Ex-Bangi MP: KKB poll shows Pakatan made inroads with most groups except Malays

KUALA LUMPUR, May 14 — The Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition made the most gains among the early and postal (police, army personnel and civil servants), Orang Asli, and Indian voters in the recently concluded Kuala Kubu Baru by-election, said former Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming.

He said while PH experienced slight gains among the Chinese voters, it also experienced some losses among the Malay voters.

“The unity government coalition won more than 95 per cent of the Chinese votes, more than 70 per cent of the Indian and Orang Asli votes and more than 60 per cent of the early and postal voters while Perikatan Nasional (PN) won more than 80 per cent but less than 90 per cent of the Malay votes.

“In a 50 per cent Malay and 50 per cent non-Malay seat like Kuala Kubu Baru, it is not possible for PN to capture this seat if it relies only on the Malay votes.

“PN would have to win more than 90 per cent of the Malay votes to stand a chance of neutralising PH’s advantage among the non-Malay voters, which it is not able to achieve at this point,” he said in a statement today.

In Ong’s analysis of the by-election, he found that one of the key factors was the ability of each side to motivate their supporters to vote.

He said it was expected that the turnout rate would fall but what was not known was how much it would fall by and whether there would be any significant differentials in the turnout rate among different segment of voters.

Overall, Ong’s analysis found that voter turnout fell by 6.1 per cent from 67.6 per cent in 2023 state election to 61.5 per cent in the 2024 by-election.

“But the turnout rate fell by the most in the Malay majority areas (7.1 per cent).

“The turnout rate in the Chinese majority areas fell by 6.1 per cent while it fell by 6.5 per cent in the Indian majority areas.

“Surprisingly, the turnout rate in the Orang Asli areas increased by 12.6 per cent from 74.7 per cent in 2023 to 87.3 per cent in 2024,” he said.

Ong said PH clearly did a better job in getting out the vote in areas where it enjoyed strong support compared to PN.

He said PN was not successful in getting support from younger voters in the Malay majority areas.

This he said could be seen in the SK Bandar Baru Batang Kali polling centre(72 per cent Malay) located in Bandar Utama Batang Kali — one of the largest in the Kuala Kubu Baru state seat.

“The decrease in turnout was 23.1 per cent for the youngest polling stream compared to a decrease of only 6.0 per cent for the oldest polling stream.

“The youngest stream is also the where the PN made the largest gain in vote share (8.8 per cent),” One said.

As for the by-election’s significance, Ong said there clear winners and losers as well as some “in-between” cases.

“MCA proved themselves to be politically irrelevant because their boycotting of the campaign did not result in PH losing any traction among the Chinese voters.

“Gerakan also proved themselves to be ineffective in terms of its inability to hold on to this seat to contest under the PN ticket and for failing to win even 5 per cent of the Chinese vote as promised by its president, Datuk Dominic Lau.

“The Bersatu leaders, namely its president, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and PN Selangor chairman Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali were also exposed in their inability to run a compelling campaign,” he said.

Ong believed that the failure to run an effective campaign on Bersatu;s part led to its candidate, Khairul Azhari Saut, captured the headlines for all the wrong reasons – his academic credentials and rumours about this personal life.

In addition, Ong said Khairul failed to offer any compelling narrative on his vision for Kuala Kubu Baru despite being a local candidate.

“The candidate’s inability to showcase himself on social media or to make himself available to the media likely contributed to the poor outreach of PN to the younger voters especially among the Malay youths,” he said.

Similarly, he said former DAP leader P. Ramasamy also failed in his attempt to persuade the Indian voters in Kuala Kubu Baru to reject PH.

“While he still may have appeal among the Indian community at the national level, this does not seem to translate into influencing voting behaviour, at least not in this by-election,” Ong said.

As for PAS, he said the Islamist party could have been relatively muted in this campaign perhaps wanting to let Bersatu take the lead.

“It was hard to see how much more PAS could have done to mobilise the Malay votes especially given the quality of the PN candidate,” he said.

Although it was status quo in Kuala Kubu Baru, Ong said it has future implications for the national political landscape.

“For PH, the Kuala Kubu Baru by-election results may be interpreted as a vote of confidence for PH and the unity government and for business as usual to continue.

“This would be a mistake since the underlying dissatisfaction against the government among different segments of society are real and growing.

“Many of my colleagues in PH would remember the April 2007 Ijok by-elections that was won relatively comfortably by the BN candidate. Less than one year later, in March 2008, in the 13th general election, BN lost control of Selangor and of the two thirds majority in parliament,” he said.

The by-election results also should not be seen as Umno regaining its Malay support, Ong said.

“Umno would also be mistaken to think that the Malay vote has started to turn in its favour. The results in the Malay majority areas in Kuala Kubu Baru clearly proved otherwise.

“The party still lacks a coherent game plan on how it will win back the Malay vote especially among the Malay youth,” he said.

As for PN, Ong said it would also be mistaken to think that the current government’s popularity would allow it to easily win back power in 16th general election (GE16).

“While they definitely have the majority of Malay support nationally, it remains to be seen if this will be sufficient for them to win a majority of seats in Peninsular Malaysia, especially if some of the leadership challenges in Bersatu continues to weaken the ability of the party to campaign and present itself as a credible government in waiting.

“The battle is among the middle ground, especially the Malay middle ground which can be swayed by good leadership, good policies, and good implementation. There is a lot of runway before GE16 for all parties and their leaders to make the necessary adjustments to win this middle ground as a pathway to Putrajaya,” he said.

On Saturday, PH candidate Pang Sock Tao won the state seat with a 3,869-vote majority over PN’s Khairul Azhari Saut.