INTRODUCTION

The results of Malaysia's 14th General Elections (GE-14) held in May 2018 were unexpected and transformative. Against conventional wisdom, the newly reconfigured opposition grouping Pakatan Harapan (PH) decisively defeated the incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN), ending six decades of uninterrupted dominant one-party rule.

Despite a long-running financial scandal dogging the ruling coalition, an opposition victory had been all but discarded due to: the advantages of incumbency; fissures amongst opposition ranks well into 2018; and a favourable economic outlook. Indeed, prominent pollsters and commentators predicted a solid BN victory or, at least, a narrow parliamentary majority.

Yet, on the day, deeply rooted political dynamics and influential actors came together, sweeping aside many prevailing assumptions and reconfiguring the country's political reality in the process. Voter turnout was significant, economic handouts were disregarded, and the effects of the redelineation of parliamentary and state constituencies were limited.

Beyond consolidating their support in ethnically mixed, urban areas, PH took most semi-urban areas and made important incursions into rural constituencies in the Peninsula's south and west. In addition to losing their parliamentary majority, BN's seemingly impregnable hold on many state governments was breached, and its East Malaysian fortresses capitulated. In addition, against all predictions, Parti Islam se Malaysia (PAS) thrived, retaining Kelantan, toppling Terengganu and making important inroads in Pahang and Kedah.

Due to its long tenure in power, up until 2018, BN was the only government most Malaysians have ever known. It is formally a parliamentary democracy, but has been variously labelled a semi-democracy (Case 2002), pseudo-democracy (Case 2004) or an electoral authoritarian regime (Ufen 2009). Mostly recently, Lopez and Welsh (2018) labelled it a “resilient regime”, implying one that is strong—though not invincible.

The Alliance-BN's hold on power for more than six decades was aided by massive structural advantages, including deployment of public resources for partisan campaigning, control over mainstream media, and a compliant electoral commission able and willing to tilt the playing field in their favour (Weiss 2014; Ostwald 2017).

These incumbent advantages were demonstrated in the 2013 elections, when expectations of change were dashed and BN held on—despite winning fewer votes than the opposition. These systemic factors, and perhaps recent electoral history, led many commentators to be overly conservative in their analyses of Malaysia's 14th general election (GE-14).

The Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) contested in Malaysia's GE-14 as a “gentleman”. Despite our main rival resorting to “ungentlemanly” strategies, PAS adhered to the rules of the game. We did not follow the same path, although we knew that the campaign trail would be tough and one-sided. PAS campaigned the traditional way, presenting to the people what we have to offer and highlighting our success in Kelantan.

PAS had the most complete manifesto compared with the other parties, where we not only presented our short-term but also long-term policies. It was entitled “A Master Vision of Well-Being for the Country” (Wawasan Induk Negara Sejahtera) and it charts out the direction of the nation up to 2051.

I was part of the committee that evaluated the manifestos of the various PAS State Liaison Committees. We were very meticulous in ensuring that what they wanted to offer was practical. We wanted to know where the money to fund their programmes would come from. We wanted to know the exact calculations, the exact dollars and cents—not some figures plucked out of the sky.

This was obviously different from the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition. They promised the sky and surely the voters fell for it. However, in the end, the coalition had to admit that some of their promises were made without detailed statistics and are impossible to fulfil.

PAS also had to endure the malicious lies spread about the party. PH not only attacked Barisan Nasional (BN) with the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), but PAS was also at the receiving end. There were allegations that PAS received funds from 1MDB. In addition, PAS was also accused of receiving funding from UMNO. This was an illogical accusation as we were contesting against UMNO-BN, so why would they give us money to challenge them?

These allegations and accusations were made without any proof whatsoever. Social media was effectively used to influence voters. Sometimes I wonder how can you call yourself a Muslim when you can spread untrue stories? Maybe it was the case of the Machiavellian principle of the end justifying the means, but Nicolo Machiavelli was not a Muslim. Islam would never condone any slanderous act.

INTRODUCTION

In the nervous trepidation that was the build-up to Malaysia's 14th General Elections (GE-14), most believed that rural voters held the key to either retaining or taking over the reins of power. There was little understanding of the rural psyche amongst urban reformists (Star Online, 4 February 2018) and while some in the then opposition were well aware that it was in the rural heartlands that their narrative fell flat, the results proved that the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition was far outdone by the Barisan Nasional (BN) and Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) grassroots networks.

While most analysts expected BN to continue on its downward slide, a pattern that had occurred since the 2008 election cycle, hardly anyone (including the campaigning parties themselves) expected such a spectacular fall from grace. BN and its dominant United Malays National Organization (UMNO) component even lost the jewel in the crown and UMNO's birthplace, Johor, as well as other BN strongholds such as Melaka and Negeri Sembilan to PH. It was a result that many had hoped for but few had dared to imagine.

The widely unexpected outcome was the downfall of a coalition that had been in power for sixty-one years and the first time that Putrajaya changed hands; resulting in claims of a “Malay tsunami” (Star Online, 10 May 2018). However, a closer examination of the results revealed that PH won on almost total support by the non- Malay voter, topped up by some Malays who were protesting against the UMNO leadership (Ahmad Fauzi 2018, p. 691). Contrary to most expectations, PAS did not get obliterated in GE-14, but instead retained Kelantan and regained Terengganu, as well as a substantial number of seats in Kedah and Perak. BN continued to retain a good share of the seats in Pahang and Perlis.

Thus, while the overall result was both unanticipated and unprecedented, most of the rural Malay vote remained where it has always been: in the hands of those who maintained the ethnocentric discourse of Malay rights, Islamic superiority and the longevity of the royal houses.

This chapter will provide an insight into the world of rural Malay voters in east and west Johor and Kedah, their sentiments before the general election and how their decision on who to vote for changed (in some parts of Johor) in the days and hours before GE-14.

NOVICE IN A HOT SEAT

As a political newbie, it was no easy feat to stand for elections in the 14th General Elections (GE-14) as a Democratic Action Party (DAP) candidate in Ketari, Pahang, a state assembly seat expected to be hotly contested. I was initially surprised when the party leadership asked me to contest there. I knew that as a DAP candidate and an outsider to the neighbourhood, I would have to surmount multiple hurdles. The profile of Ketari's electorate—48 per cent Malay, 44 per cent Chinese, 5 per cent Indian and 3 per cent Orang Asli—made it potentially very competitive in the event of a multicornered fight. Nonetheless, I saw this opportunity as a sign of my party's confidence in my abilities to deliver a state seat within the Bentong parliamentary constituency, and accepted the challenge wholeheartedly.

In GE-13, DAP together with Pakatan Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) successfully captured the Ketari constituency. This victory was partly due to the vote from the Parti Agama Se-Islam Malaysia (PAS) camp which was then part of Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition, who voted against the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government. This time around, however, the opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) was without PAS as a partner and would be campaigning under the PKR banner. Despite initially mixed reactions from coalition members, including DAP itself, PH leaders managed to convince the coalition that this was the best way to display interparty unity and strength. Further, DAP candidates would have a fair chance at victory in an ethnically mixed but substantially Malay constituency like Ketari if they stood under the PKR banner.

In any case, PH's participation in Ketari in GE-14 would be a crucial trial by fire. The three-cornered fight with PAS and BN would mean that PH had to face a potential loss of support from the PAS members and Malay supporters that they enjoyed in GE-13.

ENTRENCHED LOYALTY, ACTIVATED PROTEST

I first met the Ketari PH supporters towards the end of 2017, right after the leadership informed me that they wanted to field me as candidate there. Some thought that my chances for victory were considerably low, given that I was not local to the area. Others were surprised that I was the first Malay candidate fielded by the DAP in that constituency.

INTRODUCTION

Despite many predictions that Malaysian Indian voters would support Barisan Nasional (BN) in the 14th General Elections (GE-14), the election's outcome revealed that a large majority voted for the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition. This was unexpected for two reasons. First, in contrast to Malaysian Chinese voters, who were widely held to have swung towards the opposition in the 2008 General Elections, the Malaysian Indian vote was perceived to have remained solidly behind Barisan Nasional—albeit registering some protest in recent election cycles. Second, despite their long-standing socio-economic marginalization, the Najib Razak administration had spent significant resources on issues perceived as important for Malaysian Indians prior to GE-14.

Beyond BN being swept from power, the coalition's severe defeat in 2018 has called its race-based party structure into question. While BN's prime party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) lost a significant number of seats, its other Peninsula-based coalition partners were almost wiped from the electoral map. Like the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and Gerakan, the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) performed poorly, losing the majority of its electoral contests with even senior party figures being resoundingly defeated.

The chapter will look at the changing political preferences of Malaysian Indian voters in recent years. In doing so, it will argue that GE-14 indicates a “permanent shift” in this community's voting patterns, from being a loyal supporter of MIC—and through it BN and its race-based formula of governance—to embracing multicultural politics under PH. The beginning of this “shift” in voting preference can be traced back to the 2008 General Elections. However, it deepened in the 2013 General Elections and was consolidated in GE-14.

In order to advance this argument, this chapter will draw on primary statistical and electoral data, secondary sources, as well as field work visits to three constituencies in April–May 2018. Following this introduction, the second section will set out the historical context of the Malaysian Indian community prior to GE-14. The third section will analyse GE-14 as it pertains to Malaysian Indians, through looking at: the number, background and deployment of Malaysian Indian candidates; and the strategies adopted by the two main coalitions to appeal to this voter group. The final section will focus on the outcome of GE-14 and its implications for the future

INTRODUCTION

The 14th General Elections (GE-14) that took place on 9 May 2018 was a significant moment in Malaysia's political history. Against expectations, Pakatan Harapan (PH) defeated Barisan Nasional (BN), thus ending the ruling coalition's dominance after sixty years in power at the federal level.

Sabah, along with Sarawak, had long been seen as Barisan Nasional's “fixed deposit”—states which could be relied upon to deliver large numbers of parliamentary seats. Yet, 2018 was the beginning of a new era in Sabah as, against expectations, a significant proportion of voters supported PH and the newly minted Sabah-based party Warisan. Consequently, BN netted a surprisingly low number of parliamentary seats and the state legislative assembly was evenly split. Following a period of uncertainty, PH, Warisan, and a third party, United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Organization (UPKO), secured a majority in the state legislative assembly and formed the state government—constituting a major departure from previous elections.

This chapter traces the GE-14 electoral process in Sabah, analyses key trends and junctures, and then examines the aftermath of this historic election. While the rise of Warisan was largely unexpected, as was the swing against Barisan, various conditions had been building up for such a dramatic shift. The current configuration, including the collapse of BN in Sabah and the emergence of a new state administration, poses important questions for the Kadazandusun, the state's largest ethnic group, and their political preferences.

To this end, this chapter is comprised of six sections. Following this introduction, the second section provides basic contextual information on Sabah, comparing and contrasting it with the situation in Peninsular Malaysia. The subsequent section looks at the lead up to GE-14 in the state, particularly how the various coalitions formed and what issues they sought to highlight. The fourth section looks at the election results at the parliamentary and state levels. The fifth analyses the aftermath of GE-14 in Sabah, and the sixth and final section concludes and looks forward.

CONTEXT

Sabah is one of the thirteen states in Malaysia and one of the country's most ethnically diverse. There are more than forty ethnic and subethnic groups in the state. The Kadazandusun is the largest ethnic group, constituting about 25 per cent of Sabah's population, followed by: Bajau (20 per cent); Chinese (13 per cent); Malay (8 per cent); and Murut (4.5 per cent).

INTRODUCTION

Voting based on personal economic progress or standing is common anywhere. However, the considerations that enter into such calculations vary, complicating assessment. In Malaysia, complex phenomena glossed as “money politics” are especially germane to the extent and nature of “economic voting”: the links between business and political parties, the partisan use of “slush funds” from oil and other resource wealth, and the preponderance of patronage appeals in elections.

However, their electoral implications are obdurately opaque, especially at the hazy intersection of illicit and beneficent behaviour. That murkiness makes it difficult to predict, too, how the recent change of government will affect patterns of money politics, though some predictions are plausible. On the most obvious level, up until now, we have been able to track the proximity of elections through increasingly bloated government budgets full of enticements for key constituencies. This has taken the form of public resources’ being used to make the incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN, or National Front) popular and beloved, but in a manner that is sufficiently public and wealth-sharing to be legal and basically acceptable.

There is no reason to expect the new Pakatan Harapan (PH) government to shirk such politically useful budgeting—and its state-level budgets have followed similar templates. However, some of the more problematic dimensions of money politics are likely to diminish, now that the BN lacks access to resources and PH so significantly differentiates itself in terms of being “clean” and accountable. In other words, given similarities in welfare programmes and commitment to racially defined preferential policies, the question in 2018 was less of who had better policies than who could be trusted, given concerns with financial probity and seemingly out-oftouch ruling-party elites.

But troubling dimensions of money politics, developed over decades of BN governance, have broad reach. They extend not only to the confluence of massive corruption scandals such as that revolving around the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) sovereign wealth fund, but also to the ways in which government programmes are turned to partisan advantage, as (or appearing to be) conditional patronage. Indeed, the explanation used to justify the transfer of large payments to former Prime Minister Najib Razak's accounts in connection with the 1MDB scandal is that those funds were for elections.

INTRODUCTION

The 14th General Elections (GE-14) in May 2018 witnessed the defeat of Malaysia's ruling political coalition Barisan Nasional (BN) by Pakatan Harapan (PH). Of the 222 parliamentary seats contested, the PH coalition secured 113 seats (52 per cent) compared to BN's 79 seats (36 per cent). BN's defeat was unexpected with most political pundits predicting the continuation of its rule, albeit with a slimmer majority. The BN coalition had governed Malaysia continuously since the country's first general election in 1955 and its independence in 1957. Thus, the election marked the end of one of the longest periods of continuous rule in modern times.

This leads to the question of what accounts for the defeat of BN in GE-14. In other words, what are the factors that can explain the outcome of the election? Did economic factors such as economic growth and inflation play a role in GE-14? Was the change in political regime brought about by the re-entry and active campaigning of the country's former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad? Did the party splits in Malay-based parties such as Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) and the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) contribute to PH's victory in GE-14? Was there a decline in the support of the bumiputra community for UMNO which contributed to BN's defeat?

The aim of this essay is to empirically examine economic and non-economic factors that determined the outcomes of the 2018 election. GE-14 was different from previous elections in Malaysia in that it involved regime transition, namely, the end of dominant party rule. As such, although the economic voting model is used to investigate the determinants of electoral outcomes in Malaysia, attention is also paid to factors identified in the empirical literature on the end of dominant party rule.

The outline of the rest of this chapter is as follows. The next section frames the research problem by reviewing the literature on economic voting as well as the end of dominant party rule. This is followed by qualitative discussions on the economic conditions and political changes leading up to GE-14 in Malaysia. An econometric analysis of the determinants of electoral outcomes is carried out in the subsequent section. The final section concludes.

INTRODUCTION

In the titanic theatre of Malaysia's GE-14, Selangor did not quite shake the foundations on 9 May 2018, but still served up big surprises. Against widely held expectations of modest results, Pakatan Harapan retained the Selangor state government by a landslide, and wrested a pair of federal parliament seats from its already dominant position (Lee 2018). Moreover, the fledgling coalition secured yawning margins, obliterating the notion that multicornered contests might yield narrow wins. Emphatically, Pakatan Harapan (PH) reaped the advantages of its incumbency and popular administration, while Barisan Nasional's (BN) tactics rang hollow and could not redeem a damaged brand, and Parti Islam SeMalaysia's (PAS) core remained loyal, but its ethnically homogeneous base and parochial platform consigned it to a near wipe-out.

Selangor was a prized trophy heading into GE-14. It is the most populous, prosperous and urbanized state in Malaysia, accounting for 19 per cent of the national population, and together with Kuala Lumpur where millions of Selangorians work, generates 38 per cent of the national GDP. The state's median household income of RM7,225 per month is also 38 per cent above the national median (Department of Statistics 2017). Governing Selangor grants levers to showcase prestige and progress, distribute patronage, determine land use, and oversee state government-linked companies and state-owned entities. Two million registered voters, of which 50.2 per cent identify as Malay, 34.0 per cent as Chinese, 14.5 per cent as Indian, and 1.3 per cent as Others, would decide the winners and losers in the contest for fifty-six state assembly seats and twenty-two federal parliament seats.

It was crucial for PH to retain the state, to shore up its popularity and relevance— and morale, in the event of losses elsewhere. BN declared retaking Selangor as a top priority, and directed the federal government machinery, particularly the Election Commission (EC), towards engineering more favourable conditions. The situation in Selangor was also complicated by PH's continual relationship with PAS, despite the cessation of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition at the federal level. Chief Minister Azmin Ali's calculated truce with PAS until February 2018 seemingly stemmed from fear of a backlash in the Malay electorate should PAS be alienated. Concerns over how Malay votes would be split were coupled with considerations that non- Malay voters might be disillusioned about regime change, and lulled into a lower voter turnout.

For most Malaysian watchers, 9 May 2018 will go down as one of the most remarkable days in the country's history. For the first time ever, an opposition alliance succeeded in deposing the predominant Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition in a general election. The transition, characterized by a delayed swearing-in ceremony of the new prime minister, was peaceful if somewhat grudging. The losers were clearly shocked by their overwhelming defeat, but no less than the winners’ surprise at their victory. After an initial spell of apprehension, a sense of buoyant optimism and idealism infected the mood of the country, though it would ultimately prove unsustainable after the real task of governing began.

The events of GE-14 are all the more remarkable because of how unlikely they seemed just a few years earlier. The opposition was in disarray after an earlier coalition fell apart when the Islamic Party broke off ties with another member party. Mahathir was still a highly distrusted figure by many key opposition stalwarts, not least because of what he had done to them in his previous stint as Prime Minister. Anwar Ibrahim, the most effective campaigner in the opposition, was in prison again and unable to run or campaign. Anwar and Mahathir were estranged, and the depth of disdain that they had for each other since the former's dismissal from the post of Deputy Prime Minister, his assault in custody and subsequent trial on questionable charges was seen as unbridgeable. Even the economy, while not performing at full potential, was still chugging along.

The only thing that the Pakatan Harapan had going for it was the simmering unhappiness over the 1MDB scandal. This undercurrent was strong enough to cause turbulence even within the dominant Malay party, UMNO, itself, and accounted for its incumbent Deputy President being dropped from his post and later stripped of his membership.

However, even with this, it took a combination of many factors for the upset of GE-14 to occur. It was aided by the ubiquity of social media that allowed the government-controlled media to be by-passed. There was also the political statesmanship displayed in the coming together of Mahathir, Anwar and Lim Kit Siang, among others, to form a political alliance.

INTRODUCTION

INVOKE Malaysia remains the only organization in the world to have correctly predicted Malaysia's 14th General Elections (GE-14). All other research houses and political scientists pointed to a comfortable or narrow victory for the incumbent, Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition (Zurairi 2018). Only INVOKE maintained its prediction—since January 2017—of a historic Pakatan Harapan (PH) victory.

Malaysian research houses like Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, Kajidata Research (Malay Mail Online, 4 May 2018), and Ilham Centre (Kaur 2018), as well as political analysts from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Sains Malaysia, had all predicted a comfortable BN victory (The Sun Daily, 14 February 2018). Merdeka Center and political analysts even floated the possibility of BN regaining a two-thirds majority in Parliament (The Sun Daily, 7 May 2018). Prominent international research houses and news sites like FT Research (Malaysiakini, 19 April 2018), Oxford Economics (NST Business, 11 April 2018), the Economist Intelligence Unit (Economist Intelligence Unit 2018), Reuters (Sipalan and Menon 2018), CIMB Investment Bank Research (Ridzwan 2018), HSBC Global Research (Incalcaterra et al. 2018), Hong Leong Investment Bank Research (NST Business, 9 April 2018), Maybank Investment Bank Research (Zarina Zakariah 2018) similarly predicted a BN victory.

The reason for these discrepancies could be attributed to the methods used for prediction. Quantitatively, only INVOKE managed to use Big Data analytics for its prediction to construct a more accurate representation of voters’ inclinations across the country. The process of installing a Big Data warehouse with the necessary tools, talents and expertise is expensive and prohibitive for many research institutions.

Qualitatively, an observer's perspective of the Malaysian political climate is limited by Najib Razak's government that masked the true political and economic sentiment of the masses. His government ensured that the local and international media were constantly showered with positive economic numbers to indicate that the country was doing well. Due to the intrinsic connection between economic and political stability in Malaysia, many political observers had taken the marvellous economic numbers as an indicator that the government was still strong.

Malaysia's GDP growth numbers witnessed a dramatic increase from 4.2 per cent in 2016 to 5.9 per cent in 2017. This GDP number was also higher than the 5.0 per cent figure that was recorded in 2015.

HOPELESS CAUSE TO HOPEFUL WIN

9 May 2018 will live forever in the minds of Malaysians as the day we thought would never come—and yet it did. It was the black swan of black swans; the perfect storm of perfect storms.

Going into the campaign, no one thought that I would win in Lembah Pantai. From the outset, the odds looked stacked heavily against me:

• • The incumbent, Nurul Izzah Anwar, had vacated the seat, and Barisan Nasional (BN) was playing it as though she was “running away” in fear;

• • The government had just completed a redelineation exercise, blatantly gerrymandering Lembah Pantai such that: two key areas that previously supported Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), namely, Brickfields and Jalan Puchong, were carved away to other constituencies; and about 8,000 police votes in Bukit Aman, which is seen to be traditionally a BN vote bank, were carved in;

• • I was up against Raja Nong Chik, an experienced UMNO “warlord” who was once a federal minister;

• • I was a political “novice”, having never run in an election before;

• • PKR's traditional ally, Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), was running against both Pakatan Harapan (PH) and BN, which meant the Malay vote was split.

In this light, it is not difficult to see how I was the “dark horse” in this fight.

Yet all of these factors combined to become the perfect smokescreen, giving the impression that Lembah Pantai was a walkover for BN— thereby enabling my team and me to operate as political underdogs.

Knowing that we had nothing to lose, we ran a “guerilla-style” campaign, offering myself as an upstart and “clean-slate” candidate in direct contrast to BN's Raja Nong Chik. We created huge posters (some as large as the sides of buildings) unlike any seen before; we challenged BN to a debate (which they obviously refused to attend); we even made a video that featured me in Gol dan Gincu, a popular TV series that I had acted in many years ago. I suppose all of these got people talking, on top of the general sentiment favouring PH.

RUNNING IN PASIR GUDANG

I strongly believe that contesting a parliamentary constituency is so much more than merely winning the seat in an election. It is about serving others, and standing up for your principles. You must believe in your vision, and the narratives the people should subscribe to in the next coming decades. As a leader, contesting, or winning a seat in an election is not an end by itself.

It has always been my stance and principle that this is the area where an elected representative should actively serve; where he or she is present for the constituents. There needs to be a strong connection with the people and the entire local community. Only then, will you be able to understand their concerns, their needs and their wants.

In my case, Pasir Gudang has always been the place where my family and I live. I know the people there, and they know me well too. This has been the case since the last few elections. I understand their concerns and I have been working to address them one by one. I want to see them grow, and treated justly by those who are above them. Most of my constituents are from low- and middle-income families. They are hardworking and honest individuals, earning a decent living in their respective fields, trying to chase the “Malaysian Dream”.

But as wages are stagnant and prices of basic goods increased, someone must take care of them, speak and console their postmodern uncertainties. Therefore, I naturally decided to contest in Pasir Gudang. Certainly, I was aware that there were other safer seats which were easier to win. But winning is not the main point. Serving the people is what matters. If I cannot connect on a personal level with the people and I am a stranger to them, it defeats the whole idea of becoming a wakil rakyat.

BARISAN NASIONAL's CAMPAIGN IN JOHOR

There were three key focuses in our party's campaign. Firstly, an offer to ensure and improve the well-being of Johoreans. Secondly, to position the state as the southern economic powerhouse with substantial and meaningful contributions to Malaysia. And thirdly, to push and prepare Johor to become a strong competitor especially to its neighbour, Singapore. The strategy was called “Mengejar Singa” or generally translated as “Chasing the Lion” (Bait al Amanah 2018).

INTRODUCTION

Redelineation has often been used as a tool by the former ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (BN), to hold on to power. Past analyses observed that, by increasing the number of constituencies and redrawing their borders, redelineation exercises have boosted the former ruling coalition's electoral performance, most notably in the general elections of 1974, 1986, 1995 and 2004.

During Malaysia's 2016–18 redelineation exercise, the Election Commission (EC)—the organization tasked with carrying out this exercise—provided many illustrations of unfair practice and violation of constitutional norms, clearly with a view to provide electoral advantage to BN.

Unlike its antecedents, the 2016–18 redelineation exercise did not involve increasing the number of parliamentary or state seats. However, the review had long-reaching implications. First, it left malapportionment, which disproportionately favours small, rural, and Malay-majority constituencies, unaddressed. Second, the exercise extensively gerrymandered parliamentary and state constituencies with the aim of increasing the share of registered Malay voters in select seats, as well as concentrating non-Malay voters in a number of oversized constituencies.

While these changes further tipped the “playing field” towards BN and were expected to increase the incumbent's share of parliamentary seats, their intended effect in the 2018 general election was underwhelming. The redrawn borders delivered just one additional seat to BN and could not stop Pakatan Harapan (PH) from forming a supermajority in the Legislative Assembly of Selangor—the most aggressively gerrymandered state. However, while the 2016–18 redelineation exercise did not alter the outcome of the 14th General Elections (GE-14), the misdeeds of the EC and BN members of parliament must not be overlooked.

The chapter seeks to identify what electoral violations were committed and analyse why these did not have the expected outcome. The chapter comprises five sections. Following this introduction, the second section will examine the principles of redelineation according to the Malaysian Constitution. The subsequent section will review the history and implementation of redelineation exercises in Malaysia in order to see what advantages the exercises have provided to BN at the parliamentary and state levels. The fourth section will assess changes introduced since GE-13 and in the run-up to GE-14, seeking to understand why this round of border-rigging did not deliver as before. The final section will conclude.