Does the Malay swing in the ‘Kajang vote’ spell doom for Umno?
(TMI) – The key and dominant Malay vote swung further to Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in the Kajang by-election last month, continuing a trend from the general election in 2008 that could spell doom for Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN) in the next general election, analysts and politicians say.
They told The Malaysian Insider that the March 23 by-election was held after the latest 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) initiative, but it did not stop the Malay votes from flowing further to PR, saying the economy had a hand in the swing.
PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail polled 16,779 out of the 28,314 votes cast in the by-election, obtaining 5,483 more votes than BN’s Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun, who received 11,296 votes.
The shift in Malay votes should cause some concern for Umno as it showed that Umno and Malay rights group Perkasa’s scare-mongering were not a major vote-getter in the polls, said analysts.
“Cost of living was an issue in Kajang. There was also a strong perception that BN was not doing enough to plug leakage and corruption,” said Pulai MP Datuk Nur Jazlan, who heads the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament.
The BR1M handouts of RM650 before the by-election, most of which went to low-income Malays, also failed to boost support, the Umno leader told The Malaysian Insider.
Umno Youth – which went all out to campaign in Kajang – also identified national issues, such as rising cost of living, economics, and housing as contributing factors that had turned off young voters in the Kajang by-election.
Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin said although the movement had reached out to as many young voters as possible, the rising cost of living had turned many young voters away.
He also said Kajang was a PKR stronghold in the past two general elections, although Selangor had been a BN fortress since the 1969 elections.
“We were at a disadvantage as they had chosen the place and time. And we had expected a drop in the number of young voters,” he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
A glance at the election data, said independent pollster Ibrahim Sufian, showed that PR managed to obtain a higher percentage of the Malay vote, from 36% in last May’s general election to 45% on March 23.
Malays make up 48% or about 16,103 of the 39,278 registered voters in Kajang.
Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, president of PKR and the candidate for the opposition coalition, celebrates after winning the Kajang by-election. Dr Wan Azizah polled 16,779 out of the 28,314 votes cast in the by-election, obtaining 5,483 more votes than BN’s Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun, who received 11,296 votes. – The Malaysian Insider pic, April 3, 2014.
Data from all 18 of Kajang’s voting districts (PDM) showed that Indian, Chinese and Malay voters under 40 had overwhelmingly chosen PR, said Ibrahim of the Merdeka Center.
Parallel to trends of the centre’s survey in December last year, Ibrahim said support for BN went down because of the rise in the price of goods and services since last September’s cuts to fuel and sugar subsidies.
Figures released by the Statistics Department recently showed that the cost of living, as measured through the consumer price index, has gone up to 3.5% last month.
It was 3.4% in January and 3.2% in December.
In February, University of Malaya’s Centre for Democracy & Elections released a survey showing that 69% of Kajang voters would likely vote for PR because of higher inflation.
“Voters were totally influenced by the opposition’s campaign on that the federal government is not doing anything about corruption,” Nur Jazlan said.
Many of the increased Malay votes, said Ibrahim, came from fence-sitters who voted for PR to protest against the high cost of goods and rising crime.
Former Kajang assemblyman Lee Kim Sin of PKR estimated that about 40% of the Malay population were fence-sitters. In other words, salaried, middle-class professionals, who are wired to the Internet and independent-minded.
“They judge which candidate or which party performs better. There are not that many hardcore Umno voters in Kajang because Umno itself does not have a strong presence,” said Lee, who won by 3,000 votes in 2008.
This is because Kajang has traditionally been an MCA seat.
While Pakatan did get more support from the Malays, Ibrahim said BN saw a decrease in support from its traditional voters.
“Strong Umno supporters who voted for the BN in the last general election did not come out to vote at all this time,” said Ibrahim.
This trend was picked up on earlier by PR and BN activists. Umno supporters in Kajang supposedly did not feel comfortable voting for BN’s Chinese candidate over Pakatan’s Malay candidate.
Pakatan Rakyat supporters outside SJKC Sungai Chua during polling day on March 23, 2014. Former Kajang assemblyman Lee Kim Sin of PKR estimated that about 40% of the Malay population were fence-sitters. In other words, salaried, middle-class professionals, who are wired to the Internet and independent-minded. – The Malaysian Insider pic, April 3, 2014.This was why one of the nastiest (and confusing) anti-Dr Wan Azizah leaflets given out in mosques during the campaign period ended with a message that attacked her ethnicity.
Its main audience was Malays in the suburbs of Sungai Sekamat, Kampung Bukit Dukung, Taman Mesra and Taman Delima.
The leaflets were also seen in Sungai Kantan, an old neighbourhood of active and retired senior civil servants.
These were where more than 70% of the Malay voting populace of Kajang live and who have traditionally backed Umno and BN.
In one of those warped twists of Malaysian race politics, the leaflet asked their Malay readers to back a Chinese candidate who is endorsed by Umno, over the PR candidate who is Malay.
