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56 Faisal S. Hazis

maintained their dominance in rural settings like Sarawak, Perlis, Pahang,
Kelantan, and Terengganu. ese complex patterns make it all the more
plausible that other factors contributed to the pivotal shift in Malay votes,
as noted above—particularly economic issues (especially the GST, which PH
promised to abolish if elected), and the 1MDB scandal, which clung to Najib,
especially once Mahathir simpli ed its complexity by boiling it down to a few
choice words (kleptocracy, robber, thief). Nor were these concerns unique to
Malays; they are among the key reasons analysts o er for the longer-percolating
anti-BN trend in non-Malay votes (see Ting, this volume). Regardless, on the
eve of the election, BN still claimed that it could secure as many as 140 seats,
while PH seemed unsure of its own odds. e wave of change crept up so
quietly that it caught almost everyone by surprise.

Elite Fragmentation and Party Splits

e 2015 UMNO split—the fth in its 71-year history—has altered the
national political landscape. Led by Mahathir Mohamad, several UMNO
leaders defected and formed or joined new political parties and alliances. e
3Ms—Mahathir, Muhyiddin, and Mukhriz—were instrumental in forming
a new Malay party, Bersatu, while Sha e Apdal formed a multiethnic party,
Warisan, in Sabah. ese former UMNO leaders were able to lure a signi cant
number of their followers in UMNO to defect and subsequently join their
newly minted parties. Bersatu then entered into an unprecedented alliance
with the opposition PH. is strategic decision required and cemented a
reconciliation between allies-turned-foes Mahathir and Anwar, and created
a coalition including one former premier, two former deputy premiers, and
multiple former chief ministers, united in opposition to Najib. is alliance,
under Mahathir’s leadership, was crucial in breaking UMNO’s stranglehold
on Malay seats.
UMNO splits signify considerable elite di erentiation within the party
and the existence of multiple axes of power. Unlike previous UMNO splits, the
latest one entailed seriously damaging e ects for UMNO and the BN, since
other BN component parties also su ered declining popularity and they could
not step into the breach, compensating for a downturn in UMNO support,
as they had before. A range of speci c policy and personality-related factors
all contributed to the waning support for UMNO and the BN. However, this
chapter argues that without the split within UMNO, GE14 would not have
caused Malaysia’s dominant party to fall.

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