Malaysia State Elections: Penang, Selangor, N9, Kelantan, T'ganu, Kedah 2023 and by-elections 2023

[Oryxslayer]

The worse UMNO does in the rural Malay seats the worse it might be for PN in the next general election.  This is because on paper there is a 2/3 majority between PH BN and the Borneo parties to add seats to Parliament in the next redistricting.  Right now there is a significant malapportionment in favor of rural Malay voters.  If BN sees that it cannot win those seats then BN will most likely join forces with PH and the  Borneo parties to a) add relatively more seats to Borneo and b) add more urban and suburban seats.  If that comes to pass even if PN gets a net vote share swing relative to 2022 it will actually win a smaller % of seats in the next elections.  What would be better for PN is for UMNO wins a few Malay rural seats so UMNO has the incentive to continue the malapportionment in favor of rural Malay voters.

Oh please tell me there's a chance that Malaysia's electoral districts actually are brought in line with the actual distribution of population, even if there are still some exceptions for Borneo or other isolated groups. Even if the gerrymandering remains.

[Oryxslayer]

As the election wraps up it seems PN is focusing on Selangor vs Negeri Sembilan.  On paper, Negeri Sembilan should be an easier pickup for PN but they are seeing it differently. Either PN sees some real chance in Selangor or their ground report has told them that Negeri Sembilan cannot be won or both.

It seems to be a case of the second:

https://twitter.com/AsiaElects/status/1690078645111398400?t=0V8QMGriZG6MLXrnFVQM...

https://twitter.com/AsiaElects/status/1690080071170605056?t=mlI-cetm2R_BOEfzYK2U...

https://twitter.com/AsiaElects/status/1690023868751081472?t=e6ZQU3I6opvA16f6bztH...

https://twitter.com/AsiaElects/status/1690021711872159744?t=x9iRX6PBrtp1d88Y_gwi...

The overall vote may be less rigid for PH in Negeri, but it seems more persuadeable Malays prefer them there than in Selangor.  

[Oryxslayer]

Something interesting that's going on is that while BN is sweeping rural interior Negri Sembilan, they are mostly doing it off small margins less than 10% and often less than 5%. So many seats are similar and therefore are delivering the similar result of a expected tossup landing in favor of BN.

[Oryxslayer]

I believe Kelantan fully finishes it's count:

43 PN: 37 PAS, 6 Bersatu

1 BN: 1 UMNO

1 PH: 1 AMANAH

[Oryxslayer]

I believe Kelantan fully finishes it's count:

43 PN: 37 PAS, 6 Bersatu

1 BN: 1 UMNO

1 PH: 1 AMANAH

But https://pru.astroawani.com/  has PH-BN winning 6 seats in Kelantan.  Not sure which site is correct.

I was about to say, they seem to have the vote counts for candidates in a number of seats assigned to the wrong (or right if the other sites are wrong) candidate. They seemingly just fixed it and other errors like in N20 - SUNGAI BAKAP and N05 - SERTING.

[Oryxslayer]

Kedah is the next state I believe to fully officially finish:

33 PN: 21 PAS, 11 Bersatu, 1 Gerakan

3 PH: 2 PKR, 1 DAP

[Oryxslayer]

Negeri Sembilan and Terengganu officially confirmed their counts:

Negri Sembilan

17 PH: 11 DAP, 6 PKR, 1 AMANAH

14 BN: 14 UMNO

5 PN: 3 PAS, 1 Bersatu, 1 Gerakan


Terengganu

32 PN: 27 PAS, 5 Bersatu



At least to me, I find it interesting that PN was able to get the clean sweep in Terengganu  but not Kelantan where PAS has has a strong base of support for over a decade now.

[Oryxslayer]

Penang has finished:

27 PH: 19 DAP, 7 PKR, 1 AMANAH

11 PN: 7 PAS, 4 Bersatu

2 BN: 2 UMNO

[Oryxslayer]

Selangor finishes. Ended up as the closest state and the only one not electing a 2/3s majority, even though overall control seemingly wasn't in danger.

32 PH: 15 DAP, 12 PKR, 5 AMANAH

22 PN: 12 Bersatu, 10 PAS

2 BN: 2 UMNO

[Oryxslayer]

Final tally:

PH 33
DAP 15
PKR 14
Amanah 4

PN 23
Bersatu 12
PAS 11

I was going to say to jaichind, having DAP win 16 seats in the state is pretty bullish on them when they're only contesting 15 seats. Not that a single miscalculation matters much.

This prediction appears to have actually been rather close to the (at least initial) declared results, so lets see how it broke down seat by seat. Unless otherwise stated, Joseph Cao called the winner correctly:

N01 Sungai Air Tawar: Rizam Ismail holds on for BN by 800 votes of <15K. Mohamad Zaidi Selamat's issues must have cost him what should be a easy win. +1 BN, - 1 PN compared to the prediction.

N10 Bukit Melawati: PKR’s Juwairiya Zulkifli loses by 900 votes of ~28.5K. +1 PN, -1 PH.

N15 Taman Templer: Anfaal Saari holds it. The 765 votes won by MUDA here are larger than the gap between PAS and AMANAH. +1 PH, -1 PN.

N23 Dusun Tua: The PH votes ended up mostly transferring to UMNO's Johan Abdul Aziz in this pseudo-3-way area, though again the MUDA vote is larger than the gap between the candidates. +1 BN, -1 PN.

N33 Taman Medan: Ahmad Akhir Pawan Chik of PKR loses this seat by 30 votes of 44.6K cast, the tightest initial result of the election. The Bersatu gain certainly looks out of place surrounding by PH holds. +1 PN, -1 PH.

N38 Paya Jaras: Mohd Khairuddin Othman of now PKR loses by 2K votes of about 53K cast. +1 PN, -1 PH.

N54 Tanjong Sepat: Prominent PKR member Borhan Aman Shah holds off PAS by over 2K votes of 25K cast.  +1 PH, -1 PN.



Also of note is N17 Gombak Setia which PN won by 58 votes over UMNO.

[Oryxslayer]

The choice for MB of Negeri Sembilan shows that from a game theory point of view, BN is now "locked" into its alliance with PH.

Back in 2022, the state election result for Perak was

PN  26
PH  24
BN   9

A BN-PH government was formed with a UMNO MB since BN held the balance of power and could have gone either way.  PH which saw PN as its main enemy going forward had to give up the MB spot to secure an alliance with BN.

In 2023 the Negeri Sembilan state election produced

PH  17
BN  14
PN    5

In theory, BN could have roped in PN for a majority and likely captured the MB spot for itself.  But after days of talks, BN yield to PH and supported a PKR MB.  This time PH refused to back down because it knew that BN was locked into a PH-BN alliance at the national level and the threat of a PN-PN government is zero.

The change in negotiation dynamics reveals the shift in the negotiation position of BN from last year.

This also gets into the political strategy discussion going forward of what exactly is BN/UMNO's future place when there's a stronger favored party among Malay voters. Arguably the party's biggest asset is it's institutional heritage, but Malaysia is a country with a lot a of young people. With 14% growth rate last decade, it won't be too long before the dominant legacy is on of the more recent corruption. Their former allies in Borneo found out they could run on their own and do fine, so everything below will concern the peninsula only.

So do they shift sides and go with the new guys? UMNO's voters are also PN/PAS's voters. The only winnable seats would be the ones delegated in candidate negotiations. The party would live on, but in effective retirement as a satellite of the new hegemon. Never mind the fact that they don't exactly align perfectly with PASs political Islamism.

Do they stay with PH? UMNO is certainly not competing for the same voter pools as the founding PH parties, so they would certainly be awarded a considerable amount of seats to contest. But while the PH vote may transfer, as seen this weekend, that usually isn't many votes for them in their target seats. This will mean feasting during good times, like in Negeri Sembilan, or famine during bad ones. Never mind the fact that they don't exactly align traditionally with PH and especially DAP's goals of limiting/ending affirmative action.

Do they try and stay a third pillar? Obviously if PN collapses then UMNO will try to swoop in, but lets assume that doesn't happen for now. BN therefore would have to find their own distinct niche and maintain a electoral base, because they no longer have an aura of invincibility and power. Far more likely they just get squeezed by Duverger's FPTP trends.

The only thing that might significantly push them in one direction might actually be electoral reform. A significant expansion of peninsula seats, say from 165 to 200, (with probably a additional number of new ones going to Borneo tbh) would mean that more states than Selangor would have to redraw their lines. PH-BN could certainly use this to create seats for BN under the current electoral arrangement: say unpack certain DAP seats in ways that create majority-Malay seats with enough Chinese for PN to have difficulty winning, or gerrymander together BN voting areas from 2022 and last weekend.

[Oryxslayer]

Do you have an estimate for how many seats the Dewan Rakyat will have by the end of the redistricting process?

I would like to see what others have been saying, but the number that I had in my head after all the local elections was 280 or 282 depending on how one deals with Laubun and Putrajaya. 70/71 seats would be allocated to the two Borneo states to maintain the 25% ratio, or an increase of 14/15.

The base concept is that if one is going for finally something close to proportional distribution of seats on the Peninsula, and not doing the minimalist route or remove seats through redistribution, then Selangor needs to more than double in present size. Who means there will also need to be additional seats thrown to Johor Bahru and Kuala Lumpur among others to restore the equitability lost by balancing out Selangor. And then the Borneo states would still get seats despite their overrepresentation, to maintain their voice versus the larger peninsula.

A gain of 10 for Sarawak through suggests one of three things. Either that the strength of the GPS in the government means it's getting seats that would go to Sabah, the same situation is leading to an increase in the ratio of seats for Borneo, or, more likely, we are heading for a 300(302) seat final total. 10 on Sarawak brings it to 41, and 10 on Sabah brings that to 35  - a total of 76/300(302) or a maintaining of the present ratio.

That's just the seat count. Ideally there would also be a push to lower the disparity in seat electorates when viable, and get rid of the gerrymandering, but I suspect both will still be present just now benefit the current government.

[Oryxslayer]

I don't see a situation where PH has some influence over this process and they don't give Selangor what it is owed.  There are of course a variety of ways to do that, but seemingly the easiest one is expansion en masse rather than cuts to some states. There's also partisan reasons to want to go beyond just throwing seats to Selangor and that's it, almost all leveling additions would go to the urban states presently under PH or BN. The additional seats could create PN packs to protect those currently in office,  or be the excuse needed to radically redraw in say a place like Melaka where PN seemingly punched above it's weight and BN below it.