Malaysia General Election May 9th 2018

[Oryxslayer]

On the question of turnout - I'm currently creating a turnout map, and it looks like most of the Key peninsula areas was around 80-85%, it was main the east dragging turnout down.

edit: here is the Map.

[jaichind]

On the question of turnout - I'm currently creating a turnout map, and it looks like most of the Key peninsula areas was around 80-85%, it was main the east dragging turnout down.

That would make sense historically.  I do not even know where to find such turnout data.   I do know that Selangor turnout fell in a abnormal way relative to other states. Looking at the results that seems to be a function of lower BN turnout.

[jaichind]

Mahathir, 92, Sworn in as Malaysia Leader to Cement Power Shift

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-10/mahathir-92-sworn-in-as-malaysia-leader-to-cement-power-shift

[jaichind]

Another fun 3 way battle.  Sabah's P180 Keningau

STAR           33.09%
WARISAN     32.98%
PBS             31.74%

[jaichind]

A quick look at the vote shares by district I can sort of map out how BN got ambushed.  It is really a story of how a bunch of BN advantages turned out to be liabilities.

1) PH-PAS split.  Yes 3 way contest can help BN.  But there are downsides for BN.
a) Anti-DAP BN voters now have the choice to vote PAS which ran mostly as the anti-DAP party
b) Talk of a possible BN-PAS post election alliance drove Borneo Christian voters toward PH whereas before these same voters were turned off by the anti-BN opposition for having PAS as an ally

2) Circling wagons around Razak.  Yes that got to presented a united UNMO front with Razak as the protector of Malays.  But that drove several key anti-Razak UNMO kingpins toward    Mahathir.  Namely Shafie Apdal in Sabah and Muhyiddin Yassin in Johor.  These two and Mahathir clearly clawed a bunch of UNMO votes toward PH in Sabah, Johor, and of course Kedah.

3) Last minutes tricks such as more pre-election gerrymandering, holding the election on a weekday to push down turnout, "fake news" laws, PPBM ruled illegal on a technicality right before the election etc etc served to show that BN had little confidence in its chances in a fair fight.  BN insulted many voters sense of fair play and worked to drive down the marginal educated urban BN voter turnout.

Best example is doing stuff like
 

Everyone knows who the blacked out people are (Mahathir and Anwar) so there is no point in doing so. It actually raises the profile of the billboard and draws people's attention to the pettiness of BN.

Turnout fell across the board due to the election being on a weekday but it seems to have fallen more in urban areas.  Part of that must be the greater fall in the urban educated Malay BN voter.

[jaichind]

I computed the Borneo vote share.  As hard as it is to believe but PH won the Borneo popular vote.  It is

                  Seats             Vote share
PH                25                   46.77%
BN                30                   46.35%
GS                 0                     1.46%
USA               1                     3.92%
BN rebel         1                     0.73%

After 2003 when PBS joined BN there was no effective opposition until 2013.  During that period BN vote share in Borneo are in the 63%-65% range.  It is virtually unthinkable that BN could lose the popular in Borneo.

[Lachi]

Shows how strong the BN Malapportionment is in some parts of Malaysia.

[jaichind]

There is something funny about turnout figures.  The turnout for now is calculated at 77.92%.

But there are in theory 14,940,624 registered voters and I counted 12,082,386 votes  which comes out to 80.87% turnout.

Looking at district level turnout my figure seems to make more sense.

[Oryxslayer]

Turnout now calculated at 82.32%, at least according to wikipedia

[jaichind]

The Malaysian king has agreed to grant an immediate pardon to the twice-jailed former opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, clearing the way for his re-entry into politics and eventual ascent to the prime ministership.

[Hydera]

Curious how many seats a BN-PAS alliance would produce with GE14 boundaries(assuming PAS decided just to tell their voters to support BN and not running candidates in areas that they obviously werent going to win and 100% of their voters did despite a 100% movement from one party to another isnt usually the case).

[jaichind]

Curious how many seats a BN-PAS alliance would produce with GE14 boundaries(assuming PAS decided just to tell their voters to support BN and not running candidates in areas that they obviously werent going to win and 100% of their voters did despite a 100% movement from one party to another isnt usually the case).

The answer to that question is: 30 extra BN-PAS seats in Peninsular Malaysia and 1 extra BN-PAS seat in Sabah.

Main problem is 4 out of those 30 Peninsular Malaysia seats the PAS vote is slightly actually greater than BN.

I think a better way to measure it is: Combine BN-PAS vote share if the BN vote share is double the PAS vote share or vice versa so one can argue that one of the two blocs is in a clear position to take on PH.  In such a case BN gains an extra 14 seats.

So if we add BN 79 seats to 14 we get 93 seats.  Add PAS's 18 seats and the one BN rebel you get 112 seats, a bare majority.  Of course there is the issue of BN Borneo Christian parties that could defect to PH.

Not sure why PAS should jump to cede the opposition space to BN.  PAS's strategy should to be wait and see.  If PH holds together for a couple of years I suspect there will be UNMO defections to PKR or PPBM.  PAS could then take on the rump UNMO as a junior partner and become the main opposition to PH and as PH stumbles which it eventually will, PAS-UNMO will become the ruling bloc and not BN-PAS.  Why by kingmaker when you can be king.

[jaichind]

A look at how each bloc of seats swung with history from 2008 would give us a good idea of what took place and why even though my vote share prediction was way off Peninsular Malaysia I was not way off in terms of seat predictions.

Peninsular Malaysia Chinese seats (25)

                 BN seats  Vote     PH seats   Vote     GS seats   Vote
                               share                  share                   share
2008                3     36.17%       22      63.60%
2013                0     28.22%       25      71.40%
My model         0     30.10%       25      66.28%     0        2.25%
2018                0     16.75%       25      79.29%    0        3.66%

2013 saw the collapse of BN here and I expected some regression to the mean this time around.  It seems that instead BN had a further collapse to absurd levels which has to be not just the Chinese vote which PH pretty much is close to maxing out back in 2013 but urban Malays and Indians.  What I perhaps have missed is that anti-PAS BN Chinese and Indian voters might have migrated to PH as a result of the PH-PAS breakup.  PAS over-performed a bit which must be some anti-DAP BN voters going over to PAS.  So we have a bunch of extra PH votes here relative to my model which added no seats since it was already a PH blowout either way.




Peninsular Malaysia Multi-ethnic seats (22)

                BN seats  Vote     PH seats   Vote     GS seats   Vote
                               share                  share                   share
2008              10     48.64%       12      51.22%
2013                7     41.25%       15      57.56%
My model         1     36.27%       21      54.97%     0        7.61%
2018                1     25.18%       21      63.05%    0       11.48%

2013 saw a big swing against BN here and I expected that to continue as urban Malays migrate away from BN toward PH.  It seems this took place but a much more massive rate then I expected.  Anti-BN sentiment is part of it but it could also be anti-PAS BN Chinese and Indian voters now going to PH now PAS broke away from PH and is running as the anti-DAP party.  I had expected anti-DAP BN voters here to try to tactically vote for BN to stop PH.  It seems it was the other away around as anti-DAP BN Malay voters instead defected to PAS.  Again, much more votes for PH relative to my model but no impact in terms of seats since most of them were PH landslides.  The one seats BN won was Cameron Highlands which was multi-ethnic but had 20% of the population Orang Asli (which are Malaysia aboriginal people) which tended to vote BN.




Peninsular Malaysia Malay suburban seats (68)

                BN seats  Vote     PH seats   Vote     GS seats   Vote
                               share                  share                   share
2008              42     54.03%       26      44.95%
2013              42     50.16%       26      48.87%
My model       30     41.07%       38      45.93%     0       12.43%
2018              21     34.83%       47      48.23%     0      16.88%

Here in 2013 BN got a negative swing but managed to avoid a loss of seats.  In these districts I would have expect a sizable part of the 2013 PK vote to be really PAS votes and flow to PAS.  But I also expected a BN to PH swing at the same time.   It seems I underestimated that BN to PH swing a bit (around 2%).   I also expected the anti-DAP vote to tactically vote for BN.  Here it went the other way, as anti-DAP BN voters went over to PAS.  So here PH got a bunch of extra seats relative to my model since the PH-BN vote share gap is greater since there are a lot of marginal seats in this seat type.  Here my model mistake in vote share is less but much more seats are marginal so it made a difference it terms of seats.




Peninsular Malaysia Malay Rural seats (50)

                BN seats  Vote     PH seats   Vote     GS seats   Vote
                               share                  share                   share
2008              30     52.86%       20      47.02%
2013              36     53.73%       14      46.14%
My model       38     44.52%         3      20.79%     9       34.43%
2018              27     41.32%        5      19.09%    18       39.39%

Here it is mostly BN vs PAS.  In 2013 BN got a positive swing and gained a bunch of seats by linking PAS to DAP.  Most of the 2013 PK vote obviously is PAS and rest is AMANAH.  Mahathir/PPBM obviously got some votes from BN.  I think the amount of votes AMANAH took from PAS over to PH would split the anti-BN vote giving BN a solid victory here despite losing some votes for PPBM.  I mostly go the PH vote share correctly.  I also expected PAS to hold its base and perhaps get some anti-DAP BN votes.  It seems I underestimated the size of that flow as there was a larger swing from BN to PAS.  The result was that PH gained a couple of seats from BN relative to my model and PAS gained a lot relative to my model as a result of a greater vote share.




If you put it all together for Peninsular Malaysia (165) we have

                BN seats  Vote     PH seats   Vote     GS seats   Vote
                               share                  share                   share
2008              85     49.77%       80      50.09%
2013              85     46.01%       80      53.30%
My model       69     39.39%       87      44.05%     9       15.84%
2018              49     31.66%       98     48.65%    18       19.50%

So the main summery is PH over-performed in the swing it got from BN in urban Malay, Chinese, and Indian voters.  PAS over-performed in the swing it got from BN in more rural areas due to, I suspect, getting the anti-DAP vote.  The net impact on seats was nil in Chinese and multi-ethnic urban seats since PH was going to sweep them no matter what.  But it made a difference in suburban and rural seats where PAS over-performance at the expense of BN gained it a bunch of seats and threw BN seats toward PH as it ate into the BN vote share.

I think BN sending all sort of signals about an anti-DAP post-election alliance with PAS was a blunder.  It signaled it was OK for anti-DAP BN voters to vote PAS.  So the net prelim conclusion that the 3 way BN vs PH vs PAS that BN was celebrating as leading to a BN landslide and perhaps 2/3 majority worked in a way to actually blow up in BN's face as it seems from an ethnic voting point of view what kept various BN voting blocs in place voting BN was the contradictions of DAP and PAS being in the same alliance and BN could pick up votes that were unhappy about this arrangement.  Once this arrangement was over these votes drifted to PH and PAS respectively.

[jaichind]

My next project once I get around to it is to try to compute using least squares regression on how each ethnic bloc most likely have voted in Peninsular Malaysia since I have the ethnic breakdown per district.  I concluded looking at the results that the way I have to look at the Malay vote has to be

Urban, Suburb, Rural (like before) and intersected by (Kelantan,Terengganu), (Kedah), and (rest)

It seems that due to    Mahathir Kedah just voted differently than everywhere else and I have to model for it separately.

For Chinese and Indian voters I still will divide them up by (districts where BN Chinese parties (MCA,  Gerkan, PPP) and not as well as (districts where Indian BN party MIC is running) and not.

Most likely get to it after I the Indian Karnataka elections early next week is over.

[jaichind]

Let the defection games begin.   The  Sabah state assembly

BN             29 (UNMO 17 PBS 6 UPKO 5 PBRS 1)
WARISAN   21
PH               8   (DAP 6 PKR 2)
STAR           2

STAR which is part of the USA alliance is a PBS spliter with its leader Jeffrey Kitingan being the brother of PBS leader Joseph Pairin Kitingan.  STAR had talks with PH on an alliance  before the election  before PH decided to go with WARISAN.  So it was assumed that STAR will back WARISAN-PH to form a government.

Surprise 1: STAR came out to back BN to form a government.  Jeffrey Kitingan's logic must be that since he beat his brother Joseph Pairin Kitingan in his seat and now Joseph Pairin Kitingan is consigned to political oblivion he  can most likely takeover the leaderless PBS in a PBS-STAR merger.  And then this enlarged PBS-STAR led by Jeffrey Kitingan can be THE BN Christian party.

So now BN-STAR is expected to form the government.  Then came

Surprise 2: UPKO announces that it will leave BN and back a WARISAN-PH government.   This seems like a logical decision.  If PBS-STAR led by  Jeffrey Kitingan will become the face of BN for Christians where does that leave UPKO which is also an old PBS splinter and mostly appeals to Christians.  UPKO under this new arrangement risk being marginalized.  So the solution seems to be to jump ship over to WARISAN-PH to try to be the face of the WARISAN-PH for Christians.  Currently PKR in the WARISAN-PH bloc tends to appeal to Christians but UPKO will claim that it can do a better job than PKR since PKR is a Peninsular Malaysia party and UPKO is a local party.

Of course right now it is total chaos and letter of support from each of the parties can only take place when the post-election holidays are over. So there are plenty of more time for more surprise defections.

Update on Sabah defection game.  To summarize what took place so far the election result was

BN             29 (UNMO 17 PBS 6 UPKO 5 PBRS 1)
WARISAN   21
PH               8   (DAP 6 PKR 2)
STAR           2

STAR was expected to back WARISAN-PH so it will be: WARISAN-PH 31 BN 29

Surprise 1: STAR backs BN

So it becomes BN 31 WARISAN-PH 29

Surprise 2: UPKO announces that it is leaving BN and will join WARISAN-PH

So it becomes WARISAN-PH 34 BN 26

So it was expected that a WARISAN-PH government will be installed.  Then came

Surprise 3: All 5 UPKO MLA form a pro-BN rebel faction and will back BN

So it becomes BN 31 WARISAN-PH 29

The pro-BN Sabah governor installed BN government.

Then came

Surprise 4: LDP leaves BN. 

This has no really impact since LDP has no MPs or MLAs.  LDP most likely will not join PH since LDP is a Sabah Chinese party and PH already has the Chinese vote locked up.

Surprise 5: PBRS leaves BN to join WARISAN-PH

So it becomes BN 30 WARISAN-PH 30

Then came

Surprise 6: 4 UNMO MLAs defect to WARISAN-PH

So it becomes WARISAN-PH 34 BN 26

With the writing on the wall

Surprise 7: 2 MLA of the rebel pro-BN UPKO rebel faction defect back to the mainstream UPKO and will back WARISAN-PH

So it becomes WARISAN-PH 36 BN 24

All this taking place within around 48 hours or so.

Now WARISAN head and former number 2 of the Sabah UNMO Shafie Apdal will make a claim to form the government.  Up to pro-BN Sabah governor to decide what to do.  Most likely will wait a will to see if BN can reverse the defection flow.

WARISAN-PH is destined to win this game.  With PH in charge of the federal government PH-WARISAN has all the chips in the form of federal subsidies.  And Shafie Apdal  is a master at this game having clawed his way up to the number two spot in Sabah UNMO in the past.

[2952-0-0]

Someday all of this will be dramatized and released on Netflix. House of Cards is nothing.

[jaichind]

Former PM Najib and wife have been barred by the Immigration Department from traveling abroad.

[Oryxslayer]

Former PM Najib and wife have been barred by the Immigration Department from traveling abroad.

I'm suprised he was still hanging around post-election, he should have been on his way to a friendly middle eastern nation if he was personally smart.

Also, I got a bunch of maps of the election in the twitter link in my sig. The capstone is probably the voter movement map, which both shows how strong the PH gains were, and how the PAS leaving PK affected the regional voteshare.

[jaichind]

Former PM Najib and wife have been barred by the Immigration Department from traveling abroad.

I'm suprised he was still hanging around post-election, he should have been on his way to a friendly middle eastern nation if he was personally smart.

I think he announced that he was going to take a "short" vacation abroad.  That provoked  the  Immigration Department to ban him from traveling.

[jaichind]

Head of WARISAN Shafie Apdal installed as CM if Sabah 2 days after the BN CM was installed ending around 60 hours of hectic political maneuvering.

[Oryxslayer]

Najib resigns as party and coalition leader.

[jaichind]

The two Sarawak Ind MPs (one pro PH Ind and one PRS rebel) both join PKR. 

[jaichind]

As WARISAN-PH government is being sworn in something took place I missed:  There is no more BN or UNMO in Sabah.   

Even as UNMO BN CM Musa Aman was challenging the legality of swearing in a second CM in 48 hours, PBS led by ex-CM and current DCM Joseph Pairin Kitingan announced that PBS is also quitting BN.  Its logic is that the BN brand has become toxic in Sabah and it is time for a new start.  PBS decided to create a new front called Gabungan Bersatu (GB) as a new regional and asked all BN parties (PRBS which already decided to join WARISAN-PH, UPKO which has split into pro-BN and pro-WARISAN factions, and LDP which quit BN but could very well join GB) to join PBS.  The exception is STAR which is headed his brother Jeffrey Kitingan which he invited to join GB but not merge into PBS.

UNMO including ex-CM Musa Aman has mostly made the deicsion to dissolve UNMO and merge into PBS.

If they go through with this then BN and UNMO will disappear from Sabah and it will be the ruling WARISAN-PH bloc vs the new GB bloc.

[2952-0-0]

So this is how dictatorship ends: with thunderous applause.

[Polkergeist]

A few more defections in the states.

Two BN assemblymen defect to PH in Perak, giving PH a Parliamentary majority and State Government.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/pakatan-takes-perak-bn-defections-054548641.html


Three BN reps jump ship to PH in Johor, giving PH a 2/3rds majority in the State Parliament

http://www.thesundaily.my/news/2018/05/12/three-bn-reps-jump-ship-ph-johor