COMMENT | KKB confidence-building for Harapan, but warnings persist

COMMENT | Pakatan Harapan candidate Pang Sock Tao’s comfortable win in the Kuala Kubu Baharu by-election was indeed an impressive one.

The overall vote share increased from 54.4 percent to 56.6 percent and the previous majority was almost maintained - 4,119 in 2023 versus 3,869 in 2024 - even though turnout decreased from 67.6 percent to 61.5 percent (see Table 1 below).

This victory was achieved amid difficult external conditions at the national level including cost of living pressures, accusations that DAP was slowly turning into another MCA, and 3R (race, religion, royalty) issues being played up directly and indirectly by the opposition Perikatan Nasional.

How did Harapan achieve this victory? Who are the winners and losers of this by-election?

What are some of the likely impacts of this result moving forward?

Improvement in Harapan’s performance

Harapan improved its performance from the 2023 state election in a few voter segments. The first voter segment is among the police, army, and postal voters (mostly civil servants).

Harapan’s majority went from -540 in the 2023 state election to +472 in the by-election, contributing a +1,012 change in Harapan’s majority (see Table 2 below).

This improvement is probably due to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's recent announcement that the pay for civil servants would be increased by 13 percent later this year and also the likely scrutiny put on the uniformed personnel by their superiors to “deliver” the vote to the federal government.

It is less clear if this performance can be repeated during the next general election where the impact of the salary increases may have waned and where the public scrutiny on the army, police, and other civil servants may be less focused.

The second voter segment is among the Orang Asli community where Harapan overturned a -69 majority in 2023 to a +150 majority in 2024 in the two Orang Asli majority voting stations in Pertak.

Harapan saw its vote share increase from 29.1 percent in these two polling stations in 2023 to 70.6 percent in 2024, an increase of 41.5 percent.

This was definitely a case of voting for the government, especially at the federal level, and the likelihood of this performance being replicated in the next general election will be higher especially if Harapan and Umno/BN campaign together, thus being seen as a more credible option to remain as government.

The third voter segment is among the Indian voters in the two Indian majority polling stations in Kuala Kubu Baharu – Lembah Beringin (52.3 percent Indian voters) and Ladang Nigel Gardner (60.8 percent Indian voters).

Harapan increased its voter share from 62.0 percent in 2023 to 64.5 percent in 2024, an increase of 2.5 percent in Lembah Beringin. In Ladang Nigel Gardner, Harapan increased its share of votes by a significant 22.6 percent, from 55.6 percent in 2023 to 78.2 percent in 2024.

Harapan managed to win most of the votes which went to the Muda candidate in 2023 in Ladang Nigel Gardner, which is part of the reason for this significant increase.

Overall, the share of votes won by Harapan in these two polling stations increased from 59.6 percent in 2023 to 69.5 percent in 2024, an increase of almost 10 percent (see Table 4 below).

Chinese majority polling stations

Not surprisingly, Harapan managed to maintain its stranglehold on the Chinese voters.

In the six Chinese majority polling stations with more than 100 voters, Harapan increased its share of votes from 83.9 percent in 2023 to 86.2 percent in 2024, a small improvement of 2.3 percent (see Table 5 below).

This wasn’t surprising given that PN had all but abandoned the Chinese vote when it decided to field a Malay candidate in this by-election and did not make any significant effort to campaign in the Chinese majority polling stations during the campaign.

Malay majority polling stations

Not surprisingly, Harapan lost some ground in the five Malay majority polling stations where its vote share decreased by 1.3 percent from 40.0 percent in 2023 to 38.7 percent in 2024.

Even though Harapan made up some ground in the Kampung Air Jernih and Kerling polling stations, it lost ground in the polling stations of Ampang Pechah and Bandar Utama Batang Kali (with two voting places) where the majority of the Malay voters in the Kuala Kubu Baharu state seat are located (see Table 6 below).

These three polling stations were also where PN focused their campaign in terms of ceramah and other campaign-related activities.

In summary, Harapan made the most gains among the early and postal voters (police, army, and civil servants), the Orang Asli voters, and the Indian voters. It experienced slight gains among the Chinese voters but also experienced some losses among the Malay voters.

Harapan won more than 95 percent of the Chinese vote, more than 70 percent of the Indian and Orang Asli votes, and more than 60 percent of the early and postal voters while PN won more than 80 percent but less than 90 percent of the Malay votes.

In a 50 percent Malay and 50 percent non-Malay seat like Kuala Kubu Baharu, it is not possible for PN to capture this seat if it just relies on the Malay vote.

It will have to win more than 90 percent of the Malay vote to stand a chance of neutralising Harapan’s advantage among the non-Malay voters, which it is not able to achieve at this point.

Getting out the vote

One of the key determinants of this by-election was which side could motivate its supporters to come out to cast their vote.

It was expected that the turnout rate would fall but what wasn’t known was how much it would fall and whether there would be any significant differentials in the turnout rate among different segments of voters.

Overall turnout fell by 6.1 percent from 67.6 percent in 2023 to 61.5 percent in 2024. But the turnout rate fell the most in the Malay majority areas (7.1 percent).

The turnout rate in the Chinese majority areas fell by 6.1 percent while it fell by 6.5 percent in the Indian majority areas. Surprisingly, the turnout rate in the Orang Asli areas increased by 12.6 percent from 74.7 percent in 2023 to 87.3 percent in 2024! (See Table 7 below)

Harapan clearly did a better job in getting out the vote in areas where it enjoyed strong support compared to PN.

PN was not successful in getting the younger voters in the Malay majority areas to come out to vote. This can be seen in the SK Bandar Baru Batang Kali voting place (72 percent Malay) in the Bandar Utama Batang Kali polling station, one of the largest in the state seat.

The decrease in turnout was 23.1 percent for the youngest voting stream compared to a decrease of only 6.0 percent for the oldest stream. The youngest stream is also where PN made the largest gain in vote share with 8.8 percent (see Table 8 below).

Who are the winners and losers?

There are some clear winners and losers resulting from the by-election, as well as some “in-between” cases.

MCA proved themselves to be politically irrelevant because their boycotting of the campaign did not result in Harapan losing any traction among the Chinese voters.

In fact, small gains were made by Harapan in the Chinese majority polling areas. Gerakan also proved to be ineffective in holding on to this seat to contest under the PN ticket and for failing to win even five percent of the Chinese vote as promised by its president Dominic Lau.

The Bersatu leaders – its president Muhyiddin Yassin and PN Selangor chairperson Azmin Ali – were also exposed in their inability to run a compelling campaign.

Bersatu’s candidate, Khairul Azhari Saut, captured the headlines for all the wrong reasons – his academic credentials and rumours about his personal life – and he failed to offer any compelling narrative on his vision for Kuala Kubu Baharu despite being a local candidate.

The candidate’s inability to showcase himself on social media or to make himself available to the media probably contributed to the poor outreach of PN to the younger voters especially among the Malay youth.

Bersatu will try to hold on to the narrative that it managed to make some gains among the Malay voters in Kuala Kubu Baharu and will be hoping that Harapan and the federal government’s current and future unpopularity among the Malay voters will be sufficient to carry PN over the line in the next general election.

Former DAP leader P Ramasamy also failed in his attempt to persuade the Indian voters there not to vote for Harapan. While he still may have appeal among the Indian community at the national level, this does not seem to translate into influencing voting behaviour, at least not in this by-election.

DAP and Harapan emerged as clear victors in this by-election.

DAP showed that it could lead a campaign that was cohesive and compelling, and it avoided many potential “traps” that could have played into the hands of the opposition including avoiding 3R issues as much as possible and fielding a charismatic candidate that gained momentum along the campaign while the other side lost ground.

Selangor DAP secretary Ng Sze Han proved himself to be a capable campaign director with Yeo Bee Yin and Nga Kor Ming providing strong support to the candidate, who was also their former special/media officer.

Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari also provided strong campaign support and will use this result to cement his own position in the state and also within PKR.

PAS was relatively muted in this campaign, perhaps wanting to let Bersatu take the lead (and take the blame too?). It was hard to see how much more PAS could have done to mobilise the Malay vote, especially given the quality of the PN candidate.

Even though Anwar should be credited for timing his civil service salary increase announcement on May 1, his absence in Kuala Kubu Baharu was notable, from the lack of billboards of him together with the candidate to not appearing even once during the two-week campaign.

Implications moving forward?

The status quo for the Kuala Kubu Baharu by-election has positive as well as negative implications for Harapan/BN and PN. For Harapan, the results may be interpreted as a vote of confidence and for business as usual to continue.

But thinking this would be a mistake since the underlying dissatisfaction against the government among different segments of society is real and growing.

Many of my colleagues in Harapan would remember the April 2007 Ijok by-election that was won relatively comfortably by the BN candidate. Less than one year later, in March 2008, in GE13, BN lost control of Selangor and of the two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Umno would also be mistaken to think the Malay vote has started to turn in its favour. The results in Malay majority areas in Kuala Kubu Baharu clearly prove otherwise. The party still lacks a coherent game plan to win back the Malay vote, especially among the Malay youth.

PN would also be mistaken to think that the government’s drop in popularity would allow the coalition to easily win back power in GE16.

While PN definitely has the majority of Malay support nationally, it remains to be seen if this will be sufficient for them to win a majority of seats in Peninsular Malaysia, especially if leadership challenges in Bersatu continue to weaken the party’s ability to campaign and present itself as a credible government in waiting.

The battleground is among the middle ground, especially the Malay middle ground which can be swayed by good leadership, good policies, and good implementation.

There is a lot of runway before GE16 for all parties and their leaders to make the necessary adjustments to win this middle ground as a pathway to Putrajaya.

ONG KIAN MING is the former Bangi MP and former deputy international trade and industries minister.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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