Sabah midterm elections - Sept 26 2020

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

GE 15 in November or early December?

[jaichind]

Malaysiakini calls so far

WARISAN-PH    20 (WARISAN 13, DAP 6, PKR 1)
GPS                 37 (UMNO 15, PPBM 10, PBS 6, STAR 6)
IND                   3 (1 UPKO rebel, 1 PKR rebel, 1 UMNO rebel)
USNO                1 (de facto UMNO splinter)

Within GPS it is PN 16 (PPBM 10 STAR 6) BN 15 (UMNO 15) PBS 6.  It will be a fun battle to see which bloc will get the CM PN or BN.

[jaichind]

GE 15 in November or early December?

Muhyiddin will still need to leverage this to get a fair seat sharing deal for PPBM for an election to go ahead.  One thing is for sure, this assembly election result shows that as long as PPBM UMNO PAS forms an alliance they will get a majority and a large one. 

As mentioned before, there are signs that UMNO and PAS are running into trouble in seat sharing talks.  UMNO vs PAS In Kelantan, Kedah, and Terengganu, PAS is demanding that UMNO stand down from seats that PAS won in 2018.  UMNO seems to refuse to do so mainly because the UMNO branches in those states will revolt if UMNO agreed to this.  PPBM is backing PAS.  If Muhyiddin can leverage this victory to get from PPBM seat allocation that will create more problems within UMNO.

[jaichind]

Malaysiakini calls so far

WARISAN-PH    22 (WARISAN 15, DAP 6, PKR 1)
GPS                 37 (UMNO 15, PPBM 10, PBS 6, STAR 6)
IND                   2 (1 UPKO rebel, 1 PKR rebel)
USNO                1 (de facto UMNO splinter)

[jaichind]

UPKO getting zero seats so far out of 12 contested shows how the Christian Tribal vote which was splintered in 2018 but leaned WARISAN-PH is now still splintered but clearly shifted in favor of GPS.  WARISAN lost a couple of seats to UMNO but the main swing here is in Christian Tribal seats which the STAR vote has consolidated behind GPS made a big difference.

[jaichind]

Malaysiakini calls so far

Latest calls in favor of WARISAN-PH but narrow GPS majority is clearly there

WARISAN-PH    29 (WARISAN 21, DAP 6, PKR 1, UPKO 1)
GPS                 36 (UMNO 14, PPBM 10, PBS 6, STAR 6)
IND                   3 (1 UPKO rebel, 1 PKR rebel, 1 UMNO rebel)
USNO                1 (de facto UMNO splinter)

4 seats still uncalled.

[Joseph Cao]

For some reason this thread has missed my notice. The definite trend out of this election has been the unexpected collapse of UPKO and lightning in a bottle for STAR; WARISAN and DAP performed very well but UPKO was the weakest link in the coalition. Sabah PKR has also struggled unexpectedly, so far winning only one seat out of seven contested.

According to Zahid Hamidi's Facebook page, the UMNO president says the decision on a chief minister is to be left to Sabah parties to decide, but also insists that the party with the most seats should be chosen to lead the state. Fairly overt support for Sabah UMNO bigwig (and foul-mouthed bigot) Bung Mokhtar to become the state's new leader over PPBM's Hajiji Mohd Noor.

[jaichind]

Malaysiakini calls so far

WARISAN-PH    30 (WARISAN 22, DAP 6, PKR 1, UPKO 1)
GPS                 38 (UMNO 15, PPBM 10, PBS 7, STAR 6)
IND                   3 (1 UPKO rebel, 1 PKR rebel, 1 UMNO rebel)
USNO                1 (de facto UMNO splinter)

2 seats left to call

[jaichind]

One would have thought that GPS not projecting a CM candidate would have hurt them.  In this case it did not.   It seems running on PM Muhyiddin's brand given positive perceptions of his success in dealing with COVID-19 crisis did the business for GPS.

[jaichind]

Malaysiakini called all the seats

WARISAN-PH    32 (WARISAN 23, DAP 6, PKR 2, UPKO 1)
GPS                 38 (UMNO 15, PPBM 10, PBS 7, STAR 6)
IND                   3 (1 UPKO rebel, 1 PKR rebel, 1 UMNO rebel)

Not all of them are official but this looks like pretty much it. 
WARISAN kept its Muslim tribal base and DAP kept its Chinese base.  It was PKR and UPKO that lost the Christian tribal vote leading to this narrow defeat.

[jaichind]

Symbolic of the UPKO collapse UPKO President and current MP Wilfred Madius Tangau lost his seat to the PBS incumbent by a fairly large margin.

[jaichind]

Contested and won by party/bloc for the two main blocs

                                  Contest         Win
WARISAN+ bloc            
  WARISAN                    46             23
  UPKO                          12              1
  PKR                             7               2
  DAP                             7               6
  AMANAH                      1               0

GPS
  BN                           41              14
    UMNO                      32              14
    PBRS                         5                0
    MCA                          4                0
  PN                           29              17
    PPBM                       19              11
    STAR                         8                6
    SAPP                         2                0
  PBS                          22               7

STAR and PPBM really outperformed.  8 out of the 19 PPBM candidates were UMNO defectors which gave them a good candidate quality lead.  4 out of the 8 STAR candidates are incumbents with 2 elected in 2018 as STAR and the 2 other defectors (1 from UPKO and 1 from PBRS).  Most of the 32 UMNO candidates are not incumbents the the results showed.

WARISAN  mostly kept is base.  It is, as explained before, it is UPKO and PKR underperforming in Christian Tribal seats that led to WARISAN-PH defeat.

[jaichind]

I was able to compute the vote share.  It turns out WARISAN-PH actually edged out GPS in terms of vote share 43.42% to 43.22%.

                       Contest       Win       Vote share     Vote share (seat contested)
WARISAN-PH       73            32             43.42%               43.42%
  WARISAN            46            23             25.54%               42.83%
  UPKO                  12              1              4.03%                26.37%
  PKR                      7              2              3.88%                35.99%
  DAP                      7              6              9.50%                72.51%
  AMANAH               1              0              0.47%                39.09%

WARISAN rebel       3              0              0.49%                 12.22%
PKR rebel               3              1              0.80%                 16.89%
UPKO rebel             1              1              0.38%                 39.11%

GPS                                   38             43.22%
   BN                  41            14             19.28%               35.87%
      UMNO            32            14              16.73%              42.12%
      PBRS               5              0                1.32%              19.68%
      MCA                4              0                1.22%              16.77%
   PN                  29            17              17.11%              42.20%
      PPBM             18            11              11.81%              47.33%
      STAR               8             6                4.87%               40.37%
      SAPP               2             0                0.43%               12.19%
   PBS                22             7                6.83%                 20.77%

UMNO rebel          4              1                1.47%                27.40%
PBS rebel             3              0                0.63%                18.80%

PCS                   73              0                3.98%                  3.98%

USNO                46              0                1.19%                  1.96%

LDP                   46              0                1.70%                  2.49%

PHRS                   5              0               0.60%                  9.16%

USNO is a UMNO splinter and LDP was part of BN so USNO and LDP most likely took more votes away from GPS.  PCS and PHRS are opposition splinters and most likely took votes from WARISAN-PH.

The main reason why WARISAN-PH won the popular vote but lost the election WITH GPS running multiple candidates in a bunch seats which would splinter the GPS vote some more has to do with the massive DAP wins in Chinese districts which padded the vote share but did not do much to add more seats.  

In all the districts (mostly Christian tribal areas) where GPS ran multiple candidates none of them led to GPS losing a seat they should have won with both STAR and PBS being able to eat into the UPKO and PKR Christian tribal vote.   In one district a WARISAN rebel cost WARISAN a seat but other than that rebels and "friendly fights" within GPS did not seem to have made a difference in seat results.

As mentioned before UPKO winning only 26.37% in seats it contested is a disaster even if a bunch of those had multiple GPS candidate.  PPBM at  47.40% vote share in seats it contested showed off its strength with the various 2018 UMNO incumbents that defected to PPBM.

So WARISAN-PH narrow defeat can be explained by
1) Poor performance in Christian tribal areas by UPKO and PKR
2) GPS successfully prevented vote splits from costing them seats
3) PCS running everywhere and ate into the anti-UMNO vote across the board

[jaichind]

The 3 independents have pledged to support GPS taking their number up to 41.  So now the only thing stopping a new CM to be installed is for GPS to actually agree to a common CM.   It comes down to PPBM leader Hajiji  vs UMNO leader Bung.  On paper  Hajiji  should have the numbers edge as PN has 17 MLA and the 3 independents seems to lean toward PN while UMNO has 14.  Of course PBS with its 7 MLAs will be the real tiebreaker. 

[jaichind]

It seems GPS could not agree on a CM candidate between PPBM leader Hajiji Noor  vs UMNO leader Bung Moktar Radin.  Instead of working it out it seems  has instead asked Sabah's governor Juhar Mahiruddin to decide between the two candidates for the post.   

[jaichind]

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/malaysia-ruling-partys-pick-for-sabah-minister-could-fray-ties

GPS selects PPBM leader Hajiji Noor to be the new CM.  It seems PBS swung behind him allowing him to beat out UMNO leader Bung Moktar Radin.  PPBM PM Muhyiddin must have played a factor as well. So yet again UMNO loses out to PPBM which it sees as a minor UMNO splinter which could raise tensions between PPBM and UMNO.  Note that each one of the 4 GPS parties (UMNO, PPBM, PBS, STAR)  could bring down the GPS government by flipping to  WARISAN-PH.  PPBM wins round one.  There seems plenty of games to be played in the future in Sabah.

[jaichind]

If you take the top GPS vote winner in each district and sum them up you get an effective GPS vote share of 39.65% versus 43.42% for WARISAN-PH.  This makes more stark the vote share seat share disparity between GPS (38 seats) and WARISAN-PH (32 seats.)

Part of the reasons are massive DAP landslides in Chinese districts with a lot of wasted votes.  Part of it are seat size disparities.  The average number of voters largest 7 seats is 3.2 times bigger than the average number of voters in the smallest 7 seats.   There was a district re-delineation since 2018 which added 13 seats to make the total number of seats 73 but did not address this vote share disparity. 

One can argue the  largest 7 seats should really be split into 2 seats each to help with this disparity which would make the top 7/bottom 7 disparity fall to something like 2.4.  The largest 7 seats winners are (4 DAP, 1 PKR, 1 WARISAN, 1 UMNO).  If this was done then WARISAN-PH would have gained 6 extra seats and GPS 1 which would have pretty much close the seat gap between the two blocs.

[jaichind]

PPBM CM Hajiji Noor has selected 3 DCM, 1 each from PPBM, PBS and STAR.  I think PBS will be threatened by the elevation of STAR to be its equal.  Just like UMNO views PPBM as a minor UMNO splinter PBS views STAR as a minor PBS splinter.  It is not clear how this ruling structure will last before another crisis and potentially another change of government through realignment.