THE first major electoral test for Pakatan Harapan (PH) is to win the Cameron Highlands by-election, despite the many challenges.

The Cameron Highlands by-election campaign, which kicks off today, will be the first major electoral test for PH since the 14th general election. This is the first by-election in a seat won by Barisan Nasional in GE14, albeit by a small margin of 597 votes.

Even though PH now holds power at the federal level, we cannot assume that this power will translate into more support on January 26, the polling day for this by-election, as new expectations and challenges come with new powers and responsibilities.

Trends from past four by-elections

Prior to Cameron Highlands, there were four by-elections since GE14 – three at the state level in Selangor, and one at the parliamentary level in Negri Sembilan. As expected, turnout in all four by-elections dropped significantly by an average of 37%, compared with GE14. With the decrease in dropouts, the margin of victory (the majority) of the winning candidate (all PH candidates) also dropped.

Despite the drop in turnout, the support for PH increased in each of the by-elections – N49 Sungai Kandis (+5.8%), N27 Balakong (+7.5%), P132 Port Dickson (+12.2%) – with the exception of N32 Seri Setia, where support for PH fell by 7.6%.

Profile of the Cameron Highlands seat

In GE14, the number of voters in this Parliament seat was 32048, with 362 postal voters and 219 early voters. Cameron Highlands is probably the most ethnically diverse seat in Malaysia, as no single community represents more than 40% of voters – 33.7% Malay, 29.5% Chinese, 14.9% Indian, and 21.9% Orang Asli and others.

According to the most recent electoral roll, the number of voters for the by-elections has dropped slightly to 32,008.

There are a total of 29 polling districts (“tempat mengundi”) in Cameron Highlands. 17 polling districts are in the state seat of Tanah Rata (held by DAP) while 12 are in the state seat of Jelai (held by the Umno menteri besar of Pahang).

Seven of these polling districts are Malay-majority (all of which are in Jelai) with an average of 93% Malay voters and a total of 8570 voters. Five of these polling districts are Chinese-majority (all of which are in Tanah Rata) with an average of 79.9% Chinese voters and a total of 8295 voters. Five of these polling districts are Indian-majority (all of which are in Tanah Rata) with an average of 59.9% Indian voters and a total of 2613 voters. Nine polling districts are Orang Asli-majority (four in Tanah Rata and five in Jelai) with an average of 91% Orang Asli voters and a total of 5642 voters. Finally, there are three mixed polling districts (all in Tanah Rata) where no one community comprises more than 50% of voters and the total number of voters is 6888.

Given the diversity of the voter profile in Cameron Highlands, the campaigns to be employed by the respective parties will also require diverse approaches.

Voting in GE14

In GE14, BN won 41% of the vote (10,307 votes) with PH close behind at 38.6% (9,710 votes). PAS managed to win 14.3% of votes (3,587 votes) while PSM (680 votes with 2.7% support) and Berjasa (0.3% votes) hardly made a dent. BN’s majority was very small at 597 votes or 2.4% of total votes.

When we examine the breakdown of support for PH by category of polling stations, the results are not that surprising.

In the seven Malay-majority polling districts, PH only managed to win 9% of the total votes. What is interesting to note is that PAS was neck-to-neck with BN in these polling districts with 41.9% of the vote compared with 46.9% for BN. In the Bukit Kota, Kg Keledek and Felda Sg Koyan Satu polling districts, PAS actually had more support than BN. Given the close cooperation between PAS and BN, it may not be so easy for PH to win over a significant proportion of these Malay voters.

PH’s performance in the nine Orang Asli polling districts was not much better. PH only managed to win 10.1% of the votes in these seats. BN won 74% of total votes in these nine Orang Asli-majority polling districts. PAS won even less than PH (2.7%) and PSM (4.1%) in these polling districts. Increasing support among the OAs will be key to increasing the chances for PH to win this seat.

Unsurprisingly, PH’s support was the highest in the five Chinese-majority polling districts. PH won 76.9% of the total votes in these polling districts compared to 18.1% for BN. Both PSM and PAS won less than 2% of total votes in these polling districts.

In the five Indian-majority polling districts, PH managed to win 61.4% of total votes compared to 26.8% for BN. PSM performed their best in these polling districts, winning 7.2% of total votes, more than the 2.1% won by PAS.

In the three ethnically “mixed” PDs, PH won 50.9% of total votes compared with 33.9% won by BN, 8.3% won by PAS and 4.8% won by PSM.

Finally, for early and postal votes, PH only won 7.8% of the total votes compared with 72.3% for BN and 11.3% for PAS.

Turnout in GE14

Turnout in the Orang Asli areas in GE14 was the highest among all the polling station types at 84.1% followed by the turnout in the Chinese-majority PDs (80.7%), the Malay-majority polling districts (79.9%), and the mixed polling districts (67.9%).

While turnout will definitely decrease in the upcoming by-election, the degree of the decrease among the different polling districts will be different. The Orang Asli turnout will likely decrease the least since the percentage of Orang Asli voters living in their respective polling districts is the highest among all the communities. The Chinese turnout will likely fall more since more of these voters are outstation voters and are hence less likely to come back to vote for a by-election.

Challenges for PH in the by-election

The challenges for PH in the upcoming campaign are numerous. First, we have to minimise the drop in turnout rate, especially among our core supporters. I am reminded of the 2014 Teluk Intan by-election, where turnout dropped from 80.4% in GE13 to 67.4%. As a result, a majority of 7,313 for DAP in GE13 turned into a loss of 258 votes in the 2014 by-election. The drop in turnout rate is also linked to the related challenge of maintaining support among core PH supporters.

The second challenge faced by PH is retaining as much support as we can among our core supporters, which in GE14 were the Chinese and Indian voters. Given that PH has not been able to immediately meet the high expectations of these communities post-GE14 for some of the manifesto promises, we expect support for PH among Chinese voters to decrease.

The floor for Chinese support cannot not fall below 70%. There may be more room to increase PH support among the Indian voters to as much as 70% as a result of a weakened MIC and the decision by MIC to concede this seat.

The third challenge for PH is to increase support among the Orang Asli and Malay voters from a dismal base of approximately 10%. With fewer restrictions in campaigning in Orang Asli and Malay-majority areas, PH should be able to increase its support among these communities. However, how much of an increase that can be achieved is still anyone’s guess. Some Orang Asli people may still think that BN is still the federal government. Some Orang Asli may choose to abstain from voting because they don’t want to get in the crossfire between the PH federal government and the BN state governments. The choice of a Muslim Orang Asli and former high-ranking police officer as a candidate may also put a limit to how much support PH can increase among the Malay and Orang Asli voters. Even getting PAS supporters to switch to PH may be challenging especially since PAS has said that they will work to support the BN candidate. The by-election in Sg Kandis in August 2018 showed that Umno was able to gain a significant proportion of PAS support, thereby limiting the increase in the level of PH support among the Malay voters.

The fourth challenge for PH is to fulfil the demands of the key voting blocs via government policy. These include the demand for more foreign workers among the vegetable farmers, cleaning up the environment among local residents and having more inclusive development policies for the Orang Asli, just to name a few examples. PH could blame the BN government in the past for the lack of political will to carry out some of these much-needed policies, but the ball is now in PH’s court in terms of delivery.

The fifth and final challenge for PH is to campaign in such a manner as to not be seen as abusing government resources in the same way that BN used to do when it held power at the federal level. This will be tricky since the presence of the PH federal government must be felt in this by-election, especially in the Malay and OA majority areas, but at the same time, there will be a much higher level of public scrutiny, including from the press, the Election Commission, and the civil society groups to monitor the activities of PH leaders, probably more so compared with BN leaders.

Not only must PH attempt to live up to the standards that the public demands, it must also face the pressures of competing against a BN state government that has less compunction about abusing state government resources. It won’t be easy to resist the temptation to invite the PH candidate to appear in federal government events especially during the heat of the campaign when many programs will inevitably be organised in different areas in Cameron Highlands.

Targets for the by-election

Winning this by-election is difficult but not impossible. If PH can hit the following by-election targets, chances are there for PH to eke out a victory. These targets include:

• Not letting turnout drop below 55%, especially among key PH supporters
• Achieving at least 70% of Chinese and Indian support
• Increasing Malay and OA support from approximately 10% to at least 30%
• Increasing early and postal voter support from approximately 10% to 40%

If PH wins this crucial by-election, this would be a serious setback for BN, one which perhaps it cannot recover from. The hard work has already begun. The official campaign will begin tomorrow in the most closely watched by-election since GE14.

* Ong Kian Ming is the member of parliament for Bangi and assistant national director for political education for the Democratic Action Party (DAP).