Pakatan expected to retain most of its parliamentary seats in Penang this GE15, say analysts
GEORGE TOWN, Oct 21 — Pakatan Harapan (PH), especially DAP, is expected to retain most of its parliamentary seats in Penang this general election.
Even as the state has decided not to hold state polls concurrently with the 15th general election (GE15), sentiments among Penang voters are expected to continue to favour PH candidates over Barisan Nasional (BN) or Perikatan Nasional (PN).
There are a total of 13 parliamentary seats in Penang where DAP held seven seats, PKR four, BN one and PN one.
Penang, both state and parliamentary seats, is expected to remain a stronghold for PH with little possibility for component parties like MCA, MIC or Gerakan to wedge even a slight inroad into any of the seats held by DAP.
“So far I think PH can maintain all parliamentary seats and try to capture all BN seats too,” said Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) Associate Professor Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani.
He said BN will be eyeing to recapture Balik Pulau and retain its Kepala Batas and Tasek Gelugor seats that it won in 2018.
BN won the Tasek Gelugor seat with a slim majority of 81 votes but the MP Datuk Shabudin Yahaya, who had held the seat since the 13th general election, left BN to become an independent MP before joining PPBM in 2019.
Balik Pulau is far from a safe seat for PKR as the constituents were known to vote for the candidates instead of the party they represent.
The seat was traditionally a BN seat until 2008 when PKR’s Mohd Yusmadi Mohd Yusoff won the seat after BN made the mistake of fielding a new face instead of a known Umno personality in the constituency and the incumbent at that time, Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahaya.
In 2013, Dr Hilmi was fielded in the seat against PKR’s Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik and the former managed to wrest the seat back to BN with a majority of 1,539 votes.
However, when the two came face to face again in 2018, Muhammad Bakhtiar won the seat with a majority of 6,464 votes and this led to Dr Hilmi announcing his retirement from politics and resigning from Umno.
Mohd Azizuddin said Balik Pulau will be a shaky seat for PKR, while both Kepala Batas and Tasek Gelugor will be also be shaky for BN.
“DAP is strong in all the seats they won previously,” he said.
Senior Fellow of Singapore Institute of International Affairs Oh Ei Sun concurred that MCA from BN and Gerakan from PN will not be able to wrest any of the seven seats from DAP in Penang.
However, he believed that Umno is likely to retain Kepala Batas and recapture Tasek Gelugor with increased majorities.
“Penang is perhaps not immune from the major backflow of Malay votes to Umno,” he said.
He said the backflow of support for Umno may even affect PKR seats especially if non-Malay voters are reluctant to come out to vote.
He believed many non-Malay voters were traumatised by the Sheraton Move that caused the downfall of the PH federal government, so they were reluctant to vote this time around.
“So in those constituencies where Chinese votes are pivotal, PKR would suffer, what more with the backflow of Malay votes to Umno,” he said.
He said PKR seats will likely be the hot seats to observe in Penang.
The PKR parliamentary seats in Penang are Permatang Pauh, Bayan Baru, Nibong Tebal and Balik Pulau.
