SHAH ALAM - Many have been saying that the 15th General Election (GE15) is inclining towards Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition but do political experts think the same way?
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Deputy Director of the Institute of Ethnic Studies Associate Professor Dr Kartini Aboo Talib said the verdict depended on the seat and the constituents.
"For mixed seats in urban areas, we can see the tendency towards PH, but in other zones like rural and semi-rural, the masses are tilted towards BN (Barisan Nasional), and moral constituents with partisan to PAS will be pro-Pakatan Nasional (PN),” she told Sinar Daily when contacted.
She said PH campaigns maintained the message to bring BN down by tarnishing former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and associated the political party with corruption.
She said PH seemed to forget that the people had received all sorts of assistance during Najib’s time as the prime minister, such as the 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) and rejected Goods and Services Tax (GST) when it was crucial for the economy of the country.
"Pakatan Harapan can be called as Parti Hasutan.
"Their campaign continues to tarnish Najib, bad BN, and corruption.
"Still, they forgot that people received BR1M during Najib, and PH was the one that denied or rejected GST and it is necessary to boost the state economy, prevent wealthy business people from escaping taxes and so on,” she said.
However, she added that BN had the chance to win the election but it would not be easy for them.
She added that it was too early to say that PH would garner votes from first-time and young voters as they are agile with online information.
"We cannot say that young or first-time voters will be pro-PH as they can access information online, can think logically and politically literate.
"But the common assumption is that young people with high adrenaline would vote for change and may see BN as an old party.
"Yet, BN has 85 per cent new faces consisting of young and vibrant candidates,” she said.
Commenting further, she said the fresh faces in the BN coalition all were gadget savvy to promote their candidacy and political agenda across spatial and population.
Weighing on the same issue, political analyst Dr Oh Ei Sun said that many PH leaders were seasoned and charismatic orators as compared to their opponents from BN and PN.
This, he said ‘sort of’ stirred up a sandstorm of enthusiasm as they barnstormed the breadth and width of the country, which created a sense of popular winnability in the process.
"However, as the dust settles on voting day, it remains to be seen if this wave of invincibility would be translated into actual votes and seats,” he told Sinar Daily.
He added that it was more likely that no single major coalition would win an outright parliamentary majority.
He said that this would necessitate the formation of a coalition government, which could include two or more of the major coalitions or their component parties, plus other parties from East Malaysia.
"The number of representatives may or may not be the same for each coalition partner,” he said.
Meanwhile, Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) political analyst Associate Professor Dr Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani said PH coalition did not have enough seats to form a simple majority.
"I think, by convention and precedent, the coalition party with the highest number of seats will be asked to form the government in the case of no party winning the simple majority,” he said.
He added that if that was the case, a super grand coalition was needed to form a government.