Malaysia General Election May 9th 2018

[jaichind]

Perak done.  PH 14 BN 10.  My model had it at PH 13 BN 11.  The one seat I missed was one of the ones that BN gerrymandered at the last minute.  My model took that into account and most likely overcompensated. 

The one that flipped was in Perak.  It is now PH 13 BN 11.  In fact the one that flipped is exactly the one that I missed in Perak, until now.  So now my model is perfect in Perak.  Unless if flips back.

[jaichind]

Sabah-Labuan is PH-WARISAN 14 BN 11 STAR 1.   My model has it at BN 19 PH-WARISAN 7. 

So my model was off in 8 seats.  Any some of them by wild margins.   I totally underestimated the swing in Muslim tribal areas toward WARISAN.  There are a couple of seats where I had BN winning by 15% that went WARISAN or PKR.    In Christian tribal areas I totally underestimated how much the USA alliance ate into the BN vote share. 

[Oryxslayer]

Sabah-Labuan is PH-WARISAN 14 BN 11 STAR 1.   My model has it at BN 19 PH-WARISAN 7. 

So my model was off in 8 seats.  Any some of them by wild margins.   I totally underestimated the swing in Muslim tribal areas toward WARISAN.  There are a couple of seats where I had BN winning by 15% that went WARISAN or PKR.    In Christian tribal areas I totally underestimated how much the USA alliance ate into the BN vote share. 

I think the major differences between you model (besides a few marginals) were the PAS/GS vote, and Sabah/Sarawok. But tbh, we knew that how Sabah broke down and how the GS vote was concentrated were going to decide the election. Those were the big unknowns.

[jaichind]

Sabah-Labuan is PH-WARISAN 14 BN 11 STAR 1.   My model has it at BN 19 PH-WARISAN 7. 

So my model was off in 8 seats.  Any some of them by wild margins.   I totally underestimated the swing in Muslim tribal areas toward WARISAN.  There are a couple of seats where I had BN winning by 15% that went WARISAN or PKR.    In Christian tribal areas I totally underestimated how much the USA alliance ate into the BN vote share. 

I think the major differences between you model (besides a few marginals) were the PAS/GS vote, and Sabah/Sarawok. But tbh, we knew that how Sabah broke down and how the GS vote was concentrated were going to decide the election. Those were the big unknowns.

Totally. Where my model worked is in areas where PAS is weak and it is a BN-PH battle.  Where PAS is strong and it is a 3 way battle my model of swings were totally off.  Of course in Borneo I was way off since there we no polls so I was just literally making swings up.  I do link the fact that my Borneo model approached the Chinese, Christian Tribal and Muslim Tribal seats differently as they all acted differently in this election. 

[jaichind]

Sarawak was  BN 19 PH 10 Ind 2.  My model had it BN 27 PH 4.  So 8 seats were off.  2 of them were Chinese seats where I assume BN will recapture from PH due to the Mahathir factor.  While for some Chinese seats that did place it did not take place in the marginal Chinese seats.  The other 6 were all Christian tribal seats.  Muslim tribal seats held firm for BN.  MY model did allow for a swing away from BN in Christian tribal seat but for some seats I totally underestimated how much.  I had a couple of seats where my model had BN winning by almost 40% but PH actually won !!!

[mileslunn]

How big a surprise was this to those who following closely.  Malaysia has had the same party in power since 1957 so I think even though polls suggested change was possible many didn't believe it would actually happen (sort of my reminds me here in Canada of the Alberta 2015 election where you had a similar upset).  What will this mean going forward and also how does support amongst the three main ethnic groups: Malay, Chinese, and Indian.  Also I read the constituencies were massively gerrymandered making it even more of an upset as many expected the BN to lose the popular vote but still win the most seats.

[jaichind]

The independent that came out of nowhere and won in Sarawak's P203 Lubok Antu in a 3 way race is a PRS (a BN Christian party) rebel.  Most likely will read the writing on the wall and align with PH.

[jaichind]

Kedah district P12 Jerai has a fun 3 way result where all 3 candidates are within 1% of each other.

PAS     33.9%
UNMO  33.1%
PPBM   32.9%

[jaichind]

How big a surprise was this to those who following closely.  Malaysia has had the same party in power since 1957 so I think even though polls suggested change was possible many didn't believe it would actually happen (sort of my reminds me here in Canada of the Alberta 2015 election where you had a similar upset).  What will this mean going forward and also how does support amongst the three main ethnic groups: Malay, Chinese, and Indian.  Also I read the constituencies were massively gerrymandered making it even more of an upset as many expected the BN to lose the popular vote but still win the most seats.

I always figured that PH victory could happen.  But I always figured it would be PH winning more seats than BN and not a majority.  For me this was possible but required several things to take place at once.
a) PH beating BN in marginal seats despite PAS splitting the vote
b) PAS doing well against BN in marginal seats despite PH splitting the vote
c) BN gets hammered in Sabah

For me this is hard because the threat of a) would provoke PAS to take on anti-DAP tactical voting for BN even as anti-BN PAS voters still vote PAS.

In the end a) b) and c) took place and in excess as well as BN loses a bunch of seats in Sarawak.

One thing I think was always possible but it seems I and many people missed is that while PH PAS split meant risks the split of anti-BN votes.  But in Sabah and Sarawak with PAS separate from PH and the prospect of a post election BN-PAS alliance swung Christian votes away from BN and toward PH.

It seems all these things taking place at one created a perfect storm for BN.  Any of them I think does not surprise me.  All of them at once was a shock and totally unexpected.

[Oryxslayer]

How big a surprise was this to those who following closely.  Malaysia has had the same party in power since 1957 so I think even though polls suggested change was possible many didn't believe it would actually happen (sort of my reminds me here in Canada of the Alberta 2015 election where you had a similar upset).  What will this mean going forward and also how does support amongst the three main ethnic groups: Malay, Chinese, and Indian.  Also I read the constituencies were massively gerrymandered making it even more of an upset as many expected the BN to lose the popular vote but still win the most seats.

I will add that in my long pre-election twitter post, I said that there was probably a 70% change of BN being in the better position, and 30% chance of PH having the advantage. Of course, I further broke it down into hung/majority so it was really something like 50-40-10 BN-hung-PH.

While I didn't have a nice model, all the articles I was reading, the various models out there, + Jaichind's excellent pre-election posts were giving me the assumption that PH at least had the same odds as Trump did in November. So I gave them, perhaps incorrectly, the same 30% 538 did on the 8th.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've gotta say, Mahathir looks good for 92 (!).

He looks bizarrely like how my Taid did at the same age.

[jaichind]

AP: Defeated premier Najib says Malaysia's king will decide next prime minister since no single party has a majority.

His "logic" is that in PH ran on PKR symbol in Peninsular Malaysia but ran on their own separate symbols in Borneo.  Ergo MPs that won under the PKR symbol did not won a majority of seats.  Of course in de facto terms PH-WARISAN has a clear majority. 

Mahathir already saw this danger and pointed out hours ago that WARISAN is really the Sabah branch of PPBM and that all PH parties are part of the same bloc.

[jaichind]

In addition to the Parameswaran's record of 22 years old as youngest MP.  Mahathir at age 92 will also break the record as the oldest MP ever in Malaysia election history.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Did the socialists lose their one seat, then?

[Lachi]

Did the socialists lose their one seat, then?

Yes, they lost it.

[jaichind]

Did the socialists lose their one seat, then?

Yes, they lost it.

The PSM incumbent ran last time on the PKR ticket.  This time he wants to run on the PSM ticket.  PKR said no and ran their own candidate and took all the old PKR vote, winning the election and leaving the PSM incumbent with only 3.5% of the vote.

[jaichind]

I did preliminary vote share calculation of Peninsular Malaysia.

It came out to

      seats     vote share
PH    97          48.9%        (PKR 41, DAP 33, PPBM 13, AMANAH 11)
BN    49          31.7%        (UNMO 46, MIC 2, MCA 1)
GS    18          19.3%        (PAS 18)

BN vote collapsed.  A glance seems to indicate that collapse mostly taking place PH urban strongholds the the seat impact was more muted, especially against PH.  In the rest there was a smaller swing against BN which cost it dearly against PAS.

My model had it at (I had to fix it because I missed 4-5 late PAS candidates that my model failed to take into account)

      seats     vote share
PH    87          43.9%       
BN    69          39.5%       
GS     9           15.9%       

Using last known Merdeka estimates of vote share per ethnic group the vote share for Peninsular Malaysia is

PH   47.5%
BN   35.8%
GS   16.7%

which is closer to to final result.

[jaichind]

Turnout ended up being a lowish 76% compared to 85% in 2013.  This should have meant that BN should benefit but it seems that lower turnout was more about fall in BN turnout, especially in urban areas.

[Polkergeist]

Jaichind,

Thank you for all your posts. They were really informative and I appreciated the effort you put in.

[Oryxslayer]

Jaichind,

Thank you for all your posts. They were really informative and I appreciated the effort you put in.

Ditto. Whenever you choose to cover an election, you do it WELL. If this was reddit, I might give you gold.

Something regarding turnout I read was that while total turnout was down, total voters were well above 2013. The large registration increase put the fact that while overall numbers went up, percent dropped. There is a variety of reasons for this methinks - Wednesday date, polling stations closing on the dot at 5 rather then letting those in line still vote, lackluster BN turnout - particularly in the East. One of the unspoken reasons was that there was thought  that there were a bunch of dummy voters on the rolls to preserve the BN, but because the wave was so large - large enough to override most of the gains made by these voters, these dummy votes never ended up getting added to the mix.

[jaichind]

Let the defection games begin.   The  Sabah state assembly

BN             29 (UNMO 17 PBS 6 UPKO 5 PBRS 1)
WARISAN   21
PH               8   (DAP 6 PKR 2)
STAR           2

STAR which is part of the USA alliance is a PBS spliter with its leader Jeffrey Kitingan being the brother of PBS leader Joseph Pairin Kitingan.  STAR had talks with PH on an alliance  before the election  before PH decided to go with WARISAN.  So it was assumed that STAR will back WARISAN-PH to form a government.

Surprise 1: STAR came out to back BN to form a government.  Jeffrey Kitingan's logic must be that since he beat his brother Joseph Pairin Kitingan in his seat and now Joseph Pairin Kitingan is consigned to political oblivion he  can most likely takeover the leaderless PBS in a PBS-STAR merger.  And then this enlarged PBS-STAR led by Jeffrey Kitingan can be THE BN Christian party.

So now BN-STAR is expected to form the government.  Then came

Surprise 2: UPKO announces that it will leave BN and back a WARISAN-PH government.   This seems like a logical decision.  If PBS-STAR led by  Jeffrey Kitingan will become the face of BN for Christians where does that leave UPKO which is also an old PBS splinter and mostly appeals to Christians.  UPKO under this new arrangement risk being marginalized.  So the solution seems to be to jump ship over to WARISAN-PH to try to be the face of the WARISAN-PH for Christians.  Currently PKR in the WARISAN-PH bloc tends to appeal to Christians but UPKO will claim that it can do a better job than PKR since PKR is a Peninsular Malaysia party and UPKO is a local party.

Of course right now it is total chaos and letter of support from each of the parties can only take place when the post-election holidays are over. So there are plenty of more time for more surprise defections.

[jaichind]

Jaichind,

Thank you for all your posts. They were really informative and I appreciated the effort you put in.

Thanks for your positive feedback.  I appreciate the contributions of other posters here too.   

[jaichind]

My prelim calculation of  Sabah-Labuan results

                        Contested       Won         Vote share
BN                        26              11              40.0% (UNMO 8 PBS 1 UPKO 1 PBRS 1)
WARISAN-PH         26              14              49.2% (WARISAN 8 DAP 3 PKR 3)
GS                         9                0                1.7%
USA                     24                1                7.8% (STAR 1)
PCS-PKAN             10               0                 1.1%

BN is UNMO PBS UPKO PBRS LDP
PH is DAP PKR
USA is STAR PHRS PPRS SAPP

My model had it
                           Won         Vote share
BN                        19              47.7%
WARISAN-PH           7              41.8%
GS                         0                0.7%
USA                       0                8.5%
PCS-PKAN              0                0.9%

USA clearly cut into the anti-BN vote and cost WARISAN-PH a bunch of seats although USA also ate into the BN vote share as well.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Jaichind,

Thank you for all your posts. They were really informative and I appreciated the effort you put in.

[jaichind]

My prelim Sarawak results

                       Contested       Won         Vote share
BN                        31              19              52.6% (PBB 13 PRS 3 SPDP 2 SUPP 1)
BN rebels                3                1               1.4%
PH                        31              11              44.4% (DAP 6 PKR 4 Ind 1)
GS                         5                0                1.2%

BN is PBB PRS SPDP SUPP.
I counted the ex-SWP independent backed by PH as part of the PH bloc.

My model had it at

                           Won         Vote share
BN                        27              60.3%
BN rebels                0                0.3%
PH                          4              38.2%
GS                          0                0.4%

I totally underestimated the swing away from BN toward PH and BN rebels, especially in Christian tribal areas.  BN totally got ambushed.  No one in any camp foresaw something like this.  

Question for PBB now is should PBB just go over to PH wholesale given the critical nature of federal subsidies for Sarawak.   PH is weak in Muslim tribal areas so PH-PBB would be a good match.  Christian and Chinese parties like PRS SPDP SUPP would be a problem and might be left behind in a rump BN.