Sungai Pakar by-election – Malaysia Today

Murray Hunt

The Penang state seat of Sungai Bakap is located in the heart of PKR’s stronghold, south of the Seberang Perai region. Sungai Bakap is one of the three state seats that make up the Bukit Mertajam federal constituency (the other two are Jawi and Sungai Aceh) and is firmly held by PKR’s current Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek. Sungai Bakap has a population of 59,000.

Yesterday (July 6), a by-election was held in Sungai Bakap due to the death of Norzani Radif, who won the state election last year. Norzani of PPAS won the Sungai Bakap seat with a majority of 1,526 votes. Pakatan Harapan hopes to recapture the seat while Perikatan Nasional (PN) hopes to retain it. Both parties chose locals to run in the election. PAS chose Abang Abidin while PKR chose Dr Joohari Ariffin to run.

There are a total of 39,151 registered voters in the Sungai Bakap constituency, of which 59.36% are Malays, 22.54% are Chinese, 17.39% are Indians and 0.17% are others.

After the polls closed at 6pm, the turnout was first in. The total turnout was 63.45%, down 13% from the 76.88% in the 2023 state election. According to P. Ramasamy’s X account, 67% of the Malays voted, but only 50% of the Chinese voted, and probably only 40% of the Indians voted.

These numbers suggest that tonight will not be a good night for PKR. At 8pm, the voting data was released. PAS candidate Abidin Ismail received 14,489 votes, while Johari Arifin received 10,222 votes, giving the PAS candidate a lead of 4,267 votes.

This majority is almost three times the result of the 2023 state election. PAS’s margin of victory rose from 5.38% in the state election to 17.26% in yesterday’s by-election.

According to traditional political science theory, the government should expect the odds to be stacked against them in a by-election, especially when they are implementing unpopular policies at the time. Counterintuitively, the Unity Government’s campaign was led by Economics Minister Rafizi Ramli, who was largely responsible for the highly unpopular move to remove diesel subsidies before the by-election. In retrospect, this was a major tactical error in the Pakatan Harapan campaign. Someone else who was more popular with voters could have been appointed to the position.

Sungai Bakap was an UMNO seat before PKR won it in 2008. Strategists hoped that the Sungai Bakap result would reflect the strength of the Pakatan Harapan-UMNO relationship in the unity government. But it completely backfired. UMNO support did not bolster Pakatan Harapan in the by-election.

In addition, there are reports that UMNO’s once-strong grassroots organization is gradually declining, at least in the Bukit Mertajam area. There are also reports of sabotage activities by UMNO supporters who believe that UMNO should field candidates. Other former UMNO supporters have defected to the Perikatan Nasional coalition.

The green wave has reached its peak. However, traditional PH support has gradually faded

The Sungai Bakap by-election showed that the so-called “green wave” had peaked. That was not the reason PKR failed to win back the seat. PKR now faces a new problem: their own traditional non-Malay voter base is rapidly abandoning Pakatan Harapan. This base is not switching to Perikatan Nasional, they are just staying home and not voting. Apathy is now Pakatan Harapan’s biggest electoral problem.

PH now faces two electoral problems. The first is the strong support for PN in the Malay regions. Sungei Bakap reinforces this reality. This will greatly affect UMNO. UMNO no longer has the loyalty of Malay voters as it did before. Based on the snapshot of Sungei Bakap, UMNO will soon disappear from northern and eastern Malaysia.

The second problem is the apathy of traditional Pakatan Harapan supporters. If left unchecked, the incumbent MP for Montibal, Fadhlina Sidek, looks set to face a major challenge in the next general election.

Overall, voters are skeptical about what PH really stands for. This poses a major problem for the upcoming elections (by-elections, state elections and the next general election).

For the DAP, the main ruling party in Penang state, there is a lot to think about. The DAP’s stronghold in Penang is slowly being eroded. However, the DAP’s consolation is that there is no other option that can challenge them for the non-Malay votes.

While Sungai Bakap’s demographics are very similar to the west coast constituencies from Johor to Penang, it is difficult to make direct comparisons with other constituencies. The Pakatan Harapan heartland of about 40,000 voters is just a small fraction. There are all sorts of local issues here, such as the power struggle between Lim Guan Eng and Chow Kon Yeow, federal issues (too many to list), and events that took place during the campaign.

Yet, this result should scare the Pakatan Harapan leadership. PKR strongholds could be lost. PKR’s support continues to decline. There are so many problems right now that it is hard to pinpoint any specific reasons why PKR is doing so poorly. What PKR is doing is not resonating with its traditional supporters.