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250 Meredith L. Weiss

galvanizing enthusiasm for change through elections, and also the role of the
ranks of other activist initiatives over the years, helps temper assessments of
how much one-time, contingent factors added.
ird, Malaysia has experienced extraordinary movement of people with
intensifying industrialization and globalization since the 1980s–90s. Over 75
per cent urban, Malaysia is the most urbanised country in the region, after
Singapore. By 2012, only 11 per cent of the workforce was in agriculture,
down from 25 per cent in 1996, with nearly all the rest in services (53.6 per
cent) or manufacturing (28.9 per cent) (UNESCO et al. 2018: 2). ose
migrating to cities are mostly young (60.9 per cent aged 15–34), comparatively
well-educated, and predominantly Malay—Malays are nearly half the urban
population (UNESCO et al. 2018: 4). Malaysia has long experienced a brain-
drain, too, especially of well-educated, non-Malay professionals, who see better
opportunities and rights overseas. About 1 million Malaysians were living
overseas as of 2011 (of a total population of around 30 million), and around
20 per cent of Malaysian professionals eventually move abroad, the largest
share to Singapore. e government’s Talent Corporation, launched in 2011,
has had little success in luring them home (Sukumaran 2017; Nadaraj 2016).
Economic implications aside, this movement disrupts political loyalties, in
a political culture that still prioritizes the ‘personal touch’ in binding leader to
ock (Weiss 2014: 8–9). ese relationships tend to be more about familiarity
than money, however much candidates splash out as elections approach or
pledge to do so post-polls. In one state seat in Perak, for instance, although
UMNO could point to its having distributed fertiliser and food and promised
a new health clinic and recreation centre, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) had
visited over a thousand local homes since the last election, to build personal ties
(Loghun 2018). Both appeals follow essentially the same logic, of a clientelistic,
or personalised, direct, sustained relationship between politician and voter. It is
natural for voters to be inclined to support politicians they know, and to judge
them on their ‘home style’ (Fenno 1977) or character as well as, or even instead
of, on their party or policies. at need to cultivate just the right image may be
especially challenging for women, as David Kloos proposes: professional, devout
Malay women tread an especially ne line as they seek to convey competence,
ideological rigour, and a reassuring personal touch, all at once.
But migration within or out of Malaysia leaves an increasing number of
voters without recourse to those cues, particularly since so many balik kampung,
or return to their family home, to vote. One estimate was for 1.7–3.5 million
voters, or 11–23 per cent of registered voters, to be on the move for polling
day, though the Wednesday election was expected to depress turnout (Khor

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