What really did the recent general elections tell us?

On the wider outlook, it exhibited an unprecedented “win” for the opposition parties. Though insufficient to impose a change of the federal government, nonetheless five state governments were retained or won over and Kuala Lumpur gave Pakatan Rakyat (PR) 10 out of the 11 parliamentary seats being contested. However, is this the real picture? Let us consider Perak. It delivered 31 out of 59 states seats to PR but in turn gave BN 13 out of the 24 parliamentary seats. What does this convey to us? Let me attempt an analysis of it by starting with the federal territories in terms of actual vote count.

Kuala Lumpur. Of the 502,197 Malaysians that actually cast their votes 308,377 were given to PR candidates. This represents 61.4% of the total. It meant that more people in KL voted PR in 2008 than in 2004 when only 185,559 out of 454,371 votes (representing 40.8%) were given to Keadilan, PAS and DAP. This is a change of 20.6% but taking into consideration the difference in the number of actual voters between 2004 and 2008, it signifies a swing of almost 19.7% towards the opposition candidates.

Alternately, Labuan showed a 4% swing towards BN instead while Putrajaya swung towards PR by 15%. Both federal territories were won by UMNO candidates.

Perlis presented 3 out of 3 parliamentary seats to BN and only 1 out of 15 state seats to PR. Almost a BN clean sweep except for Simpang Ampat which was won by PAS with a mere majority of 78 votes. Perlis was a mixed state with unpredictable swings toward both parties. However, in terms of actual number of votes, Perlis swung a negligible 0.2% towards BN. Conclusion? No difference between 2004 and 2008 and “isolated” Perlis followed the past trend of giving its support to BN.

South of Perlis, Kedah however gave its mandate to the opposition instead. 11 out of 15 parliamentary seats together with 21 out of 35 state seats. PAS forms the state government with the support from the Malays (Bumiputera:79%, Chinese:15%, Indian:3%, Others:3%). This is a big turnaround because BN held 14 parliamentary seats and 31 out of 36 state seats in 2004. Of the 1,372,805 votes being cast, 719,598 were in favor of PR representing 52.4% of popular votes. The results are much lower than KL’s numbers as the swing was only 11.4% towards all opposition candidates. 11 state seats and 2 parliamentary seats were decided with a majority less than 3% of the total votes respectively.

Down towards the southwest, Penang convincingly handed BN a thrashing as never before since the 1969 elections. The incumbent Gerakan State Government was overthrown in splendid fashion even to the extent that nearly all the PGRM office bearers were removed from their seats. PR obtained 11 out of 13 parliamentary seats and 29 out of 40 state seats on this island state that was racially represented by 44% Chinese, 41% Bumiputera, 10% Indian and 5% of “others”. In Penang, there were 1,102,306 votes for both seats. PR won 653,170 or 59.2%, with a swing of 19.2% from BN candidates. All seats swung towards PR except for Bukit Mertajam, which recorded a 2.8% swing towards BN. Tanjung Bunga and Padang Kota both exhibited record swings of over 33% respectively towards PR. Incumbent Penang Chief Minister Koh Tsu Koon, contesting at Batu Kawan lost his seat when the constituency swung a massive 24.8% against Gerakan.

The Silver State also changed state government after the elections by the barest margin of 31 to 28. Two jumpers from PR and it will revert back to BN control. Kingmaker PAS got to be the Menteri Besar because DAP could not obtain the Perak Sultan’s consent even though their winning candidates held 18 out of the 31 state seats (PAS won 6 seats and PKR won 7 seats). A conflicting result with the higher number of parliamentary seats (13) going to BN but reciprocated when the higher number of state seats (31) went to PR. This is an indication that the voters were voting specifically for candidates and not primarily for parties. Two BN component party leaders lost there seats here. S.Vellu (Sungai Siput) of MIC and M.Kayveas (Taiping) of PPP lost with swings of 18.3% and 14.5% respectively. Perak showed an average 12.5% swing towards PR.

Following the sentiments of its largest city (KL) within the state, Selangor also presented the state government to PR by voting in 36 PR candidates in the state elections as compared to 20 for BN candidates (PKR-15, DAP-13, PAS-8). This is a massive result because the opposition had only 2 DAP state representatives from the 2004 elections. Third behind Kuala Lumpur and Penang, Selangor recorded an 18.3% swing towards the opposition. Even in Pandan, MCA president OTK had a swing of 11.5% against him but he still won with a majority of 2,961 votes from 43,309 voters. OTK won by a majority of 14,062 in 2004.

Negeri Sembilan (21-15) and Melaka (23-5) both went to BN. However, Negeri Sembilan showed an overall 10.7% swing to PR with some conflicting results. Juasseh swung to BN by 39.9% and Serting by 43.3% respectively. At the other end, Senawang swung 40.5% to PR. Melaka recorded an 11.1% swing to PR though it was not exhibited by the number of seats being won over.

We now come to Johor, the major BN stronghold in West Malaysia. Johor gave BN 25 out of 26 parliamentary seat and 50 out of 56 state seats. A most convincing victory down south but what about the trend here as compared to the 2004 elections? Would you believe it that Johor swung 11.1% to PR? An identical swing during the next election will not change the results much though. PR would just win 16 state seats and 8 parliamentary seats only. This is how strong the BN stranglehold is in Johor. To obtain the state government on a simple majority (29 seats), PR needs a swing of at least 15.5% minimum.

Pahang. Another strong BN state, one would think that it would consolidate and expand its influence when Najib takes over as PM during the next election. Well, Pahang did a minor swing of 5.8% to PR candidates in terms of actual vote count. The highest swing to PR was at Teruntum where the swing was 25% and the highest swing to BN (27.2%) was at Lipis where the incumbent PAS candidate lost his seat to BN. Pahang also had an independent candidate winning at Tanah Rata.

Kelantan, the spiritual home of PAS did better this time around after the massive hit during the 2004 elections. The pendulum swung back to PAS in 2008 and they won 12 parliamentary and 39 state seats with a mere 6% swing. 14 seats were determined with majorities under 1,000 votes each, much better than 2004 when 23 seats were decided with majorities under 1,000 votes (out of the total 59 parliamentary and state seats). An extremely “touch and go” state.

Terengganu gave BN 7 out of 8 parliamentary seats and 24 out of 32 state seats. However, the voters swung 0.2% to PR but that negligible figure is definitely insufficient to change the state government.

Both the East Malaysian states became the BN power bases as Sarawak delivered 30 out of 31 parliamentary seats and Sabah gave BN 24 out of 25 parliamentary seats. That is a total 54 seats alone from these two states. The accumulated PR parliamentary seats from the PR State Governments (Kedah, Penang, Perak, Selangor and Kelantan) only equaled 62 seats. Sabah also had the BN component parties winning 59 out of the available 60 state seats. The results? Sarawak swung 3% to BN and Sabah swung 4% to BN respectively.

Confusing? Well numbers do not lie.

The 2008 results (as compared with the 2004 results):

Kuala Lumpur – 19.7% swing to PR

Putrajaya – 15.0% swing to PR

Kedah – 11.4% swing to PR

Penang – 19.2% swing to PR

Perak – 12.5% swing to PR

Selangor – 18.3% swing to PR

N. Sembilan – 10.7%% swing to PR

Melaka – 11.1% swing to PR

Johor – 11.1% swing to PR

Pahang –5.8% swing to PR

Kelantan – 6.0% swing to PR

Terengganu – 0.2% swing to PR

Labuan – 4% swing to BN

Perlis – 0.2% swing to BN

Sarawak – 3.0% swing to BN

Sabah – 4.0% swing to BN

We can see that only 4 states swung over to BN while the rest swung to PR. What does this tells us? It states very clearly that the East Malaysian votes are extremely important if ever PR wants to assume the federal government. Even when almost all the West Malaysian states and federal territories were swinging over to PR (except for Perlis), the voters over in East Malaysia is still very much under the BN influence. PR politicians have an uphill battle if they want to convince the voters to vote for the opposition, and they had better start the process now.

- Hakim Joe

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