ANALYSIS | The results of today's by-elections for the Seri Setia and Balakong state seats indicate that the new opposition alliance between PAS and BN is more beneficial to the Islamist party than it is to the former ruling coalition.

While vote majorities should not be relied on in this instance, due to the record low turnouts in both by-elections, observations can be made when analysing the share of votes.

In Seri Setia, BN votes were clearly transferred to PAS, when the latter secured advance votes, postal votes and the PJS 5/13 - PJS 5/30 polling district, all of which BN had bagged in the May 9 general election.

PAS also managed to bag the SS6 polling district, which Harapan had previously won in GE14.

PAS' vote share in Seri Setia also increased from 10.4 percent in GE14, to 41.4 percent.

 

This is more than PAS and BN's combined vote share of 32.89 percent during the 14th general election.

Harapan's vote share in Seri Setia, meanwhile, decreased from 66.62 percent to 58.6 percent.

PAS stumping for MCA makes little impact

However, these gains were not enjoyed by MCA in Balakong, which saw a turnout of 43 percent.

Despite PAS campaigning for MCA, the Chinese party's vote share did not improve significantly, increasing by only 4.1 percent to 15 percent.

At the same time, DAP also increased its vote majority by 7.46 percent from 77.53 percent to 84.99 percent.

 

A larger increase in Harapan’s vote share was also observed in Balakong's four Malay-majority polling districts, all of which were won by Harapan with a vote increase between 18.47 percent and 22.78 percent.

Comparatively, MCA's vote shares in Bandar Tun Hussein Onn, Simpang Balak, Desa Baiduri, and Cheras Jaya only increased between 4.05 percent and 11.03 percent.

The improvement by both sides was due to the absence of a third-party contender as PAS did not contest in this by-election. However, Harapan's improvement was sigficantly better than MCA's.

It should also be noted that Harapan's improvement in these areas may have been accentuated by the fact that Malay voters decided to stay home.

The turnout in the four Malay-majority polling districts was below the average of 43 percent, from 27.24 percent to 34.25 percent.

PAS supporters withholding votes for BN?

PAS supporters have a history of withholding their full support to allies in an election, even when they were in Pakatan Rakyat.

An example was the outcome of the Muar election in 2013, where at the state level, 20,812 votes were cast for Pakatan that was represented by PAS in both Maharani and Sungai Balang.

However, PKR's candidate received only 19,221 votes at the parliamentary level, a shortfall of 1,591 votes.

Apart from PAS’ unwillingness to back BN, MCA's decision to use its own logo may have also played a factor.

To read Malaysiakini's full coverage of the Balakong and Seri Setia by-elections, visit our live page.