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So Close and Yet So Far: Strategies inthe 13th Malaysian ElectionsJames China

a Monash University, MalaysiaPublished online: 07 Nov 2013.

To cite this article: James Chin (2013) So Close and Yet So Far: Strategies in the 13th MalaysianElections, The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 102:6, 533-540,DOI: 10.1080/00358533.2013.857145

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So Close and Yet So Far: Strategies in the13th Malaysian Elections

JAMES CHINMonash University, Malaysia

ABSTRACT This article examines the strategies employed by the ruling coalition, BarisanNasional (or National Front), and the opposition alliance, Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance), inthe 13th general election held in Malaysia in May 2013. It argues that while the opposition usedthe right strategy for the 2013 campaign, it lost because it could not overcome the three biggesthurdles for opposition politics in Malaysia: East Malaysia, the rural Malay votes and a biasedelectoral system.

KEY WORDS: Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Rakyat, Najib Razak, Anwar Ibrahim, election strategies,United Malays National Organisation, Malaysian Chinese Association, Malaysian Indian Congress

Introduction

Prior to the 2013 Malaysian general elections, some were predicting that PakatanRakyat (PR), the opposition alliance led by Anwar Ibrahim, had a real chance ofousting the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN). The optimism was based on the followingfactors. First, Najib Razak, the incumbent Prime Minister, looked scared because he didnot call the elections within the ‘normal’ period, i.e. one year immediately after takingpower in 2009. Both his predecessors, Mahathir Mohammad and Abdullah AhmadBadawi, called for elections within 12 months of taking office. The last general electionwas held in March 2008 and many had expected Najib to call a general election in thesecond half of 2011 at the very latest. Second, delaying the elections to the last possibledate (past the mandatory five-year term limit) allowed the opposition more time to pre-pare and put together resources to fight the BN. Third, and perhaps the most important,the delay in calling the elections gave the opposition additional issues and scandals thatwere exposed in the whole of 2012.

The BN’s Campaign Strategy

Unlike earlier campaigns, the BN went into the 2013 general election knowing that itwould not get the all-important two-thirds majority in parliament. BN lost its two-thirdsmajority in 2008 after nearly half a century in power. Hence, the BN strategy was tohang on to power and perhaps perform better than in 2008. The eight main components

Correspondence Address: James Chin, School of Arts and Social Science, Monash University, Jalan LagoonSelatan, 47500 Bandar Sunway, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. Email: james.chin@monash.edu

© 2013 The Round Table Ltd

The Round Table, 2013Vol. 102, No. 6, 533–540, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2013.857145

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of the BN strategy were: (1) a presidential-style campaign around Najib and the1Malaysia slogan; (2) total domination of social media, traditional media and the newmedia; (3) cash handouts to key segments of society, especially the rural and urbanlower class; (4) a fear campaign, especially among the Malay community; (5) emphasison ‘UMNO-Alone’ (United Malays National Organisation-Alone); (6) a large numberof new candidates (dubbed ‘winnable candidates’) to show it was serious about politicalreforms; (7) maintain the ‘fixed deposit’ of East Malaysia and win back Perak andSelangor; and (8) win back the Indian vote, and some of the Chinese vote. Each ofthose elements is examined below.

(1) The ruling coalition’s campaign strategy was loosely based on the ‘presidential’mode—centred on Najib and his slogan 1Malaysia. Najib portrayed himself as areformer and 1Malaysia was supposed to be an inclusive policy to bridge theincreasing political and social divide between the Malays and non-Malays (officiallytermed as Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera) in the country. When Najib took power,the first thing he introduced was 1Malaysia and, within a short period, the slogan1Malaysia could be seen on all government billboards, at all government functionsand in all government printed materials. Many government initiatives were themed1Malaysia. For example, ‘1Malaysia Klinik’ was established in lower-income hous-ing estates across the country. The basic idea behind the 1Malaysia campaign was toget the voters to vote for Najib rather than the BN or the individual parties in theBN such as UMNO, the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) or Malaysian IndianCongress (MIC). Najib promoted his credentials as an economic reformer byconstantly referring to the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), a series ofeconomic policies he initiated to make Malaysia a developed country.

(2) The BN learnt its lesson from the 2008 general election when it did not pay anyattention to social media, which became one of the key factors behind theopposition’s major wins in 2008. This time around, UMNO established a ‘newmedia’ division in the party. This unit coordinated the work of pro-BN bloggers andsocial media users. Using government resources, they organised at least 10 work-shops to train up to 10,000 ‘BN cybertroopers’.1 The government also established aspecial new media unit in the Department of Special Affairs (Jabatan Hal EhwalKhas) to get bloggers to write positive stories about UMNO/BN in cyberspace andsupport/promote BN in blogs, on Facebook and on Twitter.

(3) Under the guise of helping the lower class, the government distributed RM500(USD166) cash vouchers to all households with a monthly income of less thanRM3,000 (about USD1,000). University students received RM500 book vouchersand other groups were also given cash assistance. Key groups such as civil servants(including the security services, which are part of the Malaysian civil service) weregiven a special cash bonus of RM500 prior to the general election. The civil serviceis a key component of the BN vote bank. With more than a million civil servants inMalaysia, their vote can make or break a government.

(4) The BN, especially UMNO, mounted a very successful fear campaign among theMalay community. The Malay community was told that Anwar and the oppositionwould take away their ‘special rights’ and threaten the position of Islam if they cameto power. This resonated with the rural Malay population, who had limited access tothe alternative media. Najib also warned of economic collapse if the opposition wins

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government.2 Others issued subtle warnings that if UMNO were to lose power, arepeat of the 1969 racial riots might occur.

(5) The ‘UMNO-Alone’ strategy was simply an acknowledgement that UMNO had tocarry the entire BN coalition because the Chinese and Indian BN components (theMCA, Gerakan (Malaysian’s Peoples’ Movement) and MIC) were widely expectedto lose. This strategy made sense given that in Peninsular Malaysia there were about110 Malay-majority seats. If UMNO won almost all the Malay seats, it did not needseats from MCA, Gerakan or MIC to form a government. It would simply turn toEast Malaysian BN parties to help it get the majority needed. The formula was fairlysimple: UMNO would win at least 80–90 Malay seats, the East Malaysian BNparties would contribute at last 40–45 seats, and this was enough for a simplemajority of 120–135 seats (you only need 112 in the 222-seat parliament to form agovernment).

(6) New ‘winnable candidates’: under this strategy, Najib wanted at least one-third ofBN candidates to be ‘new blood’. This was to show the voters that he was seriousabout reforms and the need to get rid of long-serving elected politicians who wereresisting change. On nomination day, 33% of BN candidates were new.

(7) The East Malaysia states of Sabah and Sarawak have 57 parliamentary seats. Thisconstitutes 25% of the seats in parliament. In 2008, the opposition managed to winonly two of the 57 seats. The BN would have lost the power to govern in 2008 with-out the East Malaysian seats. In this election, the BN paid special attention to EastMalaysia to ensure that it remained, in the words of Najib, ‘BN’s fixed deposit’. TheBN also spent a lot of resources to win the two states of Selangor and Perak. Selan-gor was important because it was Malaysia’s economic powerhouse whereas Perakwas important politically. When Najib assumed power in 2009, he engineered thedownfall of the PR-led Perak state government using defections. When the resultscame in, BN managed to win Perak but Selangor was kept by the opposition.

(8) In the 2008 general election, the Indian vote for BN collapsed due to the HinduRights Action Force (HINDRAF), an Indian non-governmental organisation (NGO)that captured the imagination of the Indian community. A November 2007 rallyorganised by HINDRAF in front of the iconic Petronas Tower attracted more than30,000 people, protesting at the racial and religious discrimination faced by theIndian community as a result of government policy. To mitigate Indian anger atUMNO/BN, Najib forced Samy Vellu, the long-serving leader of MIC, to retire.Najib managed a coup of sorts when BN signed a Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) with HINDRAF on 18 April 2013, two weeks before the 5 May polling day.Under the MOU, HINDRAF agreed to support the BN in return for government sup-port in implementing a specific plan to help the Indian community. The MOU andthe subsequent campaign for BN by HINDRAF leaders helped BN to win backsome Indian voters in key areas in Selangor and Perak.

Chinese Vote

The Chinese community proved complicated for Najib and the BN. Under the guise of1Malaysia, Najib tried to reach out to the Chinese community by granting specialfinancial aid to Chinese schools. He even attended a Chinese New Year gathering atDong Jiao Zong (DJZ). DJZ is the main body that manages and promotes independent

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Chinese education in Malaysia. This was the first time an incumbent Malaysian PMhad ever attended a DJZ Chinese New Year event. The DJZ has traditionally been seenas anti-BN and is treated with great suspicion by the government. Najib also made aseries of promises to resolve outstanding issues concerning the Chinese community.Despite reaching out, Najib was unable to convince the Chinese to support the BN. Inmany ways the strategy backfired on Najib: many Chinese view his attempt to woothem as insincere and too late. The Chinese saw UMNO as the source of official racismagainst them.

On top of the eight key strategies, the BN ran the usual campaign messages on theneed for political continuity and BN’s ‘proven leadership’ since independence. Itaccused the PR of being an alliance of convenience and that the Democratic ActionParty (DAP) was manipulating the Malays using Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS)and Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar was not to be trusted given his sexual (mis)adventures.Three videos of a man looking like Anwar having sex with two different women and aman were widely circulated prior to the election.

PR Campaign Strategy

In general the opposition ran two separate campaigns. DAP concentrated on the urbanChinese-populated areas whereas PAS and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR or People’sJustice Party) concentrated on the Malay areas. However, the core components of theopposition strategy were: (1) UBAH, ABU and UMNO equals racism; (2) clean elec-tions; (3) good governance, corruption in BN and cost of living; (4) the success of thePR-run states of Penang and Selangor; (5) massive rallies in frontline states; (6) pene-tration of East Malaysia; and (7) neutralisation of the civil service vote. These elementsare in turn discussed below.

(1) Throughout the campaign the opposition cleverly used two codewords—UBAH andABU. UBAH is Malay for ‘change’ while ABU stands for Asal Bukan UMNO, orAnybody but UMNO. They also equated UMNO, the linchpin of the BN, withracism. These were very effective in urban areas and among young voters. Manynon-Malays see the pro-Bumiputera policy of the government as nothing more thanracism and that UMNO was the main purveyor of this racism.3 Young voters,including young Malay voters, were attracted to the idea of change. Another popu-lar catchphrase used in the last week of the campaign was ‘Ini Kalilah’ (This isit!), indicating that this was the general election that could finally depose the BN.

(2) Another key campaign issue was clean and free elections. Working with an NGO,Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (BERSIH), the opposition accused theElectoral Commission (EC) of bias and working in cahoots with the BN. The accu-sations that the EC assisted the BN by gerrymandering, registering illegal voters,malapportionment and siding with BN during the electoral process were key topicsduring opposition ceremahs (political rallies). The EC became defensive andaccused the opposition of orchestrating a smear campaign. However, there wasclear evidence of EC’s bias towards the BN and the EC lost much credibility. Theattacks against the EC were effective in urban areas.

(3) The issue of bad governance and corruption in the BN is a commonplace in everyMalaysian general election. In 2013, however, the issue became more potent than

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usual because of the scope of the allegations. The key allegations highlighted bythe opposition were: (a) ‘Cowgate’, where a federal minister’s family company wasgiven a RM250 million (about USD80 million) loan to start a business but alleg-edly diverted the money to other uses;4 (b) the kleptocracy of Taib Mahmud in Sar-awak;5 (c) Najib’s alleged links to a murdered Mongolian model and a submarinedeal;6 (d) Rosmah Mansor’s (Najib’s wife) alleged diamond shopping overseas paidfor by businessmen hoping for government contracts;7 and (e) a RM40 million(USD13 million) bank account in Hong Kong that was allegedly held on behalf ofthe Sabah chief minister.8 The opposition spent a lot of time explaining that corrup-tion leads to an increase in living costs because corruption leads to inefficiency. Ifthe ‘leakages’ are stopped, the money saved can be used for social welfare, andreduce the cost of living by direct subsidy of basic necessities.

(4) Pakatan used the success of the PR-run states of Penang and Selangor extensivelyin their campaigns. Voters were told there is hardly any corruption in these twostates and, because of this, these two states were able to generate huge financialsurpluses, and were debt-free. They argued that the experience of Penang andSelangor could be replicated at the federal level and the voters should not beworried about a change in government. Corrupt-free government was moreimportant than continuity.

(5) Another strategy used by the opposition was to organise massive rallies in order tobuild momentum for the campaign. ‘Mega’-rallies took place in all the major urbancentres, with the biggest ones 24 hours before polling. The crowds at these mega-rallies could easily reach 50,000–100,000.9 Pakatan also adopted the ‘frontlinestates’ strategy whereby they moved some of their most senior leaders into BN-stronghold states. The best example of this was Johor, widely seen as an UMNOstronghold. In the 2013 general election, key Pakatan leaders such Lim Kit Siang(DAP supremo), Liew Chin Tong (DAP’s main election strategist) and SalahuddinAyub (PAS vice-president) left their safe seats to contest Johor.10

(6) As mentioned earlier, the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, with 57seats, held one of the keys to electoral victory. In the 2008 general election,Pakatan won only two seats in East Malaysia. This time Pakatan made a concertedeffort to win in East Malaysia. Pakatan wanted to win at least 25 seats from EastMalaysia.

(7) Given the importance of the 1.3 million civil service vote, Pakatan promised thecivil servants that they would not face any retaliation if PR came to power. In fact,Pakatan promised them better terms of service and more money if elected. Thisstrategy, however, did not work because many of the senior civil servants werestrong supporters of UMNO and were afraid that they would be targeted if Pakatancame to power. It did not help that Pakatan often referred to the need to trim thebloated civil service prior to the election.

As in previous elections, the opposition tried its best to ensure that there was anopposition candidate in all the 222 constituencies, and that it was a straight fightbetween PR and BN to prevent splitting the opposition vote. This strategy worked inPeninsular Malaysia but in East Malaysia the opposition was not able to stopmulti-corner fights.

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Why was PR Confident of Victory?

A week before polling day, the opposition was increasingly confident that it was aboutto topple the BN coalition. They had good reasons to be confident. First, massivecrowds, especially in urban areas, turned up at the opposition rallies. Some of thesemega-rallies attracted more than 100,000 people. At the very least, the opposition knewthat it was a ‘sure win’ in the 30 Chinese-majority seats in the country. Second, theopposition was winning the social media war in cyberspace. This was critically impor-tant because there were approximately 2.7 million new voters and the overwhelmingmajority was young people who relied extensively on social media for information. Pastelections have shown that young new voters are more likely to support the opposition.Third, private polling showed that PR would win narrowly. For example, the MerdekaCentre’s polling showed that the approval rating for Najib had dropped by four percent-age points just prior to the polls. Another poll showed Anwar as the preferred PrimeMinister.11 Finally, the opposition was confident that the non-Muslims in East Malaysiawould support the opposition over the ‘Kalimah Allah’ issue (more later).

The opposition formula for victory was fairly simple: 80 + 30 + 10 = 120 seats.Eighty refers to the number of seats it expected to win in Peninsular Malaysia, 30 fromEast Malaysia and another 10 from all over the country.

The Results

The results were: BN 133, PR 89. In terms of the popular vote, PR won by 50.9% toBN’s 47.5%. Thus, while BN has more seats in parliament, PR can claim to havehigher support from voters.

Soundness of the Opposition’s Strategy

On the surface, it is easy to argue that the strategies pursued by the opposition wereerroneous. However, a closer look suggests that the strategies were, on the whole,largely sound. The reasons Pakatan lost were structural impediments and a miscalcula-tion of the vote in East Malaysia.

First, structural impediments meant that the opposition victory was always difficult atbest and impossible at worst. The Malaysia electoral system, the first-pass-the-postsystem, is biased towards the ruling BN. There is extensive gerrymandering and malap-portionment (see article by Kai Ostwald in this issue), problems with the electoral roll,and the partial behaviour of the Electoral Commission. Essentially, to win a generalelection in Malaysia, you need to win East Malaysia (57 seats or 25% of the 222 seats inparliament) and the rural or semi-urban seats (158 or 71% of the seats). The oppositiondid exceedingly well in the urban areas but urban areas have the least number of seats.

Thus, while the opposition won more than 90% of the seats in the urban areas, this wasnot enough to win the general election. In urban areas, the DAP from Pakatan managed towin 80–90% of the Chinese vote (hence the term ‘Chinese tsunami’), allowing it to winall the Chinese-majority seats. However, the same pattern was not repeated in the ruraland East Malaysian states. DAP’s allies, PKR and PAS, were not able to deliver Malayvoters from the rural areas or non-Muslim natives in East Malaysia.

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Second, the opposition totally mismanaged and misjudged its campaign in Sabah andSarawak. Prior to the election, the opposition was confident that the ‘kalimah Allah’issue would deliver the non-Muslim native vote in East Malaysia.12 The issue is relatedto a government ban on the use of the word ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims in Malaysia. Thereis strong objection to this in the Christian community in East Malaysia because theyhave always used the word ‘Allah’ in their church service (conducted entirely inMalay). There are records to show that the word ‘Allah’ had been used prior to the for-mation of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. Moreover, in Arab countries and even inneighbouring Indonesia (home of the world’s largest Muslim population) there is noprohibition on the use of Allah by non-Muslims. Hence, many Malaysian Christianssaw the prohibition as an attack on their religious freedom and an indirect way of say-ing that Islam is the superior religion. The majority of the native population in Sabahand Sarawak are Christians and they are the majority in about 20 parliamentary seats.Pakatan was thus confident that they would win over the Allah issue. This did nothappen in rural East Malaysia, where vote-buying and cash are still rampant.

In neighbouring Sarawak, Pakatan was even more confident of getting the non-Muslimnative Dayak vote. In March 2013, barely two months before polling, Global Witness, anNGO in London, released a short video entitled ‘Inside Malaysia’s Shadow State’.13 Thissecretly filmed video reveals how the Taib family lease native lands and sell them off athuge profits, including through manipulation of the legal instruments to circumventMalaysian money-laundering laws. Two of Taib’s nieces were recorded boasting abouttheir connections to their uncle, the Sarawak chief minister, and how he will grant themnative land for plantations. In addition, a group of activists in London started Radio FreeSarawak (RFS) and a website, Sarawak Report,14 to broadcast and expose all of Taib’skleptocracy. Despite the video, Sarawak Report and RFS, vote-buying and other financialinducements meant the Dayak vote stayed with the BN.

On top of this, the opposition in Sabah could not agree on a straight fight against theBN. There were multiple candidates in many non-Muslim constituencies. In fact, basedsolely on voting figures, the opposition could have won an additional fourparliamentary seats (Kota Marudu, Keningau, Tenom and Pensiangan) if there had beena one-to-one contest between PR and BN.15 The opposition lost these seats due to vote-splitting because there was more than one opposition candidate.

Third, Pakatan misread the signals. When the mega-rallies became a fixture in theurban areas, they took it to mean that support for them was equally strong in the ruraland semi-urban areas, especially in Malay-majority areas in the peninsula. This was notthe case. The success of the opposition in the social media also gave the opposition afalse sense of confidence. What they did not realise is that social media (such as blogs,Facebook, Twitter) are not widely used in rural areas. In rural areas, mainstreamnewspapers and government-controlled television are the key sources of information forvoters. Many voters in rural areas did not access the alternative media. The mainstreammedia kept reminding rural voters that only UMNO/BN was able to protect ‘Malayrights’ and Islam and that PAS was not to be trusted for cooperating with the ‘Chinesechauvinist’ DAP. This was also the primary reason why PAS performed badly in theMalay rural areas. It must be stated here that the UMNO machinery was extremelyeffective in distributing goods and services to the rural areas during the campaign.UMNO/BN had full access to the government machinery and resources to support it aswell, and this is a clear advantage in rural areas.

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Conclusion

Both the BN and PR went into the 13th general election with very different electoralstrategies. In many ways, both sides implemented their strategies successfully. BN’sstrategies of concentrating on Najib and 1Malaysia, rural Malays and East Malaysiaproved to be largely correct. However, UMNO/BN lost the popular vote and this waslargely due to the fact that the rural and semi-rural constituencies have a much smallernumber of voters compared with urban ones. Nevertheless, owing to the first-pass-the-post electoral system, BN was still able to form a government.

PR’s strategy of taking the fight to the UMNO/BN strongholds of Johor and EastMalaysia proved to be the correct strategy. However, PR failed badly in the executionof this strategy in East Malaysia, especially in Sabah. PAS was also not able to winover a significant number of rural voters to overcome UMNO’s formidable ruralmachinery. The only success PR had was with the urban population and Johor. PRswept the urban and Chinese vote and was able to break into Johor state.

Looking ahead towards the 14th general election due in 2018, if the oppositionstrategies cannot overcome the two key hurdles—rural Malay seats and the ruralnon-Muslim native seats in Sabah and Sarawak—there is every likelihood that theresults will largely remain the same.

Notes

1. ‘Saifuddin: better content will sway the voter’, FZ.com, 8 November 2012.2. ‘A Pakatan govt will doom the economy’, The Straits Times, 30 November 2012.3. The affirmative policy pursued by the Malaysian government since 1971 gives the Malay community

significant advantages in all religious, social, education and economic spheres. Many observers are of theopinion that the policy is institutionalised racism. See Equal Rights Trust (2012) and, for the Chineseperspective, see James Chin (2009).

4. ‘Rafizi: NFC doomed from the start’, Malaysiakini, 8 February 2012.5. ‘USD15 billion! – Taib is the richest man in Malaysia’, Sarawak Report, 19 September 2012.6. ‘Malaysian PM caught up in murder, bribery scandal’, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 January 2013.7. ‘Answer RM13mil Jewel-gate claim, Rosmah told’, Malaysiakini, 2 January 2013.8. ‘Aman-gate: “Charge in court, or we bring to public court”’, Free Malaysia Today, 9 April 2012.9. ‘Thousands throng Pakatan’s final rallies in major cities’, Malaysiakini, 4 May 2013.10. Liew Chin Tong, ‘The dominoes in Johor’, The Malaysian Insider, 31 January 2013.11. ‘GE-13: Najib’s approval rating slides down’, Malaysiakini, 3 May 2013; ‘Malaysia election: opposition

leads in public support, says poll’, The Straits Times, 26 April 2013.12. ‘Can Christians say ‘Allah’? In Malaysia, Muslims say no’, Time Magazine, 8 January 2010; ‘Bumiputera

Christians in East Malaysia willing to run foul of the law over “Allah” issue’, The Malaysian Insider, 11October 2013; Hoffstaedterm (2012).

13. http://www.globalwitness.org/insideshadowstate/14. http://www.sarawakreport.org/15. ‘6 more seats if not for the spoilers: PR’, Daily Express (Kota Kinabalu), 8 May 2013.

References

Chin, J. (2009) The Malaysian Chinese dilemma: the Never Ending Policy (NEP), Chinese Southern DiasporaStudies, 3, 167–181.

Equal Rights Trust in partnership with Tenaganita (2012) Washing the Tigers: Addressing Discrimination andInequality in Malaysia (London: Equal Rights Trust).

Hoffstaedterm, G. (2012) Religious pluralism in Malaysia: can there be dialogue?, in Camilleri, J. andSchottmann, S. (Eds), Culture, Religion and Conflict in Muslim Southeast Asia: Negotiating TensePluralisms. London: Routledge.

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