Page 17 - Towards_a_New_Malaysia_The_2018_Election_and_Its_6146371_(z-lib.org)

2 Meredith L. Weiss and Faisal S. Hazis

be moving in the opposite direction, having taken the rst step from electoral
authoritarianism toward possible democratic transition. is progression is
undeniably momentous and worthy of study.
How the campaign transpired, as much as the distribution of votes, o ers a
wealth of insight into Malaysian political culture and praxis. To what extent was
this outcome simply an intensi cation of past patterns, and how much a change
of course? Was Pakatan’s win a sign that communal politics is weakening, or
that it remains strong? Can new modes and strategies of campaigning change
political outcomes? ese ndings are especially germane when considered
in a longer-term context, across regions and population segments within
Malaysia, and in light of experience in other countries. In this volume, we aim
to do just that: not only to understand what happened, but why, and what
the implications are both for Malaysia and for theory-development, whether
of the decline of single-party dominance, or of cross-ethnic coalitions, or of
the mutability of political Islam, or of how candidates and voters balance
competing priorities and pressures. As the chapters gathered here suggest,
this election is particularly meaningful for how we study and assess Malaysian
politics going forward, but it also sheds light on how a dominant party may
lose its edge.

Overview of the Election

e chapters to come o er a comprehensive dive into the data of this federal
and state election: all the ways to slice and dice the results. (Su an and Lee’s
chapter in particular o ers more detailed results, by state and key voter-
segments.) However, before we get to that point, a brief sketch of the cast
of characters, key dates, preeminent themes, and overarching context will
be helpful. Incumbent Prime Minister Najib Razak waited about as long as
possible before calling the election; parliament dissolves ve years after its
convening if an election has not already been called (this time: 24 June 2018).
Held after a brief campaign (kicked o o cially with Nomination Day on
28 April), the election was for the lower house of the federal parliament and
12 of 13 state legislatures; the East Malaysian state of Sarawak has elected its
state legislature separately since 1978. Sarawak’s state election in 2016 had
con rmed the BN’s grip on the biggest state in Malaysia. In GE14, however,
the incumbent BN secured only about 34 per cent of the popular vote and
79 seats in the federal parliament. Pakatan Harapan won 113 seats, with 48
per cent of the vote, and the a liated Warisan in Sabah won another 8 seats,
with 2 per cent of the vote. Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS, the Pan-Malaysian

This content downloaded from 139.80.253.0 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 04:21:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms