IN the run-up to polling day on May 9, Najib Razak and his Umno ministers were certain of victory.

They said they felt less palpable anger and angst from the average Malaysian compared with five years ago. There was also less bellyaching from party members and supporters about the goods and services tax (GST) and cost of living issues that were being played up by Pakatan Harapan (PH).

Imagine their shock when senior Umno leaders were not only defeated, but trounced on polling day, losing stronghold constituencies by thousands of votes.

Najib and Umno had fallen victim to the spiral of silence, Ibrahim Suffian of Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research told Malaysia Decides.

This idea explains a tendency of people to keep silent for fear of facing isolation and retribution. In Felda settlements, they may have kept quiet for fear of being shunned and ostracised by other settlers.

In the case of civil servants and traditional supporters, indicating that they were against Najib or that they had become fed-up with the ruling party or their local candidate may have invited isolation and even worse, threat of a demotion.

So instead of speaking up, they kept silent but were determined to vote against Umno.

Najib and his ministers mistook this silence for support.

‎An initial analysis of GE14 results shows that the protest vote by Umno supporters and revolt against the GST caused Barisan Nasional’s downfall.

The protest vote that swung in the final three days of the campaign was distributed between PAS and PH, depending on the dominant political entity in a particular area.

“The protest votes in the east coast (Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang) and Kedah went to PAS while the west coast protest votes went to PH,” said Ibrahim.

“The Putrajaya seat is an example, where out of its 97% Malay and civil service votes, BN only received 49.5% while PH had 36.7% and PAS 14.8%.”

Ibrahim said PH and PAS also snared 26 Felda parliamentary seats compared with only four in 2013.

The pollster said early numbers also showed that support for BN declined by 10% among police personnel and 20% among armed forces personnel.

Ibrahim said at a forum yesterday the overall popular vote for BN dropped from 47.3% in GE13 to 31.7%.

He said that Malay support for BN dropped from 44.3% in 2013 to 35%-40% and Indian support dropped from 41.3% to 20%-25%. Chinese support for BN was only estimated to be around 5% (15.8% in 2013).

Islamist party PAS had also increased its Malay vote share from 28.1% to 30%-33% while its non-Malay vote was around 5%. Overall, PAS had 19.4% of the popular vote.

In contrast, PH won 48.7% of the popular, with strong support across all the major race groups.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his comrades from Bersatu, DAP, Amanah and PKR won 30% of the Malay vote, 95% of the Chinese vote and 75% of the Indian vote. – May 14, 2018.