This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 7, 2022 - November 13, 2022

IN the 14th General Election (GE14), the defeat of Barisan Nasional (BN) for the first time in Malaysia’s history hinged on the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) losing 26 seats in the peninsula, where its coalition partners also did not do well.

In total, BN lost 53 seats around the country to Pakatan Harapan (PH), Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan) and Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), as well as several independent candidates, and Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku in Sabah.

Of these seats, 29 were held by BN in the 13th General Election on a margin of more than 10%; for example, Semporna won with a margin of 66.17%.

The candidate for Semporna was Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal in both GE13 and GE14, except that he was on different sides on each occasion. Shafie founded Warisan after he was removed from the cabinet by the then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in 2015.

However, GE14 was a stiff fight between the three major coalitions — BN; PH and Warisan; and PAS-led Gagasan Sejahtera. This was seen when BN lost 28 of the 53 seats by a margin of 10% or less.

Can BN turn the tide and wrestle back at least these 28 seats that were lost in GE14 on a margin of 10% or less?

Professor Wong Chin Huat, deputy head (strategy), United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s Asia headquarters (SDSN-Asia) at Sunway University, says BN’s chances of wresting seats from Perikatan Nasional (PN) are much higher than from PH, but winning against the latter is certainly possible.

“At least three factors come to play: (a) candidates; (b) turnout; (c) occurrence of floods or other major crises and how the government handles them.

“Umno, DAP (Democratic Action Party) and PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat) have dropped some of their popular incumbents. This may cause some voters to turn to the other side [if they have better candidates] or if the voters simply sit out of the election,” Wong tells The Edge when contacted last Friday.

Prior to the dissolution of parliament, BN had 43 seats, almost half of the 79 that the coalition won in GE14, owing to defections to Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) and the splitting-up of Sarawak-based parties to form Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS).

GPS is more likely than not to form a coalition with BN post-GE15. Assuming that BN could retain the 43 seats that it had and GPS its 19, and both BN and GPS regain the 28 seats lost in GE14 on a margin of 10% or less, it would give the coalition a total of 90 seats.

That would put the coalition in a good position to vie for a return to power in Putrajaya.

Dr Sivamurugan Pandian, professor in political sociology at the School of Social Sciences of Universiti Sains Malaysia, says: “It is a combination between candidates, machinery and issues. If BN can mobilise the machinery and focus to minimise internal bickering and explore the issues related to their opponents and agenda for the people, they can make a comeback in some areas they lost in GE14.”

However, the tremendous increase in the number of voters in GE15 could pose a challenge for all coalitions. According to the Election Commission, an additional 6.23 million new voters are eligible to vote in GE15, bringing the total number of voters to 21.17 million.

In GE14, the total number of voters was 14.9 million.

The much higher number of eligible voters in GE15 is due to the implementation of the automatic voters’ registration (AVR), as well as the enfranchisement of youth between the ages of 18 and 20 into the voter roll.

The impact of the increase in the number of total voters varies for each constituency.

Among the 53 seats that BN lost in GE14, 15 have at least a 50% increase in the number of voters, with the highest being in Tebrau, in the southern region of Johor. There are now a total of 220,009 eligible voters in Tebrau, compared with 123,033 in GE14. This represents an increase of 78.8%.

Meanwhile, as many as 22 seats out of the 53 have at least a third of their eligible voters now made up of new voters — those aged between 18 and 20, as well as those who had never registered to be a voter prior to the implementation of the AVR.

Again, Tebrau has more of these new voters as a percentage of total voters than the rest of the 53 seats that BN lost in GE14, at 44.08%. These two factors would have changed the political calculations in Tebrau.

In GE14, PH’s candidate for Tebrau Steven Choong Shiau Yoon won the seat in a three-cornered fight against BN’s Hou Kok Chung and PAS’ Abdullah Husin, with a majority of 37,225 votes. It was the first time BN had lost in the seat since it was created in 1986.

Tebrau will not only be eyed by BN, but also PH, as Choong was sacked from PKR in 2021 before forming Parti Bangsa Malaysia (PBM) with Larry Sng, the MP for Julau. It has yet to be known whether Choong will be defending the Tebrau seat under PBM.

A number of “hot seats” also saw a high increase in the number of voters.

Langkawi, the constituency where former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad made his political comeback in 2018, has added 23,638 new voters to the roll, to 66,335. It is an increase of 55.36% from GE14.

The seat, which Dr Mahathir has confirmed he will defend under his latest political outfit Parti Pejuang Tanah Air’s banner, has at least 35.63% of its total voters being first-time voters. Dr Mahathir will be facing off against PN’s Datuk Suhaimi Abdullah and BN’s Armishah Siraj. PH has yet to announce its candidate for Langkawi.

Meanwhile, Tambun, where PH president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is contesting, has 51,849 new voters, an increase of 48.11% over the 107,763 voters in GE14.

As many as 32.5% of the voters in Tambun are first-time voters. They will have to choose between the veteran politician and former deputy prime minister, former Perak menteri besar Datuk Seri Faizal Azumu, who is defending the seat for PN, and Abdul Rahim Tahir of Gerakan Tanah Air.

Kuala Selangor, where caretaker finance minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz will be making his political debut, has 32,288 more voters eligible to vote in GE15, compared with in GE14, an increase of 46.53% to 69,397.

Tengku Zafrul will be trying to wrest the seat away from PH’s Datuk Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, who was also the former health minister during the coalition’s 22-month administration in Putrajaya. Dr Dzul won the seat in GE14 with a comfortable majority of 8,498 votes.

Mohd Shaid Rosli is another candidate for the seat, representing Pejuang, while PN has named Mohd Noor Mohd Sahar as the candidate there. As many as 31.75% of the total number of voters in Kuala Selangor will be first-time voters.

Another hot seat that has seen a substantial increase in the number of voters among the 53 seats that BN lost in GE14 is Pagoh. Malaysia’s seventh prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin will be defending the seat which he first contested in 1978.

For GE15, as many as 69,778 voters are eligible to vote in Pagoh, an increase of 18,266 voters, or 35.46%, from the numbers in GE14. Around 26.18% of the eligible voters in Pagoh will be first-time voters.

Datuk Razali Ibrahim, the member of parliament for Muar for three terms between 2004 and 2018, is BN’s candidate in Pagoh this time round. Meanwhile, PH will be fielding Iskandar Shah Abdul Rahman, in the hope that he can regain Pagoh for the coalition.

One of the seats that BN had lost in GE14 on a small margin is Kuala Pilah. The seat, which is in the centre of Negeri Sembilan, was won by Bersatu’s Datuk Eddin Syazlee Shith with a majority of just 200 votes, or 0.49%, beating Datuk Seri Hasan Malek from BN and Rafiei Mustapha from PAS.

In GE13, Hassan won the seat with a rather comfortable majority of 9,661 votes, or by a margin of 23.98%. This means that 9,861 votes, or 24% of the voters who turned out to vote in GE14, swung from Hassan to Eddin.

In GE14 in 2018, Kuala Pilah had 49,801 registered voters. In that election, 77% of the registered voters there were Malay, followed by 16% Chinese and 5% Indian.

As many as 41,006 turned out to vote during the historic election, for a turnout percentage of 82.34%. Eddin received 18,045 votes to win the seat, or 36.23% of all votes received in Kuala Pilah.

Eddin will be defending the seat in GE15 under the PN banner. He will be challenged by BN’s Datuk Adnan Abu Hassan, the incumbent assemblyman of Senaling, a state constituency of Kuala Pilah, as well as PH candidate Noor Azman.

Gerakan Tanah Air (GTA), which is led by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Parti Pejuang Tanah Air, will also be fielding a candidate in Kuala Pilah for GE15. The candidate, Kamarulzaman Kamdias, is a member of Parti Bumiputra Perkasa Malaysia (Putra).

The high turnout and thin margin show that Kuala Pilah saw a very tough fight in GE14.

This time, owing to the implementation of automatic voter registration (AVR) and the enfranchisement of youths between the ages of 18 and 20, Kuala Pilah saw the total number of voters surge to 63,165, or an increase of 26.83% from GE14.

That is an additional 13,364 new voters eli­gible to cast their votes. As 9,861 votes were the swing votes in GE14, this shows that there are more new voters in GE15 than the swing votes in GE14 that sent Bersatu’s Eddin to parliament.

Assuming Eddin maintains the 18,045 votes that he garnered in GE14 this time, that would represent only 28.6% of the total voters in Kuala Pilah. Owing to the four-cornered fight against BN, PH and GTA there, however, Eddin could still return as the representative of the seat.

In the end, it is the voters in Kuala Pilah who will decide who will represent them in the 15th parliament. Clearly, Kuala Pilah will be one of the seats that BN would want to win back, considering the majority was extremely slim in GE14.

PH would also want to “regain” Kuala Pilah, as it won the seat in GE14 before losing it in the infamous Sheraton Move. Therefore, these three major coalitions will be eyeing Kuala Pilah as one of their must-win seats.

One of the biggest upsets in GE14 happened in Bentong, the constituency located at the Pahang-Selangor border and famous for its durian orchards and as the gateway to Genting Highlands.

In GE14, then Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai lost the seat, which he had held since 1999, to PH’s Wong Tack from DAP.

Liow lost the seat — which has 47% Malay voters, 42% Chinese voters and 9% Indian voters — by a margin of 3.02%, with Wong receiving 25,716 votes, or 38.2% of all votes cast, compared with 23,684 votes that Liow garnered.

Another candidate, Balasubramaniam Nachiappan, who represented PAS, received 5,706 votes.

As many as 2,411 votes swung to PH as Liow’s razor-thin majority of 379 votes in the GE13 was overturned to give Wong a majority of 2,032 votes.

This time around, Wong has been dropped by the DAP leadership and the PH coalition in Bentong. Instead, DAP has named Young Syefura Othman — the incumbent state assemblywoman for Ketari, one of the state seats in Bentong — as its candidate.

As such, Wong could stand in Bentong as an independent candidate. According to DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke Siew Fook, Wong was offered to contest in Cameron Highlands, but refused. BN is confirmed to be fielding Liow again in Bentong. Meanwhile, PN is fielding Bersatu’s Datuk Roslan Hassan as its candidate in Bentong. If Wong nominates himself as an independent candidate, the seat would see at least a four-cornered battle.

Looking at the four state seats in Bentong, the Chinese majority seat of Bilut and the mixed seats of Ketari and Sabai gave their solid support to PH in 2018, as the coalition’s majority increased there compared to GE13 in 2013.

Therefore, if the voters’ mood remains the same as in GE14, the battle for Bentong would be in the Pelangai seat, where Malay voters made up 71% of the constituency in 2018. BN’s Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob retained the seat in GE14 with a comfortable majority of 2,312, in a three-cornered fight against PH and PAS.

Is this why PH is fielding Syefura, instead of Wong, in Bentong? “Liow is a seasoned politician-cum-former MCA president. BN has the bulk of the votes in Bentong and would be able to wrest the seat if Wong Tack decides to stand as an independent candidate,” says USM’s Sivamurugan.

“The split is not only with PH and an independent candidate but also with PN. If voters do not want to give their vote to the well-known or favoured candidates, they might look for an alternative coalition. That happened in the Melaka state election,” he says.

Sunway University’s Wong plays down the impact of DAP’s Wong standing as an independent in Bentong affecting Syefura’s chances of retaining the seat for PH. He says Wong’s record of service has not been impressive there. “Whether Syefura can retain the seat [for PH] may depend on how far Liow can win back the Chinese support [which might be lower if many young people turn up to vote] and how far the new candidate from PN can draw away Malay votes from both MCA and DAP.

“It would be a tough but still winnable battle for Syefura.”

Bentong will see a 27% increase in total voters this time, compared with GE14, to 86,922. The 19,653 new voters eligible to participate in GE15 for the first time represent 22.5% of the total voters there.

Placing Syefura, 33, instead of Wong as the candidate in Bentong is a risky move for PH, although understandable because, to win there, the coalition will need more support from Malay voters as well as first-time voters, especially the youth.

Will the Malay voters, long known for their adverse reception of DAP, accept Syefura as their representative in the Dewan Rakyat, though?

If Syefura manages to retain the 25,716 votes that Wong received in 2018, she would have garnered only 29.6% of total voters in Bentong. She will have to work hard to gain more votes there, and that is assuming Wong does not stand as a rival candidate.

It is anyone’s guess whether Bentong will return to BN.

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