WHILE the Sabah and Malacca elections are similar in that both were called after their state assemblies were dissolved because the chief ministers, Mohd Shafie Apdal and Sulaiman Md Ali had lost majority support, Malacca will be a vastly different contest from Sabah.

In terms of significance to the national political landscape, the Malacca polls on November 20 will be a fight for dominance among Malay parties, the chief rivals being Umno and Bersatu, and to a lesser extent, PAS.

This scenario has come about following the Sabah elections in September last year, and a year of rocky politics as then prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s Perikatan Nasional (PN) government plodded through a Covid-19 emergency while staving off attempts by Umno to unseat him, until it finally did.

In Sabah, the battle was divided between winning the Dayak and Muslim votes on the west coast and interiors and gaining support from the east coast Suluks. Allies PN and Barisan Nasional (BN) won just enough on the west and interior to break the east coast-based Warisan and its urban allies Pakatan Harapan.

However, in Malacca, both PN and BN will be aiming to win the 19 Malay-majority seats. Winning these is important to both sides as it is an indicator of their performance in the 100-110 Malay-majority federal seats in Peninsular Malaysia, come the 15th general election.

And winning in Malacca will also be symbolic of winning Malay hearts, as although the second smallest state is not considered a “Malay” state (in comparison to Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu) anymore, it is nevertheless the bedrock of the Malay monarchy system. It is from Malacca that the Johor, Perak, Selangor and Pahang monarchies get their roots from.

Sabah scenario

In the Sabah elections in September last year, Bersatu and Umno were newlyweds, seeking to wrest the state from Parti Warisan Sabah.

The Umno-led BN was given 40 out of 79 Sabah seats to contest, sparking hope for BN that it could again lead the state.

Bersatu-led PN, meanwhile, contested 29 seats, while non-aligned PBS was given 10. BN felt assured that it would finish with the most number of seats.

But BN had not factored in Bersatu-PN’s strategy of fielding “additional” candidates in the Umno seats, causing multi-cornered fights, despite Bersatu and Umno being allies in government.

As a result, Umno-BN only managed to win 14 seats, three more than Bersatu. But Bersatu had the upper hand because of its strategy to partner with PBS, independents and other parties, allowing them to finish with a total of 24 seats.

PN was able to seize Sabah not just from Warisan, but also prevent it from falling to BN. It was later revealed that PN’s “additional candidates” allowed them to win eight seats from BN.

In revenge for the betrayal, Umno slowly chipped away support for PN chief and then prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who had only a slim majority in Parliament to begin with.

Muhyiddin resigned in August this year and was replaced by Umno’s Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

Which Malay party will win?

The Sabah episode sets the background for an intriguing battle in Malacca between Muhyiddin’s PN and the Umno-led BN for Malay votes.

For Umno and president Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, this is a do-or-die mission especially after the Sabah betrayal last year.

In March, Zahid led Umno to decide not to cooperate with Bersatu anymore, and in August, led enough MPs to withdraw support for Muhyiddin eventually forcing his resignation.

The Malacca election is Umno and Zahid’s chance to prove that they can win in Peninsular Malaysia without Bersatu and PAS.

He will have to prove that Umno can at least regain 13 of the 28 state seats it won in the 2018 general election.

That year, BN won 13 seats (46.43% popular vote) while Pakatan Harapan won 15 in the 28-seat state assembly.

In the state election before that, in 2013,  BN had 21 of the 28 seats with 53.4% of the popular vote.

This time, the stakes are also high for PN as Muhyiddin’s Bersatu will be fighting on its own merits for the first time, having dumped Pakatan last year.

In 2018, Bersatu had the support of Pakatan’s non-Malay votes, their well-oiled election machinery and Dr Mahathir Mohamad behind them. It will not have any of this now.

PN’s success in Sabah is also not an accurate benchmark as most of the Bersatu candidates that won had originated from Umno. Borneo voter-candidate dynamics are also very different from Peninsular Malaysia.

Sabah voters, for instance, have a stronger affinity with the candidates than the parties and hence the likes of Hajiji Noor and Masidi Manjun were able to defend their seats easily regardless of whether they contested under BN or Perikatan.

In Malacca, PN will have to rely solely on Muhyiddin’s popularity as prime minister for 16 months. Bearing in mind, too, that voters will also see him as the prime minister who presided over the longest lockdown in Malaysia, the highest number of Covid-19 infections and deaths, a questionable emergency proclamation and the tag of “betraying” Pakatan, which won the federal elections in 2018.

A more realistic bet for PN is the Islamist party, PAS, with its base of staunch supporters. But PAS has only ever won one seat in Malacca, and that was in 2013, when it was backed by Pakatan Rakyat.

PH’s problem

While PN and BN battle for Malay supremacy, Pakatan Harapan, which won in 2018, will have its own challenges.

Prior to 2018, its best show in the state was in 2013 when it won seven seats under the Pakatan Rakyat banner. But after it partnered Bersatu and Dr Mahathir, the group picked up an additional eight seats in 2018.

While the coalition is almost guaranteed the non-Malay votes, it will be interesting to see how it will fare with Malay voters without Dr Mahathir and Bersatu. More so since Pakatan will be contesting under its own logo for the first time, instead of the PKR, DAP and Amanah logos which are more familiar to constituents.

This is also the first time Pakatan will be facing a state election led by chairman Anwar Ibrahim who will want to repair his prime minister-in-waiting credentials before the next general election.

Anwar has twice failed to become prime minister in September 2020 and August 2021, despite declaring that he “has the numbers”.

All this occurs against the backdrop of a Covid-19 pandemic. Malacca has reported an average of 34 infections per 10,000 people in the last two weeks. – November 5, 2021.