GE14 | Malaysians vote today in what is likely to be the country’s closest-fought general election, with caretaker prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s coalition pitted against a resurgent opposition steered by 92-year-old former leader Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Najib’s long-ruling BN is expected to win despite an election-eve opinion poll suggesting that its support was slipping and that Mahathir’s alliance would get more votes, although they would be concentrated in Peninsular Malaysia.

Under Malaysia’s first-past-the-post system, the party or alliance with the majority of seats in the 222-member Parliament wins. Most experts believe that is within Najib’s reach, despite popular anger over a multi-billion-dollar graft scandal that has dogged him since 2015 and increased costs of living.

“I think right now, it looks more favourable to BN, as they are able to pull in most of East Malaysia,” said Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman, a Malaysia scholar at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “However, the margin that we’re talking about is very small.”

Polling stations for the 14.9 million registered voters open at 8am and close at 5pm. Most results are expected to come in before midnight, but the count may spill into the early hours of tomorrow (Thursday).

The survey by independent pollster Merdeka Center showed BN’s estimated share of the popular vote had slipped to 37.3 percent in peninsular Malaysia from 40.3 percent one week earlier. The share of Mahathir’s Pakatan Harapan was at 43.4 percent, but it had also slipped slightly.

Merdeka Center said BN looked set to win 100 constituencies nationwide and the opposition 83. With these numbers, neither can be sure of securing the 112 seats required to rule and the result will hinge on 37 seats that the pollster said were too close to call.

In the last election in 2013, BN lost the majority vote in its worst performance ever, but pulled in 133 seats.

Unless he improves on that number, Najib could come under pressure from within his party to stand aside ahead of the next election, analysts say.

Najib made a last-ditch appeal for votes last night, aimed at the young and the country’s Malay Muslim majority. He said people aged 26 and below would no longer pay income tax if BN won.

He also pledged to add two public holidays at the beginning of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan next week and said toll roads would be free for a period of five days around the start of the Eid festival, which marks the end of the month.

Speaking at the same time, Mahathir urged voters not to fall for “bribes”.

“Don’t let a bit of money make you pawn the country forever,” he said.

Hung Parliament?

Nawab, the scholar, said there was a small chance that neither BN nor the opposition would secure a majority, which would bring a hung Parliament and potentially put the Islamic Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) in the position of kingmaker.

However, political analysts believe PAS will fall short of the 21 seats it won in 2013. The Merdeka Center poll had it winning just two seats.

Mahathir’s opposition alliance, which counts on urban votes and support from the country’s minority ethnic Chinese and Indian communities, is hoping that with the long-ruling former prime minister as its standard bearer, he will draw in Malay voters long loyal to BN.

However, Mahathir is a polarising figure and many voters are suspicious of him because of his attacks on independent institutions when he was prime minister between 1981 and 2003.

Najib’s other formidable opponent is former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is currently serving a five-year prison sentence on a sodomy conviction that has been attacked by human rights groups as politically motivated.

Anwar led the opposition in the 2008 and 2013 elections. In an unlikely reconciliation, he has joined hands with Mahathir - who sacked him as his deputy in 1998.

In Najib’s favour, ethnic Malays have long supported BN for its affirmative-action policy that gives them government contracts, cheap housing and guaranteed university admissions.

Also, the economy is growing at around five percent, buoyed by robust exports and infrastructure spending.

But Najib, 64, has been buffeted by a scandal over 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), a state fund from which billions of dollars were allegedly siphoned off. The prime minister, who was chairperson of 1MDB’s advisory board, has denied any wrongdoing and he has also been cleared of any offence by the attorney general.

- Reuters