Rashaad Ali and Najwa Abdullah, from the Malaysia Programme at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, said any clear advantage to BN would be mitigated by a split in the Malay vote.
In their analysis, published in The Straits Times, they said: “Suggestions that BN will stroll to victory after redelineation assume that voting patterns in the upcoming election will mirror those in GE13.”
They said although BN had gained “a slight advantage, new political dynamics mean there are no guarantees of victory, even though the coalition has used all means available to try and gain an advantage – through delineation, using state instruments like the Election Commission (EC), and others.”
However, they acknowledged that the movement of voters by the EC had given BN an advantage, noting that preliminary reports suggested the opposition could lose up to seven state seats in Selangor. In battleground states such as Johor, meanwhile, redelineation might be the edge that ensures BN retains the state.
They noted that the redelineation report had been passed despite strong protests from opposition MPs and civil society groups who accused the EC of colluding with the government.
In the 2013 election, they said, BN was able to retain power without getting the popular vote because of “the constant redrawing of electoral boundaries over the years and Malaysia’s ‘first past the post’ system, giving the advantage to BN”.
Noting that the redelineation had shifted voters based on their ethnicity, creating ethnic super-majorities in some seats while balancing the ethnic composition in others, the researchers said it would have different impact on “the two parties with the clearest ethnic support” – Umno and DAP. Umno, they said, stood to gain at the expense of DAP.
“By moving Malay voters out of constituencies that already overwhelmingly support the opposition and into constituencies that are more marginal, BN gives itself a better chance at victory in seats where it can expect to mount a challenge.”
The researchers gave the example of the Sungai Buloh seat, using a study by Invoke which showed the electoral boundary change there had increased Malay votes by 15.4% while decreasing non-Malay votes by 12.2%.
Another example was the opposition stronghold of Subang where Malay votes would fall by 12.7% while non-Malay votes grew by 12.9%, they said.
“This movement of voters grants an advantage to BN in marginal opposition seats. Lembah Pantai, currently held by Nurul Izzah Anwar of PKR, who won the seat by a margin of less than 4%, is one such example.
“After redelineation, Lembah Pantai sees a 3.4% increase in Malay voters, while the number of non-Malays falls by 1.6%. This might be enough to swing the seat in BN’s favour, given the slim margin of victory in the 2013 election.”
The researchers said Malay voters were spoilt for choice as they could choose from among Umno, PKR, PAS, Amanah and PPBM.
“This becomes an issue when considering how much support PPBM can draw from Umno supporters, since it is a splinter party. There are thus no guarantees that Malay support will remain with the traditional powerhouses.
“The opposition can use its reliance on non-Malay support to provide a platform for victory, particularly in mixed constituencies. This means three-cornered fights would also work to their advantage: with the Malay vote split both ways, strong support from non-Malays might be enough to win the seat.
“In Malay majority seats, however, the effect is less pronounced. It would take a particularly appealing candidate from one of the opposition parties to give it a better fighting chance.”
What was of great concern, the researchers said, was that the redelineation would contribute to a far deeper problem in Malaysia’s democracy.
“Throughout more than 50 years of independence, Malaysian society has witnessed numerous symptoms of atrophied forms of democracy, fabricated under the state’s aphorism of ‘political stability and economic progress’.
“These include ethnic-based political boundaries and social benefits, draconian state control, such as that via the Internal Security Act, and various other forms of electoral manipulation.”
As a result, they said, there was despair among various groups, particularly millennials, which was being translated into political apathy. They pointed to the popularity of the #UndiRosak (spoilt votes) campaign as a symptom of this.
“This lackadaisical attitude clearly favours the dominant power and hampers concrete structural change, an affirmation of a trend seen increasingly elsewhere: political paralysis among voters, resulting in stalled social transformation. Such apathy does not bode well for democracy in Malaysia,” they said.