
- Publisher:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Online publication date:
- July 2025
- Print publication year:
- 2024
- Online ISBN:
- 9789815203424
- Series:
- Trends in Southeast Asia
Following the formation of the Unity Government in December 2022, two of its component coalitions, Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Barisan Nasional (BN), jointly campaigned during the state government elections held in August 2023. A key question arising from this cooperation between PH and the BN lead party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), was the extent to which it would strengthen the appeal of both coalitions, especially among Malay voters. This ‘Trends in Southeast Asia’ finds that, contrary to expectations, DAP actually gained voter support from campaigning with UMNO. DAP would probably still have won at least forty-one of these state seats without transferring BN/UMNO votes, but working with UMNO allowed the DAP to win by comfortable margins some of what would usually be marginal seats for the party. DAP gained the largest transfer of Malay votes from older voters who show stronger allegiance to BN. These findings show that UMNO's grassroots outreach is still somewhat effective among older voters but much less so among younger voters. Clearly, more of the Malay votes that previously supported the BN went to the Perikatan Nasional (PN) than to PH. The calculations in this article show that four out of five Malay voters who previously supported BN in these seats voted for PN in the 2023 state elections. Going forward, the DAP's stranglehold over these seats may well become weaker, due to demographic changes, and if turnout and support for PH and the DAP should decrease among non-Malay voters.
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