Malaysia 2022 General Election Nov 19th

[Oryxslayer]

This is the main danger for the PH-BN government where 85% of the Malays voted against PH but BN is joining them in government.  UMNO will be under pressure to show that they are not puppets of DAP (aka the Chinese) or else they will need to leave the government or face extinction. 

The issue is that I think BN's death became inevitable after the election results came it. They were a Party of Power, which means they have a strong legacy brand, a large crop of respected candidates, and strong local organizations. These things could allow any party that faces bad results to go into opposition and rebuild itself for the new fight while criticizing the government. Parties of Power though are often unable to comprehend this route, and it wasn't really an option for BN given the results. The Party and especially it's Old Guard are used to government access and the privilege's that affords, so when their former electorate begins to migrate to multiple different parties, the first instinct is not survival - it's maintaining that access. In doing so, the Party of Power though demonstrates to the electorate its desperation, and furthers the exodus of their electorate.

In this specific case, BN was screwed no matter if it picked PH or PN. PH betrays the voters, PN facilitates their gradual sidelining and irrelevance in favor of the shiny new thing.

[Joseph Cao]

This is the main danger for the PH-BN government where 85% of the Malays voted against PH but BN is joining them in government.  UMNO will be under pressure to show that they are not puppets of DAP (aka the Chinese) or else they will need to leave the government or face extinction. 

The issue is that I think BN's death became inevitable after the election results came it. They were a Party of Power, which means they have a strong legacy brand, a large crop of respected candidates, and strong local organizations. These things could allow any party that faces bad results to go into opposition and rebuild itself for the new fight while criticizing the government. Parties of Power though are often unable to comprehend this route, and it wasn't really an option for BN given the results. The Party and especially it's Old Guard are used to government access and the privilege's that affords, so when their former electorate begins to migrate to multiple different parties, the first instinct is not survival - it's maintaining that access. In doing so, the Party of Power though demonstrates to the electorate its desperation, and furthers the exodus of their electorate.

In this specific case, BN was screwed no matter if it picked PH or PN. PH betrays the voters, PN facilitates their gradual sidelining and irrelevance in favor of the shiny new thing.

The first paragraph would have been very cogent analysis if it was made immediately post-GE14.

We've seen all this play out already. BN went through all the stages of grief, bled MPs to PPBM, Zahid even had to step down for a bit after their Sabah caucus defected en masse. And then they got back into power anyway without lifting a finger, with none of that analysis being borne out, their electorate still intact, and it stayed intact through multiple state elections – in fact it grew back to pre-2013 levels! So they chose to learn nothing.

The primary issue with those readings they made was not anticipating PN’s strength in being able to run as a credible clean alternative to them which was already there to be seen during those state elections. If BN had been trying to maintain access at all costs they would not have turned a blind eye to this, and more importantly would not have continued to defer to PN as they did during this past government. To all appearances including theirs the grassroots was still strong, the support still maintained, and huge segments of said grassroots had been calling for early elections since March, which is why it is not a question of BN being damned if they pick either coalition – they already damned themselves when they called the election having learned nothing and with nothing to indicate otherwise that not all was well on the ground.

BN didn't lose because the electorate sensed its desperation to maintain access, which it already had; it lost because it was vastly arrogant and unheeding of what the people wanted, which was to not have to go vote in the middle of flooding season among other things, and crucially PN was able to pick up on that in a serious electoral way. You don't need Parties of Power theses to explain that.

As to the previous argument this is why BN will not simply begin to fix itself by pulling out of the government. The loss of access isn't the issue. Zahid has bigger things to worry about. The decision-making process that led to BN misreading every single signal this year is exactly the kind to assume a band-aid solution like this will be sufficient. But I mentioned in the other thread that BN continues to be pretty monarchist and the idea that the grassroots will automatically hate them for obeying the Agong's incredibly widely publicized wishes is also nonsense. We've seen plenty of instigation against those wishes. It has come almost entirely from PN, either from its leader or from their own supporters.

[Novelty]

P017 Padang Serai: Covering the northern half of Kulim District directly to the east of Penang is another of the agricultural and kampung seats (this one being a satellite area for Kulim to the south) that went straight to the opposition in 2008 and never came back. In this case PKR incumbent K. Muthusamy to his credit has worked the ground hard both before and after ascending to Parliament in 2018.
Facing off against him is a former MP, MIC vice-president C. Sivarraajh, whose election in Cameron Highlands in 2018 was annulled after vote-buying allegations; he was barred from contesting electorally for five years but that was struck down later, and he has moved here and also tried to be active on the ground as well. In the third corner is PPBM assemblyman Azman Nasrudin, another ex-PKR man, and crowded into the final corner are randos from WARISAN and PUTRA and a rando independent. I should note there were happy reports from PAS a while ago that their cooperation with UMNO would lead to the defeats of a few dozen PH MPs in seats where either party would stand aside from the other, but PPBM's insertion into this arrangement is complicating that and even a heavyweight like Sivarraajh might not overcome the PKR advantage. PH hold

Do you plan to update this Prez Cao?

[jaichind]

I did my initial regression for Peninsular Malaysia

The ethnic polarization was a bit greater than I expected it with PH not losing much Chinese or Indian support but losing a bunch of Malay voters relative to 2018

Malays (60.6% of voters)
BN    33
PH    10
PN     56

Chinese (27.7% of voters)
BN     6
PH    93
PN      2

Indians (8.9% of voters)
BN    17
PH    82
PN      1

Others (2.9% of voters) - This is a combination of Aborigines and those from Borneo
BN    62
PH    15
PN    24

BN most likely won a massive majority of the Aborigines vote and three bloc split the Borneo vote.

[Kamala's side hoe]

I did my initial regression for Peninsular Malaysia

The ethnic polarization was a bit greater than I expected it with PH not losing much Chinese or Indian support but losing a bunch of Malay voters relative to 2018

Malays (60.6% of voters)
BN    33
PH    10
PN     56

Chinese (27.7% of voters)
BN     6
PH    93
PN      2

Indians (8.9% of voters)
BN    17
PH    82
PN      1

Others (2.9% of voters) - This is a combination of Aborigines and those from Borneo
BN    62
PH    15
PN    24

BN most likely won a massive majority of the Aborigines vote and three bloc split the Borneo vote.

Not terribly surprising that an Islamist ethnonationalist (per what I've read in this thread) party would underperform with the (non-Malay, non-Muslim) Orang Asli and Borneo natives.

[Joseph Cao]

P017 Padang Serai: Covering the northern half of Kulim District directly to the east of Penang is another of the agricultural and kampung seats (this one being a satellite area for Kulim to the south) that went straight to the opposition in 2008 and never came back. In this case PKR incumbent K. Muthusamy to his credit has worked the ground hard both before and after ascending to Parliament in 2018.
Facing off against him is a former MP, MIC vice-president C. Sivarraajh, whose election in Cameron Highlands in 2018 was annulled after vote-buying allegations; he was barred from contesting electorally for five years but that was struck down later, and he has moved here and also tried to be active on the ground as well. In the third corner is PPBM assemblyman Azman Nasrudin, another ex-PKR man, and crowded into the final corner are randos from WARISAN and PUTRA and a rando independent. I should note there were happy reports from PAS a while ago that their cooperation with UMNO would lead to the defeats of a few dozen PH MPs in seats where either party would stand aside from the other, but PPBM's insertion into this arrangement is complicating that and even a heavyweight like Sivarraajh might not overcome the PKR advantage. PH hold

Do you plan to update this Prez Cao?

I might need to take the temperature there a little more but what can be seen so far is basically nothing but good news for PN. Maybe a rewriteup in a few days.

[jaichind]

P017 Padang Serai.  It seems the BN candidate has stopped campaigning.  This might be a prelude to BN de facto stepping aside and endorcing PH to stop PN here.

[Joseph Cao]

Sivarraajh has (predictably) denied this, for the record, and early voting begins tomorrow and it would be useless to withdraw after that. So his window for pulling out is 24 hours.

Still not budging from a fairly thumping PN win in my view.

[Joseph Cao]

Sivarraajh has (predictably) denied this, for the record, and early voting begins tomorrow and it would be useless to withdraw after that. So his window for pulling out is 24 hours.

Still not budging from a fairly thumping PN win in my view.

The BN state chairman pulled him out while I was typing the above, lol (and he confirmed it about five hours ago).

He's still on the ballot though, so no dice. Still no change from a PN win. I am pegging them above 60% at the moment. The difference in energy is palpable.

[Joseph Cao]

The final seats of the election are in:

Sivarraajh has (predictably) denied this, for the record, and early voting begins tomorrow and it would be useless to withdraw after that. So his window for pulling out is 24 hours.

Still not budging from a fairly thumping PN win in my view.

The BN state chairman pulled him out while I was typing the above, lol (and he confirmed it about five hours ago).

He's still on the ballot though, so no dice. Still no change from a PN win. I am pegging them above 60% at the moment. The difference in energy is palpable.

With counting having concluded a few hours ago the PN candidate falls just barely short of 60% in Padang Serai, gaining the seat as expected.

In the poll for the Tioman state seat the BN candidate pulls it out by enough of a margin to breathe, consistent with the political terrain a hop and skip down from Pahang BN’s crown jewel. Again, largely as expected since it was the PN candidate that died here and might have arrested some of the momentum somewhat.

Both results entirely consistent with what they would have been if held during the election, still a couple of weeks ago. The frantic spin about either election being a referendum on the unity government or the finance ministerial position or PN May 13 TikTok yada yada is still a pile of crock. Don't expect the pundit brains to give up the spin though, it's the only thing keeping them alive. Or paid. Same difference.

[peterthlee]

As far as I am concerned it was the Chinese that started it.  They shifted their votes from MCA to the more radical DAP in 2008 which in turn provoked a counter-consolidation with Malays toward more radical Malay parties.

Wow, the MCA lost more than half of their seats in 2008. While the MIC lost two-thirds, and UMNO lost one-fourths.

The sequence of events is the following
a) Before and during the 2008 election PKR-PAS-DAP had an opposition alliance.  There was a surge in the Chinese vote for DAP in 2008 which pushed up the power of DAP within the opposition alliance much to the concern of PAS.
b) In 2013 the Chinese vote continued to shift toward DAP while UMNO was able to pivot this Chinese surge for DAP into accusing PAS of being DAP puppets and made a play for PAS Malay votes which worked and made up for the loss of  more Chinese votes for BN
c) After 2013 PAS decided to become more hardline on the Malay nationalism anti-DAP issue to prevent more losses of Malay votes of UMNO.  This created a split in PAS where the moderate faction of AMANAH broke off and continued its alliance with PKR-DAP while PAS broke off the opposition alliance to go after the Malay vote.
d) 2018 elections saw an unexpected shift of the conservative Malay vote from UMNO to the more radical PAS which was enough for BN to lose to PH due to PAS being the more radical party and the corruption issue.  Many Malay voters that voted against UMNO regretted their decision which led to DAP being in government.
e) This Malay pressure led PPBM to leave the PH alliance and form a grand alliance with BN and PAS to form a government that excludes DAP in 2020
f) In 2022 PN was the more radical of the Malay parties and was able to get a massive shift of Malay votes to completely outperform.

So everything starts with a).  The Chinese were thinking that bloc voting can produce a better outcome for them at the political level but over time merely created a counter-Malay consolidation with a strong chance of a radical Malay government.  

For the bolded sentence, here is my question: in late 2018 to 2019 there had been multiple UMNO MPs defecting to PPBM. There had not been any major state elections in this period. How did Muhyiddin and other PPBM members sense this? By what? Internal polling?

[jaichind]

The sequence of events is the following
a) Before and during the 2008 election PKR-PAS-DAP had an opposition alliance.  There was a surge in the Chinese vote for DAP in 2008 which pushed up the power of DAP within the opposition alliance much to the concern of PAS.
b) In 2013 the Chinese vote continued to shift toward DAP while UMNO was able to pivot this Chinese surge for DAP into accusing PAS of being DAP puppets and made a play for PAS Malay votes which worked and made up for the loss of  more Chinese votes for BN
c) After 2013 PAS decided to become more hardline on the Malay nationalism anti-DAP issue to prevent more losses of Malay votes of UMNO.  This created a split in PAS where the moderate faction of AMANAH broke off and continued its alliance with PKR-DAP while PAS broke off the opposition alliance to go after the Malay vote.
d) 2018 elections saw an unexpected shift of the conservative Malay vote from UMNO to the more radical PAS which was enough for BN to lose to PH due to PAS being the more radical party and the corruption issue.  Many Malay voters that voted against UMNO regretted their decision which led to DAP being in government.
e) This Malay pressure led PPBM to leave the PH alliance and form a grand alliance with BN and PAS to form a government that excludes DAP in 2020
f) In 2022 PN was the more radical of the Malay parties and was able to get a massive shift of Malay votes to completely outperform.

So everything starts with a).  The Chinese were thinking that bloc voting can produce a better outcome for them at the political level but over time merely created a counter-Malay consolidation with a strong chance of a radical Malay government.  

For the bolded sentence, here is my question: in late 2018 to 2019 there had been multiple UMNO MPs defecting to PPBM. There had not been any major state elections in this period. How did Muhyiddin and other PPBM members sense this? By what? Internal polling?

Those defections were mostly about UMNO MPs needing to be in government to gain the spoils of power to run their own local political machine.   

Just to be clear, when I said "Many Malay voters that voted against UMNO regretted their decision which led to DAP being in government" what I meant is a bunch of marginal UMNO-PAS voters in 2018 voted PAS thinking they are teaching UMNO a lesson from a corruption point of view and never imagined that this would lead to a PH government.  After 2018 they regretted it and became the basis of a grassroots move for UMNO-PAS to form a Malay voting bloc.  PPBM draws support from the same bloc of voters and saw the writing on the wall so then joined up in early 2020 and left PH. 

[peterthlee]

The sequence of events is the following
a) Before and during the 2008 election PKR-PAS-DAP had an opposition alliance.  There was a surge in the Chinese vote for DAP in 2008 which pushed up the power of DAP within the opposition alliance much to the concern of PAS.
b) In 2013 the Chinese vote continued to shift toward DAP while UMNO was able to pivot this Chinese surge for DAP into accusing PAS of being DAP puppets and made a play for PAS Malay votes which worked and made up for the loss of  more Chinese votes for BN
c) After 2013 PAS decided to become more hardline on the Malay nationalism anti-DAP issue to prevent more losses of Malay votes of UMNO.  This created a split in PAS where the moderate faction of AMANAH broke off and continued its alliance with PKR-DAP while PAS broke off the opposition alliance to go after the Malay vote.
d) 2018 elections saw an unexpected shift of the conservative Malay vote from UMNO to the more radical PAS which was enough for BN to lose to PH due to PAS being the more radical party and the corruption issue.  Many Malay voters that voted against UMNO regretted their decision which led to DAP being in government.
e) This Malay pressure led PPBM to leave the PH alliance and form a grand alliance with BN and PAS to form a government that excludes DAP in 2020
f) In 2022 PN was the more radical of the Malay parties and was able to get a massive shift of Malay votes to completely outperform.

So everything starts with a).  The Chinese were thinking that bloc voting can produce a better outcome for them at the political level but over time merely created a counter-Malay consolidation with a strong chance of a radical Malay government.  

For the bolded sentence, here is my question: in late 2018 to 2019 there had been multiple UMNO MPs defecting to PPBM. There had not been any major state elections in this period. How did Muhyiddin and other PPBM members sense this? By what? Internal polling?

Those defections were mostly about UMNO MPs needing to be in government to gain the spoils of power to run their own local political machine.   

Just to be clear, when I said "Many Malay voters that voted against UMNO regretted their decision which led to DAP being in government" what I meant is a bunch of marginal UMNO-PAS voters in 2018 voted PAS thinking they are teaching UMNO a lesson from a corruption point of view and never imagined that this would lead to a PH government.  After 2018 they regretted it and became the basis of a grassroots move for UMNO-PAS to form a Malay voting bloc.  PPBM draws support from the same bloc of voters and saw the writing on the wall so then joined up in early 2020 and left PH. 

Thank you very much; very plausible and reasonable. I would say that PPBM is "smart" from a strategic/electoral point of view, if the electoral strength of UMNO-PAS has not undergone any major tests. Was the electoral strength of UMNO-PAS ever tested?

[jaichind]

Thank you very much; very plausible and reasonable. I would say that PPBM is "smart" from a strategic/electoral point of view, if the electoral strength of UMNO-PAS has not undergone any major tests. Was the electoral strength of UMNO-PAS ever tested?

Only in some by-elections in 2018-2019 and it was formidable.  The long-term trend in Malaysia has to be PPBM-PAS eventually coming to power as long as it can hold on to the Malay vote.  Demographic changes plus district malapportionment make it certain that the winner of the Malay vote wins a majority of seats in peninsular Malaysia.  The only thing stopping them on the medium run is if the Malay vote can be split down the middle between UMNO and PPBM-PAS.