Sabah midterm elections - Sept 26 2020

[jaichind]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Sabah_state_election

With the Malaysia federal government collapsing back in Feb-March and a PPBM-BN-PAS government coming to power plus former Sabah UNMO CM Musa Aman being cleared of corruption charges there was a real chance that the Sabah WARISAN-PHR-DAP-UPKO government would fall.  To preempt this WARISAN CM Shafie Apdal called early elections to checkmate Musa Aman from having the time to assemble defectors to form a government.

After various lawsuits over the legality of the mid-term election the courts allowed it to move forward and it will be held Sept 26

[jaichind]

In 2018 it was
    
                               Contest      Win      Vote Share
WARISAN+ bloc            60          29          47.16%
 WARISAN                      45          21          32.14% (pro-Mahathir UNMO splinter -Bruneian Malay)
 PKR                                8           2            5.68% (mostly Kadazan-Dusun Christian tribals)
 DAP                                7           6            9.34% (Chinese)

BN                              60           29         42.04%
 UMNO                          32           17          23.91% (mostly Bruneian Malay)
 PBS                             13             6            8.57% (mostly Kadazan-Dusun Christian tribals)
 UPKO                            6             5            4.58% (mostly Kadazan-Dusun Christian tribals)
 LDP                              4             0             1.94% (Chinese)
 GERAKAN                      2             0            1.13% (Chinese)
 MCA                             2             0            0.96% (Chinese)
 PBRS                            1             0            0.95% (mostly Kadazan-Dusun Christian tribals)

PAS                           18             0           1.33%
 
USA                          55              2           7.53%
 PHRS                        25               0          2.07% (mostly Bruneian Malay)
 STAR                        20               2          4.73% (mostly Kadazan-Dusun Christian tribals)
 SAPP                         5                0          0.60% (Chinese)
 PPRS                         5                0          0.14% (Chinese)

PCS                         18               0          1.10%

[jaichind]

Developments since the 2018 elections

UPKO leaves BN to join the WARISAN ruling bloc
Most of the UMNO MLAs defect to PPBM which was a WARISAN ally
LDP and GERAKAN leaves BN
PBS leaves BN but takes an WARISAN position
STAR which was anti-UNMO shifts to more of an anti-WARISAN position

Then the PH government at the federal level collapses in Feb 2020 with PPBM leaving PH and forming the PN alliance and becoming the ruling party at the federal level with support of UMNO and PAS.

STAR and SAPP joins PH alliance which is really a pro-PM Muhyiddin Yassin alliance.

For this election some of the alliance arrangements are quite complex.  On the WARISAN bloc side it is simple.  UPKO PKR DAP will run with an alliance with WARISAN.  DAP will run on the WARISAN symbol.

On the anti-WARISAN side it a grand loose GPS alliance of BN PN and PBS.
BN will have UMNO, MCA and PBRS.
PB will have PPBM (mostly former UNMO MLAs), STAR and SAPP
PBS
PAS will not run but will support GPS

LDP, PHRS, PPRS, PCS will all run independently.  UNSO which is a de facto UMNO splinter will also run.  

The number of seats increased from 60 to 73 (mostly increasing the number of Kadazan-Dusun Christian tribal seats since 2018) which makes alliance seat sharing easier.

The seats sharing are

WARISAN+ bloc    
  WARISAN                    46
  UPKO                          12
  PKR                             7
  DAP                             7 (run on WARISAN symbol)
  AMANAH                      1  (run on WARISAN symbol)

GPS
  BN                           41
    UMNO                      32
    PBRS                         5
    MCA                          4
  PN                           29
    PPBM                       19
    STAR                         8
    SAPP                         2
  PBS                          22

LDP will run 47 candidates, PCS 73 candidates, PPRS 23 candidates, PHRS 5 candidates, and USNO 47 candidates.

The GPS alliance is the one that is in trouble.  The 3 components (BN PN and PBS) could not agree on an alliance in every seats and in many seats PBS will run against BN or PN candidates.  BN and PN mostly do not have any candidate overlap but does have a couple of seats where BN will face PN.  Overall this is making a mockery of the GPS alliance.  

[jaichind]

All signs are that WARISAN should be in a good position to win.  The GPS alliance clearly have issues and worse it seems former UMNO CM Musa Aman will not be running as a UMNO candidate in his old seats.  Musa Aman is most likely the only one in the GPS camp that has the name recognition to match Shafie Apdal as a CM candidate.   Without Musa Aman in the fray the WARISAN would have the advantage in terms of CM candidate.  Worse, BN and PN are already squabbling over who is the GPS CM candidate.

For GPS to win they will have to hope that any positive image PPBM leader and PM Muhyiddin Yassin can rub off on GPS candidate plus the appeal of federal subsidies if GPS were to come to power.

[jaichind]

Looking at the 60 2018 winners we can map out what are they up to this election round

21 WARISAN winners: 17 renominated, 4 not renominated to make way for new faces.
6 DAP winners: 5 renominated, 1 will have son take his place
2 PHK winners: 1 renominated, 1 will run as a rebel
5 UPKO winners: 1 renominated, 1 defected to and will run as PPBM, 1 defected to an will run as STAR, 1 will run as a rebel, 1 defected to PPBM but not nominated
17 UMNO winners: 2 renominated, 7 to run as PPBM, 3 to run as rebels, 5 not renominated (most of these went over to WARISAN or PPBM but defected back to back Musa Aman but are not renominated by UMNO or PPBM)
2 STAR winners: 2 renominated
6 PBS winners: 4 renominated, 2 will run as rebels
1 PBRS winner: 1 defected to and will run as STAR

Overall the GPS camp has a lot more rebels and churn which overall is a bad sign of GPS ability to hold on to local political talent.  

[jaichind]

https://www.nst.com.my/news/politics/2020/09/624173/sabah-2020-star-wounded-pbs-betrayal-over-seat-arrangement

PBS going rouge and running candidates in a lot of BN and PN seats is sort of revenge within the ongoing Kitingan family feud.

In the 1980s and 1990s the PBS led by CM Joseph Pairin Kitingan support by his brother Jeffrey Kitingan was the main opposition to BN.  Mahathir led BN broke PBS to creating a bunch of PBS splinter parties (LDP SAPP UPKO PBRS) to help BN for the government.  Out of power eventually PBS joined BN by the 2000s.  Jeffrey Kitingan then left began his party hopping and eventually formed STAR which was the leader of a Third Front 2018.  Now Maximus Ongkili, nephew of both  Joseph Pairin Kitingan and Jeffrey Kitingan, is in charge of PBS and while being nominal allies with STAR led by his uncle Jeffrey Kitingan is clearly running candidates against the GPS alliance including Jeffrey Kitingan's own seat.

[jaichind]

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2020/09/15/foreign-minister-negotiating-means-malaysia-acknowledges-philippines-claim/1903448

Even while the Sabah election is kicking off the old Philippines claim on Sabah is back in the news.

[jaichind]

Venn diagram of the GPS and WARISAN+ alliances.

WARISAN+ alliance is a perfect alliance with no overlaps.  Whereas GPS it is most PBS that broke ranks and is running in seats that allies are running in.   

A good part of the reason why beyond party ambitions is the view that Peninsular Malaysia based parties are not popular in Sabah so it is important to project a local party against WARISAN who is running on a Sabah vs Peninsular Malaysia plank.  PBS fancies itself as a symbol of Sabah autonomy given its past history of leading an opposition government in the 1990s against the BN.  PBS views parties like UMNO and MCA as having a negative brand and thinks it can win in a many way contest by winning over the Sabah regionalism vote   

In many ways one of the reason why PKR and DAP accepted relatively less seats in this election relative to 2018 is their recognition of this fact.  DAP and  AMANAH  running on the WARISAN  symbol is part of this reality as well. 

One good news for BN-PN in Peninsular Malaysia is that PPBM and UMNO seems to have avoided direct battles although in a bad news for BN-PN in Peninsular Malaysia the two blocs seems to disagree on the CM candidate.  This shows it is possible for UMNO and PPBM to work out seats adjustments although part of this is a result of PAS choosing not to run.  In Peninsular Malaysia there will be 3 way UMNO PAS PPBM seat sharing talks for Malay majority seat which will get heated when election comes.  It is clear that there WILL be battles for PM candidate when the national mid-term election does come.

[jaichind]

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2020/09/18/early-ge15-if-grs-wins-sabah-polls-says-muhyiddin/

"Early GE15 if we win Sabah polls, says Muhyiddin"

PM Muhyiddin indicated that if GRS alliance wins power in Sabah election he will most likely move for a mid-term federal election.

There is some logic to this.  The only way PN-BN-PAS alliance loses their majority in an mid-term election is if they get a large swing against them in Sabah.  But if GRS can win the Sabah assembly elections there is little risk of this and it is almost certain that PN-BN-PAS, if they can hold together, will gain seats in a federal mid-term election.

[jaichind]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-politics-anwar/malaysia-opposition-leader-anwar-claims-formidable-majority-to-form-new-government-idUSKCN26E0K7

PKR Anwar claims that defections from the ruling bloc will give him a large majority and be able to make him PM. While I am skeptical if this turns out to be true and realized before the election this weekend then WARISAN+ is almost certain to win in a landslide.   

Basically WARISAN+ has the Sabah identify card while GPS has the federal subsidies card which makes this election close.  If the federal subsidies card falls to WARISAN+ then WARISAN+ will win a large majority.

[jaichind]

Election is tomorrow.  Right now it is complete chaos at the national political scene.  The results tomorrow are likely to be fractured.

The entire reason Anwar is even able to trigger this current crisis is because  UMNO and PPBM are battling it out behind the scenes on seat sharing for an upcoming mid-term election.  There are even signs that PPBM and PAS are getting closer to battle against UMNO in these seat sharing talks.  Because of these battles, it is likely that BN and PN even partial alliance will not work on the ground as both PPBM and UMNO will prioritize doing better than the other even over beating WARISAN.

On the WARISAN-PH side it is only slightly better.  Anwar's PKR, while preferring WARISAN-PH to win will not want a massive WARISAN landslide since that would mean that Shafie will emerge as a rival to Anwar for the PM candidate on the Opposition side.  It is likely that PKR will not go all out to support WARISAN.

All this points to minor parties, rebels, and independents doing well.  I am pretty sure that there will be a lot of winners that win with less than 40% or 35% of the vote.  The result will be very fractured and seat share very volatile and even random.  All in all WARISAN-PH should still have the edge but one cannot be completely sure.

[jaichind]

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2020/09/25/ilham-centre-warisan-plus-likely-to-take-lead-in-sabah-polls-with-23-clear/1906703

Ilham Centre estimates  WARISAN-PH well ahead in 23 seats and GPS well ahead in 19 seats.  Rest are considered tossups

[jaichind]

https://www.myundi.com.my/

should be link to hopefully unofficial results when the polls close at 5:30AM EST

[jaichind]

SEEDS Sabah poll has it at

GPS                   43.4 %
WARISAN-PH      40.7 %

Which would make the election a tossup or even lean WARISAN-PH since in over a quarter of the seats GPS has two or even three candidates running.  This poll also points out that within GPS the recent trend has been a shift of support from UMNO to PPBM which could the GPS is more likely to be split down the middle where there are multiple candidates throwing some seats toward WARISAN-PH

[jaichind]

So far only the Chinese seats are coming with significant numbers and it seems DAP running as WARISAN are keeping their landslide numbers from 2018.  So it seems we can conclude that the Chinese vote are staying with WARISAN-PH just like 2018. 

Very little data from other seats but what is out there implies fairly status quo from 2018 results.

[jaichind]

Malaysiakini calls so far

WARISAN-PH     6 (WARISAN 2 DAP 4)
GPS                  2 (UMNO 2)

Chinese seats and various strongholds

Twitter sources claims unofficial count has massive WARISAN-PH landslides but this is so far based on unofficial sources

[jaichind]

Malaysiakini calls so far

WARISAN-PH     8 (WARISAN 4 DAP 4)
GPS                  3 (UMNO 2 PBS 1)

Still just strongholds.  Most stringer and unofficial sources seems to indicate that PPBM totally bombed.  If true then UMNO is less likely to give ground to PPBM on seat sharing talks and as a result Muhyiddin is much less likely to call early elections which means more stalemate

[jaichind]

Malaysiakini calls so far

WARISAN-PH    10 (WARISAN 4, DAP 6)
GPS                  8 (PPBM 3, UMNO 2, PBS 2, STAR 1)

PPBM winning a new seat and retaining 2 that UMNO defectors won in 2018.

[jaichind]

Both camps seems to indicate that so far it is a 50/50 battle between the two blocs

[jaichind]

Malaysiakini calls so far

WARISAN-PH    11 (WARISAN 5, DAP 6)
GPS                 17 (PPBM 6, STAR 4, UMNO 4, PBS 3)
IND                   1 (UPKO rebel)

GPS races ahead.  Looks like trends are opposite of what unofficial sources say.   GPS now has the edge and PPBM-STAR doing very well relative to UMNO.  Muhyiddin should be happy with what he is seeing so far.

[jaichind]

It seems the 2018 BN and STAR voting blocs consolidated behind GPS so they get the edge even with a bunch of seats with multiple candidates.  Muhyiddin positive image dealing with the COVID-19 virus seems to be a key factor in the GPS surge.

Malaysiakini calls so far

WARISAN-PH    13 (WARISAN 6, DAP 6, PKR 1)
GPS                 24 (UMNO 9, PPBM 7, STAR 5, PBS 3)
IND                   1 (UPKO rebel)

[jaichind]

Malaysiakini calls so far

WARISAN-PH    19 (WARISAN 12, DAP 6, PKR 1)
GPS                 30 (UMNO 13, PPBM 7, PBS 6, STAR 5)
IND                   1 (UPKO rebel)

In a lot of the seat where PBS and STAR both fielded candidates it seems it actually worked to STAR's advantage where a lot of UPKO votes shifted to PBS or STAR.

[jaichind]

Malaysiakini calls so far

WARISAN-PH    21 (WARISAN 13, DAP 6, PKR 2)
GPS                 33 (UMNO 14, PPBM 8, PBS 6, STAR 5)
IND                   3 (1 UPKO rebel, 1 PKR rebel, 1 UMNO rebel)
USNO                1 (de facto UMNO splinter)

[jaichind]

GPS already has enough with independents/rebels/splinters to form a majority.  It seems for WARISAN-PH the weak link was UPKO which failed to deliver its vote over to the alliance while STAR managed to consolidate its 2018 vote behind GPS.

[Polkergeist]

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2020/09/18/early-ge15-if-grs-wins-sabah-polls-says-muhyiddin/

"Early GE15 if we win Sabah polls, says Muhyiddin"

PM Muhyiddin indicated that if GRS alliance wins power in Sabah election he will most likely move for a mid-term federal election.

There is some logic to this.  The only way PN-BN-PAS alliance loses their majority in an mid-term election is if they get a large swing against them in Sabah.  But if GRS can win the Sabah assembly elections there is little risk of this and it is almost certain that PN-BN-PAS, if they can hold together, will gain seats in a federal mid-term election.

Looks like GE15 is coming real soon.

Thanks for the updates Jachind!