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24 Ibrahim Su an and Lee Tai De

2. While younger voters generally, from across ethnic backgrounds,
preferred PH over BN or PAS, the pattern among younger Malay
voters speci cally followed regional lines: those in the Malay-belt states
favoured PAS over BN and PH by a large margin;
3. In Sarawak, non-Muslim Bumiputera voters from the Bidayuh, Iban,
and Orang Ulu majority areas saw a signi cant swing away from BN,
toward PH and independent candidates; and
4. In Sabah, where the emergence of Sha e Apdal as an opposition leader
persuaded Muslim Bumiputera voters to switch sides, thus eroding the
last bastion of support for BN, strongman politics remains in place.

Voting Patterns in Peninsular Malaysia

e election results in Peninsular Malaysia were counter-intuitive, given many
PH supporters’ and leaders’ views—many asked how they could have won as
many as one hundred districts with such low support from Malay voters—
and thus merit further examination. While non-Malay votes for PH were
uniformly high across the country, the coalition’s Malay vote was reasonably
high in the west coast of the peninsula (adequate to deliver enough districts
to win), but dismal in the northern and east-coast areas. We discuss these and
other ndings from our analysis of the election results below.

Voter Turnout

Voter turnout in GE14 was the second-highest in Malaysia’s electoral history.
However, the 2018 turnout showed a marginal decline, especially among voters
under 50 years old. In all, the drop in voter turnout was quite small—only 2.8
per cent, from a very high 84.9 per cent in 2013 to 82.1 per cent in 2018.
ese ndings show that Malaysians take politics and elections very seriously,
enough so to make the e ort to vote, despite election day’s being a Wednesday.
Yet the decision to have the election on a Wednesday (although it was declared
a public holiday) did depress turnout among working-age adults by about 4
per cent, compared to the same age group in 2013 (Table 2.5).

Voting Patterns by Major Ethnic Groups

Support for PH from non-Malay or minority groups expanded further in
2018 from the already high levels recorded in 2013. In 2013, we estimated
that about 84 per cent of ethnic-Chinese voters supported PR. at gure
ballooned to as high as 93 per cent in 2018. Turnout among minority voters

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