independent round out the ballot list. Saravanan however represents a party on the offensive and should have nothing to worry about. BN hold

P073 Pasir Salak: The long and winding history of Perak gives you such gems as the Perak War, triggered by the murder of colonial administrator James Birch by local nationalist Maharaja Lela which eventually led to the sacking of Pasir Salak town in 1875. It's far removed from most of this seat lying north of the Perak River, still dependent on the long and winding river and the long and windingly bureaucratic FELCRA to sustain its agricultural economy. For this reason it continues to give monster margins to the UMNO candidates, many of whom can claim descent from members of the movement that assassinated Birch.
That history isn't far removed from the way in which three-term incumbent Tajuddin Abdul Rahman behaves: incredibly boorish, abrasive, willing to turn even on his own party by broadsiding Zahid's actions and character and calling the leader a party liability, this last bit for which he was suspended from UMNO and won't be standing again. In his place it is to be hoped that Senate member and UMNO Youth deputy Khairul Azwan Harun is at least marginally better mannered once he completes the formalities against PKR's Nik Omar Nik Aziz (son of the late PAS giant and brother of the PAS MP), PAS's Jamaluddin Yahya, and PUTRA's Zairol Hizam Zakaria. BN hold

P074 Lumut: The Royal Malaysian Navy base here dominates discussion of this seat, and the seat itself, thanks to its central location backing on to the Straits; the naval industry has followed with shipbuilding and repair carried out here on a regular basis although the current state of the navy perhaps leaves more to be desired with regard to the implied meaning of "regular".
After Sitiawan was carved out of the seat it became confined to a narrow strip along the headlands and Pangkor Island (of tourism and fishing fame), got far more Malay, and flipped to a nominal BN majority that current incumbent Mohd Hatta Ramli of AMANAH nevertheless defied in 2018. His majority was still incredibly narrow, about 400 votes, and against the same challenger – then-incumbent, now-former UMNO chief minister Zambry Abdul Kadir – he looks like a goner. Maybe PEJUANG state councilmember Mazlan Abdul Ghani or naval commanders Nordin Ahmad Ismail (PPBM) and Isnin Ismail Ibrahim Khan (WARISAN) might split the vote to the same extent PAS did last round. I don't think it'll be enough. BN gain from PH

P075 Bagan Datuk: This neck of palm oil, fishing, and farming country projecting out past the Perak and Bernam Rivers was a constant focus of proposed development pre-2018. I'll give you three guesses why. The most recent, the Hutan Melintang army base, was infamously one of the land swap deals that the BN administration carried out pre-2018 which has led to its shuttering under the PH administration.
That may increase UMNO president and six-term incumbent Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's aura of corruption locally (already a hot topic of national discussion) but it won't necessarily endear the people here toward the man carrying the PKR banner, the famous giant-killer Hang Tuah Jaya MP Shamsul Iskandar. Nor will the high profile of the seat necessarily make up for PPBM exco Muhammad Faiz Na’aman and high-profile Gerak Independent Tawfik Ismail's lack of obvious local bases. Even David only had five stones. BN hold

P076 Teluk Intan: Teluk Intan town, at a bend of the Perak River, often gets carried by its rise or fall. As the river bottom's erosion cut it off from the oil tankers and tin ships that drove its old colonial-era economy, it's had to adapt. Even as the palm oil development stretching down south to the Selangor border has federalized and privatized (not mutually exclusive in Malaysia), the commercial development and the recent cultural festival and the growing pains of every rising municipality seem to suggest the town's finally turning the corner.
Whether the seat containing all this will see a similar political story in GE15 remains to be seen. DAP incumbent Nga Kor Ming as the PH state chair has courted an unusually large share of controversy this cycle, in his seat and elsewhere; while most of this is online there's some discontent among his Indian constituents about his perceived lack of focus on their bread and butter issues. MIC is coming in to contest a traditionally GERAKAN seat (Mah Siew Keong hasn't won a federal general election race since 2004) in hopes of exploiting this, fielding party vice-president T. Murugiah, who like Nga was originally based in the Taiping area. He is joined by PEJUANG local lawyer Amir Khusairi and PPBM assemblyman Zainol Fadzi who represents an area just north across the river in Pasir Salak. Whether MIC can pull this off remains to be seen; though Nga should narrowly hold on, with a very good night they could do it. PH hold

P077 Tanjung Malim: One highly visible indicator of the riches that used to flow through Ipoh is the Malaysian registration plate. The first number plates were issued in the city and Perak continues to get the coveted A state prefix, beating out Selangor which gets B. Many B plates continue to be seen in Tanjung Malim lying on the state border (to which many Selangor Malays were driven by the 19th-century Klang War); the same holds in Slim River and Trolak and Sungkai, just up the North-South Expressway; many more plates will be produced in Proton City at the vehicle assembly plant.
It falls to PKR's Chang Lih Kang to defend a seat he flipped in 2018 even as his vote share went down slightly. MCA vice-president Mah Hang Soon is back for round two; PPBM assemblyman from across the state Nolee Ashilin Mohammed Radzi, IMAN sec-gen Amir Hamzah, and two independents including Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi of infamous 2009 Perak crisis memory will collectively play the third party. How much of a split in the non-PKR vote materializes will determine Chang's fate. The other candidates being incredibly small fry might eliminate that possibility despite Mah's less than stellar electoral record. BN gain from PH

Running tally: BN 32 (+15), PH 27 (-3), PN 17 (-10), GTA 1 (-2)

[Joseph Cao]

Also consider this my thanks to everyone following along!

Thanks for the write up so far.  Definitely interesting reads.  I'm not sure I fully agree with some of them (I think Boy-boy will probably keep Jerlun, and the back of the island could possibly flip) but then again what you have presented is possible.  Next up seems to be Perak, which is the frontline state this year.  It would be interesting to read your thoughts on it (and on East Malaysia as well, which is always a mystery).

Ironically these were the two seats I went back and forth on the most – I could very easily see them going the other way too. Teluk Intan is number three now though.

And I'm going to embarrass myself badly with Sabah most likely; my base knowledge of that state is next to nil. At least Sarawak is more or less a one-party state where that won't matter in electoral terms.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I would be intrested to know how many cross-racial seats there are in malaisya, ie seats where the MP and the dominant ethnicity are different and how it's distributed between parties ?

[Novelty]

P063 Tambun: The world of Tambun is being gradually lost from multiple sides.

LOL, I wondered whether you would make that joke.  It's subtle though.

https://sunwaylostworldoftambun.com for those who didn't catch the reference.

[Novelty]

I would be intrested to know how many cross-racial seats there are in malaisya, ie seats where the MP and the dominant ethnicity are different and how it's distributed between parties ?

Try this spreadsheet.

All the Indian MPs are in cross-racial seat as there are no Indian dominant seats anywhere in Malaysia.

[Novelty]

And I'm going to embarrass myself badly with Sabah most likely; my base knowledge of that state is next to nil. At least Sarawak is more or less a one-party state where that won't matter in electoral terms.

I'm sure you'll come up with some nice stories of the land below the wind.  And the interesting seats in Sarawak are the Chinese ones where I want to see whether the generally opposition Chinese will split the votes and get some SUPPer instead.

[Joseph Cao]

Pahang

P078 Cameron Highlands: Tea, strawberries, vegetables, tourist traps, and other world-famous produce grow fantastically in the cool climate of a plateau whose location William Cameron briefly lost before finding it again and recommending a hill station be established here; that same climate attracted the British in droves and melded their traditions alongside those of the local Orang Asli in this seat covering a wide swathe of FELDA land to the south and east in addition to the Cameron Highlands plateau itself. For a newish constituency (broken off from Lipis in 2004) electoral controversy has flown from it as steadily as its numerous rivers, the most recent being the annulment of its GE14 election on grounds of vote-buying by MIC candidate C. Sivarraajh.
The resulting Cameron Highlands by-election of 2019 was a convincing win for UMNO's Ramli Mohd Noor, the first Orang Asli member of Parliament. He has been fairly vocal in the chamber and on the ground, where he's locked up the Orang Asli vote for obvious reasons; that should insulate him against challenges from DAP assemblyman Chiong Yoke Kong and PPBM divisional leader Abdul Raasid Mohamed. BN hold

P079 Lipis: Kuala Lipis' position on the Jelai River gave it its precolonial gold mining industry, and the former colonial capital has seen better days than ever since that status shifted to Kuantan. The seat that bears its name has much the same trajectory, stretching up to the Kelantan border without hitting much beyond farming villages.
A matching deeply anonymous incumbent, UMNO's Abdul Rahman Mohamad, is safely ensconced in one of the several Pahang seats that has never left the BN fold. In a year where that coalition expects to do well, don't expect either PKR's neighboring MP Tengku Zulpuri Shah Raja Puji or former MP Mohamad Shahrum Osman (constesting under PPBM colors) or PEJUANG candidate Noraishah Abu Bakar to make a dent in that record, despite being bigger heavyweights than this seat typically gets. BN hold

P080 Raub: The gold mining extended into portions of Raub District with which this seat is coterminous, and gave its name to them both via the scoops of soil from which local panners were reported to find gold. The mining technology for tin as well as gold progressed from there and the industry still runs, albeit at a fraction of its former glory; today the seat's most famous export is a different kind of gold, the King of Fruits, in addition to its other rubber and cocoa plantations and the activities around Fraser's Hill.
As mentioned before, incumbent Tengku Zulpuri Shah Raja Puji's similarly golden name marks him as a relation of the Pahang royal family in addition to being DAP's only current Malay MP. As he is contesting in Lipis instead the party's replacement is assemblyman Chow Yu Hui who will face off against MCA sec-gen Chong Sin Woon, PPBM division head Mohd Fakrunizam Ibrahim, and some guy from PEJUANG Norkhairul Anuar Mohamed Nor. Call me an optimist but I am not convinced that Chong's Negri Sembilan roots make him the best candidate for this area, going up against an incumbent assemblyman, when his predecessor in his current position couldn't do the job even with local roots. PH hold

P081 Jerantut: The Taman Negara (national park) and Gunung Tahan, the highest mountain in Peninsular Malaysia, mark the northern boundary of this mammoth seat that extends south as far as the gateway community of Jerantut. In such a seat your economy is basically entirely squeezed out of the park and its natural and manmade attractions, famous though the park may be. The small FELDA and logging activity at its southern edges don't change that calculus much.
UMNO's two-term incumbent Ahmad Nazlan Idris is retiring and will be replaced by divisional deputy Mohd Zukarmi Abu Bakar. In a seat that has literally never voted for any other party than UMNO he can expect to send PAS senator Hassan Basri Awang Mat Dahan and former university vice-chancellor Khairil Nizam Khirudin of PKR to electoral extinction. BN hold

P082 Indera Mahkota: The sudden jog north in the border with Terengganu opens up a stretch of coast several miles long to the north of Kuantan. The Kuantan port itself, the Gebeng industrial park, and the Cherating beaches take up the main part of the seat and tie it to Kuantan (and the oil boom just over the border), fitting in with a seat named after a township long since absorbed by Kuantan itself.
Incumbent Saifuddin Abdullah has had a similarly twisting series of changes in political allegiance – progressive internal UMNO critic to independent to PKR man (under which banner he won this seat in 2018) to Azmin-aligned PPBM. There is a wide-open race developing here that is difficult to get a read on, as PKR state secretary Zuraidi Ismail, MCA's former Wee Ka Siong political secretary Quek Tai Seong, and Kuantan orthopaedic surgeon Mohamad Nor Sundari of BERJASA have all shunned the incumbent's offer to debate and the feeling on the ground seems muddled. It is still the kind of seat where any non-PKR candidate has a wide point spread to clear. But I would not be surprised if Saifuddin hangs on. PH gain from PN

P083 Kuantan: A version of the histories of other state capitals up the coast has played out in Kuantan. Located at the mouth of its eponymous river, it has attracted Chinese to work in the tin mines and Indians to work in the rubber plantations and thus built up a varied industrial and demographic base – the largest on the East Coast –  which the highways threading through the city help to refresh. Unlike them this has enabled the seat covering the city center and extending a little way down the coast to have a normal political orientation.
PKR incumbent Fuziah Salleh, who I've previously written about in brief, defends a seat that works out to about the same partisan patterns as Indera Mahkota – an acknowledged safe seat for the party despite comparatively anemic margins. She is lucky to face similarly underwhelming opponents: former town councilor Ab Hamid Mohd Nazahar of UMNO, and businessman Wan Razali Wan Nor of PAS, and PEJUANG's Anuar Tajuddin. Nothing to see here. PH hold

P084 Paya Besar: Sungai Lembing's tin mines, the largest and deepest in the world at the time, helped to drive Kuantan's growth a century ago. It continues to do so now as the area opens up for tourism and gives curious people from all over the country the opportunity to gawk at the farmers and FELDA workers who make up the geographical and economic back half of Kuantan District.
Incumbent Mohd Shahar Abdullah has actually managed to emerge as a bigwig of sorts (maybe mediumwig would be more accurate) with several UMNO leadership and government portfolios to his name. Expect him to remind state elections director Ahmad Azam Mohamad Salleh of AMANAH, PAS cleric Aireroshairi Roslan, and PEJUANG's Rosminahar Mohd Amin what they say about people who delve too greedily and too deep. BN hold

P085 Pekan: Royal describes many things about Pekan town: its status, its seafood- and dessert-heavy cuisine, its favored post as a destination for defense and commercial and educational development, and the scale of the national damage carried out by its long-serving member of Parliament, former defense minister, former finance minister, former education minister etc. etc. Though the seat has shuffled around, and now encompasses all of Pekan District plus rurals to the north, father Tun Abdul Razak Hussein and son Najib Razak between them have represented it for basically its entire history.
I'm sure I don't need to exhaustively recount why Najib is currently living across the country in Kajang. Let's just say that even without his nine and a half terms of incumbency there's zero chance of UMNO's former assemblyman Shah Mohamed Puzi Shah Ali losing to any of the PAS or PKR or PEJUANG or independent small fry, although he could very well resign if Najib gets let out of his current residence after the election. BN hold

P086 Maran: If you want to know why Pahang is a BN fortress, Maran would be a good place to start. The economy and society here in a forgotten area of central Pahang has been grown basically from scratch around FELDA and palm oil plantations, the crown jewel of which is FELDA Jengka in the renamed settlement of Bandar Tun Razak to honor a leader of the party responsible for all this. The word "isolated" comes up a lot in discussions of these places, but it nevertheless is growing and being rewarded for its political loyalty with further investments. The strategy works.
For a seat adjoining both Pekan and Bera, four-term incumbent Ismail Muttalib has come down hard on the side of Bera. His subsequent dropping as an UMNO candidate hasn't deterred him from contesting under PAS colors, an aggressive strategy that won't save him from being eaten by the UMNO machine here on Election Day. UMNO assemblywoman Shahaniza Shamsuddin may also spare a thought for AMANAH divisional chief Ahmad Shuhor Awang and the independent on her way to Parliament next month. BN hold

P087 Kuala Krau: FELDA Jengka spills over into this seat, which also derives some small economic life from farming at its western end beyond the FELCRA territory in its middle. Another of the constituencies created in 2004 and grossly underpopulated since. As anyone familiar with the history of oil will know, the victor gets the spoils; the main populated areas outside of federal land falling into disrepair doesn't change the calculus for those in charge.
Four-term incumbent Ismail Mohamed Said, who has served this seat for its entire existence, has the resume of one of those men in charge, and it suits him very well against PEJUANG's Shahruddin Md Salleh, the incumbent for Sri Gading in Johor, and AMANAH divisional head (from Melaka) Juhari Osman and PAS cleric Kamal Ashaari. I do actually expect PEJUANG to outperform here, maybe push AMANAH or even PAS to third or fourth place, but this is fundamentally a race for second. BN hold

P088 Temerloh: The seat containing the geographical center of Peninsular Malaysia, Temerloh might demonstrate better than any other place the economic potential Pahang had and still has beyond a federalized top-down economy. It remains partly dependent on that for maintenance of parks and trails and the like, of course (not that those are perfect anyway) but the crucial industrial development has been spurred by the highway and other transport links which continues a tradition that began with the Pahang River. Despite the name this seat isn't sleepy any more.
This is a marginal of marginals, BN (under Saifuddin Abdullah) and PAS and PH all having held it recently. With incumbent AMANAH MP Mohd Anuar Mohd Tahir standing down, his party's Youth chief Mohd Hasbie Muda has the unenviable task of defending a slim margin against UMNO assemblyman Mohd Sharkar Shamsudin, PAS Muslim Council deputy Salamiah Mohd Nor, and ISMA president Aminudin Yahya contesting for GB. These are all unusually credible challengers and it's anyone's game – still BN has the advantage of running a candidate familiar with the seat and turnout operations and it's hard not to conclude that they're somewhat favored here. BN gain from PH

P089 Bentong: Opportunity can be a powerful draw when it comes knocking. Bentong District (with which this seat is coterminous) owes much of its current prominence to the businessman who put together the equation "proximity to Kuala Lumpur + cool climate of Cameron Highlands = profit" some decades ago and built Genting Highlands as a wonderland of theme parks and gambling and tourist traps and in general the kind of decadence that PAS leaders enjoy, not always on the down-low. The nearby food hub of Bukit Tinggi and the fresh-air-and-greenery ecotourist destination of Bentong likewise owe their current economic bases to that basic opportunity of mountains next to a very prominent urban area.
The greenery has motivated one-term DAP incumbent Wong Tack, as I also previously covered in some detail. The equation of "rumblings of discontent with him on the ground + whatever goes on in the giant brain of Anthony Loke = replace him with another candidate" has played out and led Wong to jump ship and contest as an independent against flag-bearer assemblywoman Young Syefura Othman. With first-time FELDA local Roslan Hassan of PPBM and another independent also in the mix, this is an absolutely golden open goal of opportunity and a powerful draw for former MCA president Liow Tiong Lai who must be delighted with all the chips falling his way. I'll mix as many metaphors as I want here; this is the Genting Highlands seat we're talking about, it goes with the territory. BN gain from PH

P090 Bera: BN's margins are lowered in this part of the state, a tier of medium-safe seats that may not have ever elected non-BN candidates but don't give them particularly safe margins either. Even the relatively new seat of Bera falls into that category. As the leader who called this election hoping to take BN beyond its definition by Najib and Zahid and friends, Prime Minister and four-term incumbent Ismail Sabri Yaakob must be taking heart in that characterization of his seat and its collection of anonymous Malay towns and former new villages that he's helped build and sustain. (The Malay parts are visibly more developed.)
Even with that Ismail Sabri is leaving nothing to chance locally. His challengers, respective PKR and PPBM division leaders Abas Awang and Aswami Harun, are carrying the flags of the other prime ministerial hopefuls; as with the national tussle, the race looks closer on paper than will play out in reality. BN hold

P091 Rompin: Tun Abdul Razak reportedly had visions for the human side of development in Malaysia, beyond chasing the commercial side as successive administrations have done. There are many small townships in his corner of Perak like Bandar Muadzam Shah or Bandar Tun Abdul Razak that never quite got off the ground economically, and Kuala Rompin which has gotten further along owing to its location at the mouth of another river and proximity to Tioman Island, which provides the main economic draw in this district beyond small farms and federalized projects and Orang Asli settlements.
Rompin takes all this in as it stretches the length of the Johor border. Fittingly for a district created from Pekan and still bordering much of it, incumbent Hasan Arifin was tied up in the 1MDB scandal and remains close to Najib despite it all. In a time of UMNO heads rolling every which way this has shielded him from the wrath of Zahid and will now ensure he surfs the coming wave against respective PKR and PPBM division leaders Erman Shah Jaios and Abdul Khalib Abdullah along with an independent. BN hold

Running tally: BN 43 (+17), PH 30 (-4), PN 17 (-11), GTA 1 (-2)

[jaichind]

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysia-ge-pollster-finds-ph-preferred-ruling-coalition-muhyiddin-s-pn-has-most-malay-support

"Malaysia GE: Pollster finds PH is preferred ruling coalition, PN has most Malay support"

Merdeka survey has it at

PH 35
PN 22
BN 21

In Peninsular Malaysia.  Most likely it is oversampling urban areas.  Also in many seats PN is not viable PN voters will vote BN. Still it does not look like a BN landslide. BN majority in Peninsular Malaysia looks less and like likely although BN plurality still seems very likely. 

[jaichind]

Now that polls seem to indicate it will not be a BN landslide I did do some last-minute scrambling over an hour to come up with a model for Peninsular Malaysia.  I mostly used results from 2018, demographic data, and relative candidate quality to come up with some seat-by-seat projections.

For the seats covered by  President Joseph Cao, my results mostly match his although I am somewhat more negative on PH than he is.

Out of the 165 seats, I came up with

BN             79
PH-MUDA   65
GTA            2
PN            19

This means BN barely misses getting a majority.

Based on what I have seen so far I suspect for Peninsular Malaysia President Joseph Cao's approach will most likely come up with BN around 75.

[jaichind]

Average demographic breakdown by seat type

BN            Malays  Chinese  Indian
   UMNO     76.80     14.94     5.19   
   MCA       36.29     49.59    11.56
   MIC        47.72     29.44    18.09

PH
   PKR        67.94     20.94     7.74
   DAP        35.03     50.59   11.29
   AMANAH 79.86     12.40     5.33   
   MUDA     71.74     23.08     3.67   

MCA and DAP  identity as the Chinese party is clear.  UMNO and AMANAH identity as the Malay parties is also clear.  PKR spans Malays as well as minorities.  MIC is the Indian party.

This time around BN gave out a bunch of no-hope seats (heavily Chinese-Indian) to a bunch of Indian micro parties based on "what do you have to lose". 

[Joseph Cao]

Just barely broke it this time.

Selangor

P092 Sabak Bernam: Just over the Bernam River, this northwestern spur of Selangor isn't substantially different from its counterpart in Perak – the same palm oil plantations, the same federal funding, the same periodic flooding, the same remoteness, the same UMNO bastion.
Incumbent Mohd Fasiah Mohd Fakeh has been unexpectedly dropped by PPBM having previously defected from UMNO in the post-election wave of 2018. PPBM state vice-chief Kalam Salan will be defending for his party against former UMNO MP Abdul Rahman Bakri, AMANAH national vice-chair Shamsul Ma'arif Ismail, and actor Idris Mohd Yusof with the PEJUANG ticket. Snoozefest for UMNO, in all likelihood. BN gain from PN

P093 Sungai Besar: It's remarkable how sudden the agricultural transition can be even within the same district – just past the border we move immediately into the rice bowl of Selangor where paddy fields multiply and run down to the fishing town of Sungai Besar (nowhere near the actual big river in the seat, let the record show) and the Chinese- and seafood-heavy tourist trap of Sekinchan on the coast.
That may have been a factor in the seat's flip to PPBM in 2018. Incumbent Muslimin Yahaya now faces PKR Islamic dissemination board CEO Saipolyazan Mat Yusop, medical something or other Asmawar Samat @ Samad, and noted thug Jamal Yunos of the local UMNO division and one-time leader of the Red Shirt Movement (which sprung up entirely to oppose BERSIH's Yellow Shirts and therefore consistently got let off by police while the Yellow Shirts were being teargassed). This joker may finally make it to Parliament, but at least he will be forced to wear more than just a towel to enter the chamber. BN gain from PN

P094 Hulu Selangor: The northeastern corner of Selangor benefits from the highways through it as the northwestern corner has largely not, stretching down from the border towns near Proton City to the mountain-view garden township of Kuala Kubu Bharu to the Hakka food hotspot of Rasa to the historical site of the "British My Lai" Batang Kali to the Perodua City outskirts and vacation destination of Serendah.
PKR incumbent June Leow got a good margin here last round and has kept up the grassroots work since then, so it's somewhat surprising that she's been dropped and replaced by Rawang operative Sathia Prakash Nadarajan. MIC vice-president and Senate member T. Mohan is not exactly local but neither the locals (PAS state treasurer Mohd Hasnizan Harun, PEJUANG assemblyman Harumaini Omar, the independent) nor the other carpetbaggers (PBM Ampang-area assemblywoman Haniza Mohamed Talha) have and the wind at their backs. With Leow's grassroots connection out of the picture expect that to be the main determinant of the result. BN gain from PH

P095 Tanjong Karang: The rice paddies and kampungs continue their march down from the north in a seat that stretches all the way to the foothills of the Titiwangsa Range. The very outer edges of built-up areas of western Selangor make it into the seat but haven't affected it politically.
State chair and UMNO's one remaining MP in Selangor Noh Omar has served for six terms, but the prawn man has been frozen out of favor and got humiliatingly dangled during the BN convention. Going up against UMNO divisional women's chief Habibah Mohd Yusof in response is a local UMNO committeeman, Mohd Rosni Mastol, who is angry with this internal situation and claims to represent the grievances of most of the local UMNO. MUDA's Siti Rahayu Baharin has been carrying her educational chops here with great responses, as are retired army physician Zulkafperi Hanapi of PPBM and road safety activist Azlan Sani Zawawi (aka Lando Brotherhood) of PEJUANG for their respective areas, but this is UMNO's rice to fry even if the rumored internal split may make it closer. BN hold

P096 Kuala Selangor: Where the Selangor River flows into the Straits there is a headland at which Bugis warriors, engaged in a broader struggle for the region, decided to set up shop as the Selangor Sultanate that still persists today. Now there is a large ecotourism-focused town, Kuala Selangor, surrounded by palm oil plantations; that sets the tone for this seat extending south of the river toward the developer swarm of Puncak Alam and other company towns in the outer Klang Valley region.
AMANAH incumbent and former health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad reclaimed his old seat in 2018 after losing it in 2013 but fell just short of an absolute majority, which apparently is why UMNO has sent out a big gun of the first order against him: finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz. PAS cleric Mohd Noor Mohd Sahar and PEJUANG assemblyman Mohd Shaid Rosli have limited roles in this fight. Despite Zafrul never having contested electorally before the title of finance minister cannot be underestimated (though that has its limits; ask Johari Abdul Ghani in Titiwangsa), and the wind at his back probably makes up for Dzulkefly's own electoral and ministerial record. BN gain from PH

P097 Selayang: Essentially an irregular quadrilateral of north-central Selangor with its four corners at Rawang, Selayang, Kuang, and the Selangor Fruit Valley farm, which just about tells you the variety of things stuffed into it: Perodua's HQ and factory, farms and parks and a massive wet market, rubber plantations, the historic base for Cantonese gangs opposed to Yap Ah Loy, Rohingya, present-day gang violence, the Malaysian Bible Seminary.
Given that heavy Chinese and Indian base you will not be surprised to hear that the seat is virtually safe for three-term incumbent William Leong of PKR, who will send packing PPBM's Abdul Rashid Asari (an assemblyman from further southwest), MCA state youth chief Chan Wun Hoong, PEJUANG assemblyman Sallehudin Amiruddin, and the independent next week. PH hold

P098 Gombak: Taking in everything north-by-northeast of Kuala Lumpur, starting from Batu Caves and the National Zoo on the city border itself and running past Orang Asli settlements and the Hulu Langat forest to the Pahang border. Gombak itself headquarters the International Islamic University Malaysia campus, and the Chinese, Indians, and Orang Asli split the non-Malay demographic evenly. Those two things set the tone for this seat.
It may be the end of the line for three-term incumbent Azmin Ali, late of PKR, current PPBM honcho, perpetrator of the Sheraton Move. PKR's purge of Azmin-aligned members in its wake has been well covered and a most notable survivor is current Selangor chief minister Amirudin Shari, widely known to have been an Azmin protege and thus recommended as his successor to that position. Fielding such a big gun (Anwar was rumored to stand here at one point) is part tactical decision and part loyalty test for Amirudin and will be a big challenge for him against Azmin, UMNO senator Megat Zukarnain Omardin, PUTRA's former Federal Territories Court judge Aziz Jamaludin Mohd Tahir, and an independent. This is the kind of seat where the Sheraton Move could actually move votes and Amiruddin is as household a name as the incumbent. A win for the challenger seems reasonable. PH gain from PN

P099 Ampang: Like Gombak, Ampang town was established by tin miners given their mandate from the Sultan of Selangor. Like Gombak it stopped just short of being completely swallowed by Kuala Lumpur, though parts of both towns lie under federal jurisdiction. Like Gombak it became a New Village during the emergency, which now contributes to the town's reputation for yong tau foo.
Like Gombak, Ampang is served by a three-term incumbent who left PKR during the Sheraton Move, though former Azmin lieutenant Zuraida Kamaruddin has taken the froggery one step further and joined a "properly multiracial" party, PBM, which has the approximate dimensions and function of an empty pot with a hole in the bottom and from which she was suspended for a short while last week over the leadership struggle. The downside of being in a frog party is the number of people who now hate your guts, and Zuraida has attracted eight challengers: PKR division chief and state exco chairwoman Rodziah Ismail, MCA women's wing spokeswoman Ivone Low, MACC special legal officer Sasha Lyna Abdul Latif of PPBM, PEJUANG women's youth chief Nurul Ashikin Mabahwi, WARISAN assemblywoman Lai Wai Chong representing a state seat immediately south, and one Malay, one Chinese, and one Indian independent, who all happen to be women as well. Zuraida, the former PKR women's chief, can at least take comfort in having inspired so many female candidates to run against her. PH gain from PBM

P100 Pandan: Essentially the southwestern half of the part of Ampang lying outside Kuala Lumpur's boundaries, with the Sungai Besi Expressway forming the seat's southern boundary. This part of town grew fast enough for the seat to be created in 2004 then flipped into the opposition column for good in 2013, when Rafizi Ramli won by praising the dropped MCA incumbent Ong Tee Keat. Then-PKR president and Anwar's wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail substituted in last election when federal charges for whistleblowing were pending against him, but Wan Azizah's services are now needed a few miles southwest and the PKR vice-president is coming back to his seat.
For all of Rafizi's proclivity in that regard, his campaign tactic from 2013 is now a bit of an inconvenience for him because Ong is standing under the WARISAN banner, joining MCA state secretary Leong Kok Wee, PAS divisional youth chief Muhammad Rafique, and chartered secretary Nadia Hanafiah under PEJUANG. Ong is indisputably WARISAN's biggest fish this side of the South China Sea and might get into second place (and Rafizi still has nothing but praise for him publicly), but the PKR floor is probably too high and the remaining vote too split for him. PH hold

P101 Hulu Langat: Urban areas immediately to the west account for Hulu Langat District, of which this seat is basically the most rural bits plus an arm into northern Cheras, having the second-highest population density in the state. It also helps account for the broad range of industry that has sprung up here, from the locally owned hotels and restaurants and durian farms to the tourism areas around the river to Broga Hill at the Negri Sembilan border to the University of Nottingham campus where Bridget Welsh plies her trade.
Incumbent Hasanuddin Mohd Yunus of AMANAH is standing down for no very clear reason that I know of. In his place AMANAH Youth chief Mohd Sany Hamzan faces off against UMNO divisional leader and state party treasurer Johan Abdul Aziz, multifarious activist Mohd Radzi Abdul Latif of PPBM, former BN candidate for this seat Markiman Kobiran under the PEJUANG banner, WARISAN some guy Abdul Rahman Jaafar, and an independent. The opposition famously lost a state by-election here in 2019 but the seat as a whole is pretty good for AMANAH and that should continue. PH hold

P102 Bangi: The towns south and southeast of Kuala Lumpur have come a long way. Bangi itself used to be synonymous with the ghetto and Cheras with the middle of nowhere; Kajang struggled from one failed industry to another. Now this seat has everything from the National University of Malaysia to a nuclear agency to a massive IKEA to Kajang Stadium to a richly deserved association with satay that the broad working-class base here can still enjoy. One thing it doesn't have, according to current resident Najib, is caramel macchiato.
DAP's two-term incumbent Ong Kian Ming is retiring, capping a stellar run of constituency and parliamentary service that former Lim Kit Siang political secretary Syahredzan Johan will be hard-pressed to match. But at least he will get the opportunity to try after he puts away MCA former assemblyman Hoh Hee Lee and the PAS, BERJASA, PRM, and three independent small fry also on the ballot. PH hold

P103 Puchong: Perhaps the most famous Emergency-era New Village in the country, Seri Kembangan was built essentially from scratch for that purpose. Post-independence its inhabitants and those of nearby Puchong (separated by the Ayer Hitam forest reserve) led the successive waves of commerce from rubber to small industry to international trading and development ventures. The Puchong seat has however been gerrymandered for no real reason to exclude most of actual Puchong.
Incumbent Gobind Singh Deo, who called this seat the "land of tolls" in Parliament, is decamping for Damansara at the other end of the eponymous highway. Defending for DAP is current Bakri MP and former minister Yeo Bee Yin, who just got some flak for being married to a man who owns many business interests and developments in the Puchong area and responded that said properties don't fall within the Puchong seat. Not that this will save GERAKAN central committee member Jimmy Chew or BN-affiliate some dude Syed Ibrahim Syed Abdul Kadir, or local community activist Uncle Kentang who might honestly get more votes than either of them. PH hold

P104 Subang: Actually, no, I lied, it's very obvious why this area of Selangor was gerrymandered: to confuse the heck out of local opposition voters and poor saps like us who have to make sense of the whole mess. Besides most of the above properties actually being located here, the actual place named Subang is in the seat that was named Subang until 2018, much further to the north, now named Sungai Buloh; the current Subang seat mostly covers Subang Jaya, an area that was rubber plantations two generations ago, plus most of actual Puchong. If you're confused, so is everyone else. Altogether it's a confused mess of car showrooms and factories and petty crime and people moving from one traffic jam to another and the largest rats in the Klang Valley.
The way the two areas were stitched together in the redelineation has inflated the margins of PKR incumbent Wong Chen who moved in from Kelana Jaya to the north, and they will keep him at the helm against MCA former assemblyman Kow Cheong Wei and GERAKAN's Alex Ang. PH hold

P105 Petaling Jaya: Old Petaling Jaya was built to relieve overcrowding in Kuala Lumpur just to the east and scatter supposed support for communists during the Emergency. Extensive development since then has turned it into a thriving place containing nearly every industry or place you can think of, although as above there's little rationale for the Petaling Jaya seat which extends west from PJ through a line of industrial parks and shoplots and golf clubs with an arm up to the Air Force base near Subang Airport.
One-term incumbent Maria Chin Abdullah represents the vanguard of an NGO ecosystem, many of which are headquartered in this media- and education-heavy seat. She stepped down as a leader of BERSIH to run under the PKR banner but has found Parliament less conducive to operate in; replacing her is assemblyman Lee Chean Chung who will scatter MCA, PPBM, GB, PRM, and Gerak Independent challengers with no trouble. PH hold

P106 Damansara: Once again this mashes together swathes of communities whose only commonality is voting for the opposition, from Kepong and Sungai Buloh in the north down between the highways and shopping malls (including 1 Utama, possibly the most famous) toward old Chinese Petaling Jaya neighborhoods. Like Bangi it is one of the most overpopulated constituencies in the country.
Those old neighborhoods were the base of three-term incumbent Tony Pua, whose exploits I probably should refrain from elaborating on here in case this breaks the character limit again. Having smashed the all-time record with a nearly 110,000 majority he is now retiring after coming up the wrong end of his party, as I previously mentioned; Gobind Singh has the privilege of defending this eye-popping majority against GERAKAN scion Lim Si Ching and MCA division chair Tan Gim Tuan. PH hold

P107 Sungai Buloh: From millionaires' homes near the KL boundary and the Subang Airport north and west as far as the Puncak Alam UiTM campus lying outside the Klang Valley, sprawling across four local authority jurisdictions, the Sungai Buloh seat created last cycle was the product of the Electoral Commission's attempt to pack rural and semi-urban Malays into an urban seat. They also took the Subang label away from this area and gave it to a far less deserving seat. Up yours, EC.
Thanks to a truly dreadful ongoing storm of signal-crossing from PKR air traffic control their three-term incumbent R. Sivarasa has been dropped and replaced with R. Ramanan, a former MIC treasurer who as mentioned is leaving the grassroots colder than death's lip balm. Against this debacle we have possibly the most popular UMNO man anywhere in the nation, health minister Khairy Jamaluddin, riding into the seat joined by PAS, PEJUANG, PRM and two independents. I won't mince words: even Sivarasa and his 26,000 majority would have had a fight on his hands against Khairy, but the continued floundering by PKR in this seat makes it an even safer pickup for UMNO than many actually marginal seats. BN gain from PH

[Joseph Cao]

P108 Shah Alam: Malaysia's only planned administrative state capital was built on former rubber and palm oil estates by the Klang River in the 1960s and 70s and now boasts the largest mosque in the region, a bunch of manufacturing and universities including the flagship UiTM campus, a stadium, the fantastic PPAS public library, and forty-seven thousand six hundred and fifty roundabouts. Kind of the Malay Petaling Jaya, with more roundabouts. The seat itself covers the whole city, stretching from the river up to the controversially degazetted Bukit Cherakah reserve.
It's been a good berth for AMANAH's Khalid Samad who has made a name for himself in Parliament. But Khalid's services are also needed in a Kuala Lumpur seat and so he is decamping there; in his place state deputy chair Azli Yusof will duke it out against UMNO supreme council member Isham Jalil, incumbent Penang-area assemblyman Afif Bahardin who defected from PKR to PPBM, and local solicitor Muhammad Rafique Rashid Ali of PEJUANG. It'll be swings for Azli and (many, many) roundabouts for everyone else. PH hold

P109 Kapar: A triangle of western Selangor from Bukit Cherakah proper to the stretch of coast running as far as the mouth of the Klang River, taking in everything from Top Glove headquarters in Meru to Klang's North Port Industrial Estate and the lightly developed islands at the rivermouth. In between is a forest of palm oil plantations and oil refineries and the largest power station in Malaysia.
Incumbent Abdullah Sani Abdul Hamid of PKR has been in Parliament for three terms and served this seat for one. He now faces UMNO Youth divisional leader Muhammad Noor Azman, PAS former assemblywoman Halimah Ali (last seen losing a by-election on the other side of Klang), PBM assemblywoman Darolyah Alwi late of PKR, BERJASA's Moh Pathan Hussin, WARISAN's Rahim Awang, and an independent. UMNO is in a traditionally MIC-contested constituency where that party came third last time, and Abdullah Sani has plenty of cushion. PH hold

P110 Klang: Namechecked by Zheng He, Port Klang became the terminus for British roads and railways conveying tin out of the Klang Valley. This seat is a straight and narrow corridor coming up from the offshore Pulau Indah industrial park, shooting northeast through the middle of Port Klang and the city center's famous landmarks and jumping the river to jog north at the Klang Parade. I'm guessing this is the bak kut teh restaurant community of interest.
Despite this fragmentation three-term DAP incumbent Charles Santiago has been all over the city and is pretty much universally beloved for all his work – in another of the brain worms plaguing Selangor DAP he has been dropped (after the rumors swirled for months) and replaced with city-area assemblyman V. Ganabatirau. It is actually mystifying. Completely counterproductive. But contrary to media speculation, Ganabatirau seems to be keeping the base and that's all he really needs against MCA divisional women's chief Tee Hooi Ling, PPBM local doctor Jaya Chandran Perumal, WARISAN city councilor Loo Cheng Wee, others randos from PEJUANG and PRM, and two independent fellow randos; the margin will be embarrassing compared to Santiago's but it's not the end of the road for him. PH hold

P111 Kota Raja: The eastern burbs of Klang are far more anonymous than the city center, but they're the nearest of the Klang Valley communities that turned this royal town into the manufacturing center of Malaya early last century. Extending up the Klang River and taking its name from a riverfront road that ends at the Sultan's palace, this seat shoots east as far as the opposing riverbank developments of Kota Kemuning and Putra Heights.
Incumbent and AMANAH president Mohamad Sabu holds what may be his party's safest seat in the state, potentially its safest period. He has nothing to worry about against PAS divisional leader Mohamed Diah Baharun, MIC state youth leader Kajendran Doraisamy, and the PRM, PEJUANG, and three independents bloating the ballot. PH hold

P112 Kuala Langat: As the Japanese entered the state through Hulu Selangor, so the British liberation forces entered from its opposite end via the beaches of Morib and so up through Banting, Jenjarom, and Teluk Panglima Garang. This area today is mostly agriculture- and tourism-driven and notably produced the badminton Sidek brothers who led the charge in perhaps the only international war Malaysia has ever won.
This is possibly a first in recent Malaysian politics as an incumbent party is leaving their seat entirely undefended; one-termer Xavier Jayakumar, having done the triple frog jump to PBM, is unexpectedly not contesting. Media reports indicated that a PKR Kapar MP wanted to contest here and they were almost right – former PKR Kapar MP G. Manivannan will come in to try to reclaim the seat that PKR lost in the defection. He faces off against MIC women's chief Mohana Muniandy Raman, PAS assemblyman Ahmad Yunus Hairi who I namechecked a while ago, and the usual PRM, PEJUANG and independent gadflies. With literally no defending resources coming into the seat, expect PKR to reclaim this one. PH gain from PBM

P113 Sepang: Inbound travelers' first proper view of Malaysia will be the palm oil plantations and periodically flooded farmlands around Kuala Lumpur International Airport. In spite of this the entire area which this seat covers retains the Mahathir-era designation of Multimedia Super Corridor; extending west to the Straits, south to the Sepang Circuit and annual Grand Prix location on the Negri Sembilan border, and north to the high-tech hub of Cyberjaya which forms the supposed supercorridor's epicenter, adjacent to the federally administered Putrajaya.
It is a wide area to defend and two-term AMANAH incumbent Mohd Hanipa Maidin has had some health trouble, collapsing twice in recent years and once during a Parliament sitting. Former Senate member and AMANAH women's leader Aiman Athirah Sabu (no relation to the president) will be defending in his place. UMNO division leader Anuar Basiran, PPBM's incumbent Titiwangsa MP Rina Harun, Ministry of Environment civil servant Che Asmah Ibrahim of PEJUANG, a PRM man, and three independents are challenging. It took having an incumbent in the seat for UMNO to get within twenty points, and in fact Rina despite being tarnished has a better chance of getting second – but they are fundamentally competing for the same voters. PH hold

Running tally: BN 49 (+22), PH 46 (-4), PN 17 (-14), GTA 1 (-2), PBM 0 (-2)

[Novelty]

I don't know if I should be sad that Lee Chong Wei and even Bridgette Welsh received mentions, but bond girl and Starfleet captain Michelle Yeoh didn't...

PKR incumbent June Leow

  Does anyone have any info or scuttlebut why she was dropped?  Mr. President Joseph Cao, do you have any inside info?

[jaichind]

BN performance in Peninsular Malaysia since 2004 when it became the 165 seat format.

            UMNO      Allies (Chinese/Indian)        Total
2004        95                      51                        146
2008        65                      20                          85
2013        73                      12                          85
2018        46                        3                          49
2022        67                      12                          79 (what I have so far in my model/guess)

It seems this time around my guess is that UMNO will repeat its 2008 performance in heavy Malay seats while its allies will repeat its 2013 performance (in mixed or minority dominated seats).