- Introduction
Malaysia held its 14th General Election on May 9th 2018 and witnessed the Pakatan Harapan – Parti Warisan Sabah coalition gaining control of the Federal Government. Barisan Nasional (BN), a coalition that has been in power for over 60 years, lost 40% of its seats and was reduced to holding 79 seats. Pakatan Harapan (PH) won 113 seats and its ally, Parti Warisan Sabah (WARISAN), won 8 seats giving them a total of 121 seats. Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), a former member of the previous Opposition coalition (Pakatan Rakyat), won 18 seats.
Our research on social media and the election results indicated that Malay support for PH in GE14 did not improve compared to Pakatan Rakyat (PR)’s performance in GE13. On a national level, the key to Pakatan’s victory was the Malay electorate being divided between BN, PH and PAS; increased support for PH from Chinese and Indian voters; and increased support for PH and WARISAN by Bumiputera Sabah voters in Sabah.
PAS played a vital role in Pakatan’s victory by dividing the Malay vote, allowing PH to win seats that were considered unwinnable in a straight fight between PH and BN. The majority of Malaysians rejected BN but were not united on which party was the better alternative.
In our previous report, An Analysis of Opinions on Tun Mahathir, Trends on Political Interest on Facebook and Political Support by Malay Youth in Malaysia we noted that:
- Tun Mahathir was not a popular candidate with Malay youth on Twitter (aged 21 – 30 years), with 71% not supporting his bid for the post of Prime Minister and only 26% expressing support for PH in GE14.
- Tun Mahathir did not trigger a spike in interest from Twitter users in Rural seats in the months leading up the election
- Facebook statistics during the GE14 campaign period indicated that Tun Mahathir made less of an impact on Malay speakers compared to Chinese speakers.
- Tun Mahathir’s best demographic on Facebook were Chinese speakers of all ages and Malay speakers aged 51 years and above.
- Malay-speaking youth on Facebook were disinterested in Tun Mahathir, with their interest reducing during the campaign period instead of increasing.
- Our expectation was that Tun Mahathir may trigger a swing in support to PH from the older generation of all races while retaining support for PH from Chinese voters.
- There was no sign of a major swing in Malay support for PH on Facebook or Twitter.
- Voter turnout could be a serious issue for the youth this election.
From our analysis of GE14 results, we found that PH and WARISAN lost 7.77 points vote share from Malay regular voters (aged 21-30 years), bringing their share of vote down to 34.29% of the Malay youth. PH gained a 2-point vote share from Urban Malay youth but lost 4.5 points vote share from Semi-Urban Malay youth and lost 13.8 points from Rural Malay youth.
This report is a detailed analysis of Federal election results in Melaka where we examine the swing in support from voters by ethnic group, age group and urban development category. Our analysis is done at the state level to provide a high-level overview of support and shifts of support and a better understanding of the electorate.
We have prepared this report for the upcoming Melaka State Elections on November 20th, 2021 to serve as a reference for analysts doing post-election analysis. However, as we do not have detailed data on state elections we will be using results from the Federal elections instead.
We will present our findings grouped by state seats in addition to Parliament seats, to give an idea of how voters in those constituencies voted for their representatives at the Federal level.
If you find our analysis work useful and would like to hire us for electoral analysis in preparation for the next General Election, please contact us at admin@politweet.org
The full report can be downloaded from this link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UpSGB_JREm7AVWBYTTBbCZPZujKuOTlO/view?usp=sharing
The report is divided into the following chapters:
- Introduction
- List of Acronyms
- Our Methodology for Detailed Analysis
- Demographics of the Melaka Electorate
- An Overview of GE14 Melaka Results
- The Swing in Support
- The Urban-Rural Divide
- Support by Ethnic Group
- How The Malay Vote Was Divided
- How The Chinese Vote Was Divided
- How The Indian Vote Was Divided
- Summary of the Ethnic and Urban-Rural Divide
- Understanding the Demographics of Party Voters
- Voter Turnout Analysis
- Final Observations
Statistic listings are included as appendices at the end of the report:
- Appendix 1: Malay Support and Swing by Age Group and Parliament Seat
- Appendix 2: Malay Support and Swing by Age Group and State Seat
- Appendix 3: Chinese Support and Swing by Age Group and Parliament Seat
- Appendix 4: Chinese Support and Swing by Age Group and State Seat
- Appendix 5: Indian Support and Swing by Age Group and Parliament Seat
- Appendix 6: Indian Support and Swing by Age Group and State Seat
Additional statistics covering voter support by age group and ethnic group for each polling district can be downloaded from the following link:
The last chapter is below, please download the report to learn more.
- Final Observations
This report covered a lot of areas, too much to summarise in one chapter. The following conclusions are what we consider to be most important for the 14th General Election in Melaka.
Young Voters Rejected BN
Regardless of race and urban development category, voters aged 21-40 years were the demographic with the largest swing away from BN.
BN lost 19.84 points of vote share from 21-30 year-olds and 17.05 points of vote share from 31-40 year-olds, a total of 31,002 voters.
In Urban seats young 21-40 year-old BN voters switched more to PH than PAS while in Rural seats young 21-40 year-old BN voters switched more to PAS than PH.
When we drill down further into statistics for 21-30 year-old voters, we found that:
- Young Urban, Semi-Urban and Rural Malay BN voters switched more to PH than PAS
- Young Urban and Semi-Urban Chinese BN voters switched more to PAS than PH
- Young Rural Chinese voters switched from BN and PH to PAS – both parties combined lost 18.73 points to PAS
- Young Urban, Semi-Urban and Rural Indian BN voters switched more to PAS than PH
PH was better than PAS for winning support from the Malay youth. Losing PAS as a member of their coalition (Pakatan Rakyat) did not cause PH to lose vote share with Malay youth in Melaka. Instead, they managed to win more young Malays over to their side. But there were smaller gains with Chinese and Indian youth, with Rural Chinese turning away from PH.
BN’s Losses Were PAS’ Gain
Out of BN’s nett loss of 12.53 points, 8.22 points went to PAS and 3.96 points went to PH. Most of BN’s losses went to PAS.
In terms of share of vote, PAS’ total regular votes seem small at 8.22% vs BN’s 37.02% and PH’ 54.41%. In every age group, ethnic group and urban development category, PH won more vote share than PAS.
Even with PH’s weakest demographic (Rural Malay senior citizens aged 71+ years) PH won 18.98% vs PAS 8.37%.
But the swing values by age group, ethnic group and urban development category show some interesting patterns:
- 16% of Rural voters left BN for PH and PAS, with PAS winning 12.15 points and PH winning 3.85 points. BN voters switched more to PAS than PH in every age group.
- For middle-aged and older (41+ years) Malay voters, PAS gained more vote share than PH from BN in every age group.
- For Malay senior citizens (61+ years) both PH and BN lost vote share to PAS. This was true for Urban, Semi-Urban and Rural Malay voters.
- 98% of Rural Chinese voters left BN and PH for PAS, with PH having greater losses than BN
- 89% of Semi-Urban Chinese voters left BN and PH for PAS, though PH’s contribution was only 1 point coming from middle-aged and older (41+ years) voters.
- 53% of Indian voters left BN for PH and PAS, with PAS winning 16.50 points and PH winning 8.89 points.
- Indian voters in every urban development category and every age group from 21-70 years preferred leaving BN for PAS instead of PH.
All these points highlight PAS’ potential at splitting the vote 3 ways for each demographic. Identifying which demographic was shifting more towards PAS is important for political campaigners – they may want to increase or decrease the swing based on their vote-splitting strategy.
Given PAS’ small SOV, it might seem unimportant to place much focus on the swing. But our analysis showed that a greater share of BN’s nett loss went to PAS instead of PH, with as much as 3/4 of BN’s losses going to PAS in Rural seats. Voters preferred leaving BN for PAS instead of PH.
In the State elections, PAS won 10.78% of the total vote. The winning margin in 10/28 state seats was less than 10%. In the Federal elections, PAS won 8.65% of the total vote. The winning margin in 2/6 Parliament seats was less than 8%. Had PAS won a little more votes or less votes in these seats they could have flipped the results.
Chinese Support for PH Cannot Be Taken for Granted
Chinese voters tend to be stereotyped as very strong pro-Pakatan voters. Our analysis showed that this is not true. Semi-Urban Chinese and Rural Chinese had different levels of support for PH compared with Urban Chinese.
We illustrated this previously in Chapter 10 in the following chart.
| Party / Urban Dev. Category | Rural
Chinese |
Semi-Urban Chinese | Urban Chinese |
| BN | 21.70 | 19.32 | 12.63 |
| PAS | 11.98 | 12.89 | 2.13 |
| PH | 66.32 | 67.79 | 84.81 |
| IND | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.43 |
| Total | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 |
The table below lists the swing values for Chinese voters by urban development category.
| Party / Urban Dev. Category | Rural
Chinese |
Semi-Urban Chinese | Urban Chinese |
| BN | -5.53 | -11.89 | -4.71 |
| PAS | 11.98 | 12.89 | 2.13 |
| PH | -6.45 | -1.00 | 2.15 |
| IND | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.43 |
As stated before in Chapter 10, there was a clear urban-rural divide for Chinese voters. Urban Chinese strongly supported PH and had positive swing to PH (boosting existing high support levels further) other than with senior citizens aged 71 years and above. Rural Chinese swung away from PH and BN towards PAS, causing PH to lose even more vote share than BN.
Age was an important factor as well, with PAS winning a higher SOV than BN for Rural Chinese and Semi-Urban Chinese aged 21-30 years.
It is obvious that PH has a sizeable majority of support for Chinese voters regardless of age or urban development category. But the negative swing values in Rural and Semi-Urban seats and for senior citizens in Urban seats is something for PH’s opponents to build on.
Support for PAS may also be due to PAS being seen as a ‘third force’ option for Chinese looking to vote against BN and PH.
Population Demographics Will Be Significantly Different for GE15
Current population demographics show declining numbers of young adult Chinese and young adult Indians. Based on Melaka’s population estimates of Malaysians aged 0-39 years by the Department of Statistics Malaysia, between 2017-2021:
- The estimated population of young adult Bumiputera (inclusive of Malays and East Malaysian Bumiputera) has increased by 3.75%, from 421,200 to 437,000.
- The estimated population of young adult Chinese has reduced by 2.33%, from 120,200 to 117,400.
- The estimated population of young adult Indians has reduced by 3.05%, from 32,800 to 31,800.
In the 15th General Election, Malaysians above 18 years will be allowed to vote and there will be automatic voter registration. The chart below shows the estimated number of Malaysians by ethnic group and age group in 2021.
The proportion of each ethnic group in the electorate will change, as shown in the table below.
| Ethnic Group | GE14 (%) | GE15 (estimated %) |
| Bumiputera | 61.64 | 66.02 – 66.69 |
| Chinese | 31.22 | 26.64 – 27.29 |
| Indian | 6.32 | 6.04 – 6.10 |
| Others | 0.82 | 0.60 – 0.64 |
Political parties will need to work harder to win votes from Bumiputera. Coalitions like PH that relied on Chinese and Indian support will need to adapt to this change.
The full report can be downloaded from this link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UpSGB_JREm7AVWBYTTBbCZPZujKuOTlO/view?usp=sharing
