GE15 result and analysis

    Quite a few people predicted no single party or coalition could win enough seats to form the government for the 15th general election and rightly so. A few months before the dissolution of parliament, BN was at their lowest point while PH was only going back on track thanks to Rafizi Ramli and his Ayuh Malaysia initiative. PN however was quietly gaining traction through social media especially Tik-Tok which I could have dismissed before but clearly underestimated their influence.


I went home with little hope of seeing any major upset or change in my home state. Three decades of brainwashing wasn’t going to change in a few years, if ever. But went home I did, to exercise my democratic right. It’s hard changing people’s minds. Heck I wasn’t even sure who my wife going to vote for because she’d been very cryptic with her choice. My in-laws were a lost cause because they’re sure as hell going to vote for PAS/PN again. What surprised me the most was that my sister and brother were going to vote for them as well. It’s either they truly believed their cause or they were also influenced by the social media campaigns.

My mother and grandmother were traditional UMNO/BN voters and until a few weeks before the election, were all but sure to vote for them again. It was not until I made a sustained campaigning session through Whatsapp and in real life to them that I managed to change their mind. My grandmother was even simpler. I made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. So for the first time in their lives, they voted for somebody other than BN in the general election. As for my siblings, I did make some last minute appeals to them but it was too little too late. My brother for example was flown in straight from Sabah and shuttled via bus specifically to vote for PN. Where did they get all the money from?

After shuttling my grandmother and brother, I drove back to Tanah Merah to pick up my wife and send her to the polling station. I know she’s divided between voting for PH or PN but I think I managed to convince her enough to vote for the former. I hate it when political parties abuse race and religion to buy votes. It’s the worst premise ever to elect a government, especially for a 33 month government who failed spectacularly.


We didn’t go back until the next day because it was thankfully a weekend voting day this time round. I thought we picked the right route via Gerik and PLUS north-south highway but it was jammed anyway. We didn’t get home until 3 o’clock in the morning and I had to get to work 3 hours later. By then the result all but confirmed we have a hung parliament with no single coalition capable of getting more than 112 seats. I was bemused yet a bit alarmed when PN announced they got the numbers to form the government that night despite the fact that they only won 73 seats. Even with GPS MPs in the bag, they still need to persuade BN to join the motley crew.

The next day it becomes clear that PN didn’t actually manage to get BN to join them. Instead they enticed 15 BN lawmakers to jump ship and support them. This might actually work before the anti-hopping law was passed but not anymore. Any MPs that disobeyed their party’s direction will lose their parliamentary seat and trigger a by-election. The fact that PN was more than willing to fund the rogue MPs by-election is both sickening and a testament of how deep their pockets are.


So for the next four days, there was some serious negotiating and horse-trading going on behind the scene by each coalition. PH with 82 seats could have secured enough seats to form the government if they had GPS and GRS from Sarawak and Sabah respectively behind them but unfortunately they didn't. While in power for the short 22 months, PH and DAP especially burnt a lot of bridges with the Sarawak based coalition which they don’t easily forget. That’s why GPS had no qualms joining hands with PN despite Mahiaddin’s anti-Christian rhetorics and the extremists in PAS. BN on the other hand declined to join any coalitions at first and resigned to be the opposition but that will not resolve the hung parliament situation. 


On November 23rd however, the head of all major political parties that won seats in the election were called to the palace. Previously when the monarch did this, Mahiaddin was selected as prime minister so I was obviously distraught at the thought of history repeating itself. And then comes the rumours that Anwar could finally be appointed prime minister but still nothing confirmed. I even tweeted that the king should appoint Anwar as the premier cause his coalition won the most seats. He could even lead a minority government with some kind of CSA or MOU with other coalitions.

On my birthday, news broke that DAP’s secretary general - Anthony Loke and their chairman Lim Guan Eng flew to Kuching and apologies wholeheartedly to the Sarawak government for all their past shenanigans. That’s surely a good sign isn’t it? In the afternoon, the entire country waited with bated breath on the result of the head of parties meeting with the king. Some time around 3:00PM the palace finally announced that the king had agreed to appoint Anwar Ibahim as the country’s 10th prime minister after getting GPS, GRS and BN to support him. It was the best birthday present ever.


Apparently the king had asked PN, to join Anwar and create a unity government but PN, specifically Mahiaddin, categorically refused. Anwar on the other hand agreed to form a unity government with BN and the rest when asked and the rest is history.

It’s an open secret that Anwar and Zahid has a long history between them of the positive kind despite the latter being the current president of UMNO and BN. As a matter of fact, that relationship all but helped Anwar secure BN’s support for the premiership. Besides, Zahid and his lieutenants were pretty pissed when Mahiaddin attempted to steal their MPs behind their back instead of being a gentleman and negotiate openly and transparently like Anwar did.

A week later, when the ministers and the cabinet line up was announced, I and I'm sure many Malaysians were disappointed to see Zahid Hamidi appointed as deputy prime minister and minister for rural development. But I understand realpolitik. His appointment was probably one of the prerequisite or reward for BN supporting the government. BN got 7 full ministers while DAP who won the most seats in PH only got four. Some suggested that this was DAP’s sacrifice to stem the anti-DAP sentiment among the electorate which I believe could be true. As long as Anwar kept to his promise of not interfering or appear to magically let Zahid Hamidi get off his 47 criminal charges scot-free, I can live with that. It’s still better than seeing an islamofascist government screwing with our future.

I do hope they will hit the ground running and do an incredibly good job even for BN and GPS ministers who had a history of underperforming previously. This is paramount if they ever want to halt the green wave of PAS and PN that’s drowning the entire country.

Just yesterday, PN won a landslide victory in the Padang Serai parliamentary seat in Kedah bringing their final seat count to 74. If the remaining state elections were to be held in the near future, there’s a real possibility that PN will sweep clean all the states save for Penang and maybe Selangor. Like I said, decades of religious indoctrination and intense social media campaigning months before the election turned the tide in PN’s way. I am genuinely terrified at the prospect of the ultraracist PN and islamofascist PAS governing the country. We’ll be transformed into a mini Afghanistan in a decade or two.

The road to a prosperous, peaceful and progressive Malaysia is long and winding with enemies waiting to pounce on the sides at any opportunity to topple this government. This unity government will have their work cut out for them because PN will have no qualms to continue abusing race and religion to their advantage. The siege-mentality, us versus them, malays versus other races narrative pioneered by UMNO and adapted by PN will not be easy to dismantle. Anwar Ibrahim and his coalition partner must do a really damn good job to win the hearts and votes of the common folks, the fence sitters and those who were tricked or influenced to vote for PN last time. It will not be easy but hopefully they will have the next five years to achieve it. For our future and children’s sake, they better do it.
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GE15 thoughts and predictions

At around this time next week, we’ll probably know the results of GE15. Could BN claim a comfortable victory? Will Anwar finally become the Malaysian prime minister? As of this moment, who knows.

From the ashes of GE14, UMNO has gone from strength to strength, initially colluding with PAS in the name of “ummah” and then ditching the islamist party after they felt that they are strong enough to go for it alone. I’m not sure whether Malaysians have a really short memory or they have this tendency for self-destruction because a majority of them keep voting in BN in the last 3 state elections. Did they not remember how much money Najib and Zahid have stolen from the country, from you and me all these years? Do they even care that we will all be paying for Najib's 1MDB crimes until the next generation? I guess some of them don't.

I honestly thought PPBM or Bersatu’s fate were sealed when they failed to establish an electoral pact with BN. And then came PAS to their rescue when they agreed to join the band of traitors to create Perikatan Nasional. In the west coast where the PAS brand is toxic, they campaigned and contested under the PN flag. On the east coast, at their safe seats, they go with PAS’ banner. A cunning but shrewd move I must say and many will be fooled by this ploy. If the state elections are anything to go by, PN actually presented themselves as a credible alternative to the corrupt BN. Not everyone who hates BN is willing to vote for PH so PN is another choice for them.

What can I say about Pakatan Harapan? Post Sheraton move, Before Rafizi Ramli came out of political retirement, the pact was in disarray and disjointed. They were fighting each other, throwing insults and barbs that were definitely not helping their cause. Rafizi came back, won the PKR VP seat, got into action with a clear plan and strategy and pulled the coalition together. Now he’s hot on the campaign trail, attacking BN and PN, exposing scandal after scandal perpetrated by the incumbent. If PH were to ever win this election, they can thank this messiah from Kemaman.

And what about Mahathir and his ilks? He launched yet another race-based party, tried to cooperate with PH at the last hour but failed and now works with a bunch of racists from ISMA to contest in GE15. While I’m not so sure about Bersatu’s demise, I can say for sure this will be Mahathir’s final show in Malaysian politics and he will ride into the sunset when his fledgling party loses every seat that they contested.

As for my prediction, I’m gonna say it will be very tight. There’s a few new variables that will make this election hard to predict the outcome. There’s Undi 18 and then automatic voter registration. The state elections were not a good barometer of youngsters' preferences and which party they lean into since the voter turnout was rather low. While they can be media, especially social media savvy, they could also be easily duped by mass propaganda or disinformation campaigns. Honestly they could go either way and it’s really hard to tell before the election. As for automatic voters registration, the newly registered voters could come out and vote in droves for the first time or they simply won't bother.

I predict no single coalition of the big three (BN, PH and PN) will gather enough seats to pass the magic 112 number but BN will still manage to form a government with help from their old BN partner in Sarawak, GPS. In this nightmare scenario, Zahid Hamidi will become prime minister and all his ongoing criminal cases will be mysteriously dropped and the country will go to the dogs.

Another possible scenario is BN plus GPS still won’t have enough seats to form a government but PAS will stab Bersatu at the back and collude with UMNO to form the next government in exchange for ministerial and GLC posts and the country will still burn to the ground.

Of course, my dream scenario is for PH to win a simple majority and bring this country out of the doldrums. But I am a realist and realistically, too many of the electorate are still easily manipulated, emotional especially when it comes to race and religion. Throw in political apathy and you have the perfect recipe for conservatives (read BN & PN) to gain inroad into the malay heartland. Just winning the majority of the seriously gerry-mandered urban seats will not be enough for PH. Undi 18 could still make or break PH chances though. They could make an educated decision or they would simply reflect the voting trends of the older generation.

Looking back, I made the same grim prediction before the surprise GE14 result. I dearly hope I will be proven wrong once again this time round. I pray for the citizens of this country to make the right decision next week. As for me, I will still be doing the 12 hours, 1,000KM round trip to my hometown to vote, despite the dire prospect of voting in a PAS stronghold. If PH makes strong gains in Kelantan, I might not change my voting location to Selangor yet. If not, I might as well become a Semenyih voter next time because all hope is lost with that state. Why even bother.
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