PAKATAN Harapan (PH) faces the risk of losing several seats if it fails to regain the confidence of Malay electorates who voted for the coalition in 2018, analysts said.

They said these people had voted for PH previously due to the influence of Bersatu, which is now part of Perikatan Nasional (PN).

They added that to overcome the loss of the Malay votes, PH must attract more non-Malay voters and convince fence-sitters to come to their side.

Ilham Centre executive director Hisommudin Bakar said he expects the opposition coalition to lose seats in mixed areas, especially the suburban seats.

“PH will be affected in mixed areas, indeed the trend in the Malacca and Johor elections clearly showed that they have lost their grip in those areas,” said Hisomuddin.

In the 2018 general election, think tanks estimated that PH received the support of about 20% of Malay voters, which was contributed by the participation of Bersatu and Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

It thus allowed the coalition to create history by defeating Barisan Nasional (BN) and forming a government in Putrajaya.

However, the administration was only able to last 22 months when Bersatu, led by its president Muhyiddin Yassin, pulled his party out of the PH coalition.

Hisommudin said Bersatu’s action caused PH to lose the support of the Malay electorates who once voted for them.

“Whether it is the support of Bersatu or the Dr Mahathir factor, the Malay support that was for PH in the last election is no longer there.

“This shift means PH will not get enough votes from the Malay segment to obtain status quo equal to that of the 2018 general election. That is obvious,” he said.

At the same time, its component parties such as PKR and Amanah are unable to attract the support of the Malays the way Bersatu did, he said.

Although PH is able to attract the support of non-Malay voters, Hisommudin sees the situation becoming more difficult for the coalition if voters refuse to go out and cast their ballot was seen in the Malacca and Johor polls.

“The issue is, apart from the Malay vote, PH also depends on the non-Malay votes. Although the situation may be different in the next general election, the pattern of non-Malay votes is that they did not turn out at recent state polls as much as they did in 2018.

“Even if the non-Malay vote is in favour of PH, it is not enough (to make up for the loss of) the Malay vote, especially in the Malay areas were dependent on Bersatu to pull in the votes,” he added.

Hisommudin also said PH’s effort in exposing the government’s scandals have not impacted Malay voters, especially in rural areas, due to the narrative that was difficult to understand.

It is different from the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) issue because Dr Mahathir’s explanation of the scandal managed to capture the understanding of the Malays with a simple narrative.

“The current issues have so far not reached the Malays, the opposition leader has yet to come forward with an easy-to-understand narrative in line with the thinking of the majority (Malays).”

Besides, it is also not enough for PH to leverage on current scandals to gain the support of people in urban areas who are already critical towards the government, said Hisommudin.

“For them, PH has been the government, and it is not enough for them to just be exposing scandals. The people expect more.

“They also questioned why these issues were not raised when PH was in government. Why it was only raised today? They want a solution if PH becomes the government,” he said.

Winning the fence-sitters over

Researcher Mazlan Ali, on the other hand, was of the view that hardline Malay voters are still PH supporters are only around 10% of the total electorate.

“It seems that for next general election, PH will no longer get (the support of Malay voters) like it did in 2018,” he said.

The senior lecturer at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) insisted that PH must gain the support of fence-sitters if it wants to retain the seats it had won in the last polls.

“PH’s hope now is the fence-sitters, they can’t expect votes from the hardcore Malay. They can only expect support from fence-sitters. That’s all they can hope for.

“The PH vote bank is not comparable to that of the last general election. Their strategy of attracting fence-sitters may be their only saving grace. There is only that opportunity because voter fatigue is still felt and that gives BN an advantage.

“(However) if the voter turnout for PH is more than 80%, BN can lose,” he said.

Mazlan, however, sees current issues such as the littoral combat ship (LCS) scandal possibly giving PH an advantage.

“Issues and scandals benefit PH but it all depends on Rafizi’s strategy, if it is successful, PH may have an advantage,” he said, referring to PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli.

Rafizi, along with several PKR leaders, are now actively running the Ayuh Malaysia campaign across the country to target fence-sitters who once voted for PH.

The former Pandan MP said PH only needed to control about 30% of the 62% of fence-sitters to allow the coalition to return to Putrajaya.

Apart from BN and PN, a new Malay bloc led by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, called Gerakan Tanah Air (GTA), has also emerged.

This new coalition, which includes small Malay parties and Malay civil society groups, will further split the number of Malay votes and create a multi-cornered fight, said Universiti Malaya political analyst Awang Azman Awang Pawi.

“This will result in the Malay votes to be less dominant but in the end the real fight will be between PH and BN,” he said. – August 20, 2022.