Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2019. xxvii, 509 pp. (Tables, graphs, figure, maps.) US$29.90, paper. ISBN 978-981-4843-89-8.
There have been four major books and numerous essays written on Malaysia’s landmark election on May 9, 2018 (GE14). Civil society analysts were the first off the blocks (Francis Loh and Anil Netto, eds., Regime Change in Malaysia: GE14 and the End of UMNO-BN’s 60-Year Rule, Petaling Jaya: SIRD) followed by two academic publications (Edmund Terence Gomez and Mohamed Nawab Osman, eds., Malaysia’s 14th General Election and UMNO’s Fall: Intra-Elite Feuding and the Pursuit of Power, London: Routledge) and Meredith L. Weiss and Faisal S. Hazis, eds., Towards a New Malaysia? The 2018 Election and Its Aftermath, Singapore: NUS Press).
This book, a tome of more than 500 pages, was two years in the pipeline, and is the most comprehensive study of GE14 to date. In marshalling the resources and networking of Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Institute, the editors have provided us with a wide-ranging and comprehensive study of GE14 by 24 contributors. A pleasing feature of the book is its excellent maps crafted by two cartographers.
The work continues the important electoral studies of the Malaysian studies programme of the institute. Articles are arranged in four parts: campaign dynamics, interest groups, states, and personal perspectives. The book is not overtly theoretical in orientation, nor could it be, given its broad scope and varied contributors. Authors were tasked to seek answers as to why the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (BN), was defeated in 2018: were there missed signals, or a penultimate change in voting behaviour?
Part 1 begins with the major issues of electoral manipulations, gerrymandering, and malapportionment, and looks at how these factors may have affected GE14. Kai Ostwald provides the backdrop of the structural biases that explain the six decades of domination by the Barisan Nasional (BN). Even with BN’s unprecedented defeat, one should be aware that elements of electoral manipulations remain intact as features of Malaysian politics. Danesh Prakash Chacko shows in his analysis of the 2016–2018 redistricting of constituencies how the exercise was one deliberately aimed at buttressing the BN’s strength under Malaysia’s first-past-the-post electoral system. The exercise involved a massive shifting around of voters to create ethnic supermajority seats while no attempt was made to resize large or small constituencies for better proportionality. Yet, in the final analysis, redrawn boundaries and altered ethnic compositions were trumped by “shifting political preferences” in the outcome of GE14. Analysts in this section concur that economic discontent over the rising cost of living and the imposition of the goods and services tax do not fully explain the electoral outcome. Malfeasance and corruption, epitomized by the 1MDB scandal, were crucial factors but even these egregious issues offer no grand conclusions.
Part 2 of the book provides important direct explanations of the outcome. The significant revelation about ethnic voting was that, while possibly some 70 percent of Malay voters did not support the Pakatan Harapan (PH) parties, a massive 85 percent of Chinese voters did, along with 70 to 75 percent of Indians. The interesting chapter by Geoffrey K. Pakiam unpacks the role and impact of the “FELDA Vote Bank” in a definitive study of the 53 seats that constitute what used to be an electoral fortress of the BN in rural and semi-rural constituencies of the FELDA land scheme. Pakiam shows that BN’s vote share in FELDA seats has been plummeting since 2004 and by 2018 was reduced to a tally of only 26 seats. This certainly contributed to the BN’s defeat.
Part 3 presents comprehensive statistics and graphics of the outcomes in four important states: Selangor, Johor, Kelantan, Sarawak, and Sabah. Lee Hwok Aun points out that in Selangor Malay supermajority seats increased from eight to eleven but such ethnic manipulations failed to check PH incumbency and popularity even in three-cornered parliamentary and state contests. PH’s spectacular performance saw it winning 20 out of 22 of the former and 51 out of 56 of the latter contests. The United National Malays Organisation (UMNO)’s veritable stronghold state Johor turned out to be a decisive win for PH. Francis E. Hutchinson notes that BN’s vulnerability was already evident when its vote share fell 10 points to 55 percent from GE12 to GE13. BN saw its share decline further to 38.6 percent in 2018 relegating UMNO parliamentary wins to rural Malay-majority seats. In this continuing anti-BN trend, PH won 54.4 percent of the vote, taking 36 out of 56 state seats. Analysis of the complex politics in Sabah by Tony Paridi Bagang and Arnold Puyok shows that a BN “fixed deposit” state could ultimately be vulnerable to prevailing indigenous political sentiments of peninsular domination. Sabahans long felt the Malaysia Agreement (MA63) and the state’s distinct cultural heritage was not honoured by the federal government. Eventually, it was the new indigenous party, Warisan, a splinter from the UMNO, in an alliance with the PH, which carried the day.
Part 4 of the book provides perspectives from the ground. Parti Keadilian Rakyat (PKR) rookie Fahmi Fadzil explains how he overcame odds in the gerrymandered Lembah Pantai seat of Kuala Lumpur and Democratic Action Party (DAP) novice Young Syefura Othman tells her story of winning the Ketari mixed state seat of Pahang. The reader also gets glimpses of campaigns and performances by Jannie Lasimbang (DAP, Sabah), Khalid Nordin (UMNO, Johor), and of the Islamic party’s Iskandar Abdul Samad (PAS, Selangor). This section also highlights the role played by INVOKE in using big data analytics to micro-target some 106 marginal seats for PH parties. Unfortunately, there were specific details of where INVOKE was actually able to tip the balance.
In their conclusion, the editors raised the question of whether the reconfigured political order of GE14 would remain intact. It did not—the PH coalition collapsed in March 2020 because of internal dissension. As further noted by the authors, the UMNO-PAS alliance known as “Muafakat Nasional” (National Consensus) was also winning by-elections soon after GE14. The new coalition in power known as Perikatan Nasional (National Alliance) is backed by the UMNO and the PAS. This book is a must-read for Malaysian political analysts to understand the past and current gyrations of electoral politics in Malaysia.
Johan Saravanamuttu
Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang