Low or high turnout?

Enthusiastic: Pakatan and Perikatan supporters (below) turned out in force to accompany their respective party’s candidates on nomination day for the two Johor by-elections. But it’s the number of voters who turn up at the ballot boxes next month that is the important figure. — Bernama

POLLING day for the Pulai parliamentary seat by-election is on Sept 9, but on paper, Pakatan Harapan has already won.

The Johor constituency has the demographics that the Pakatan Harapan-Barisan Nasional coalition led by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim thrives on.

It is a seat in which the Malays are a slim majority – about 51% of the total number of eligible voters. The Chinese make up about 37% and Indians about 10%.

With Anwar’s approval rating nationwide, according to a recent survey by think tank Ilham Centre, at 88% among the Chinese, 81% among Indians, and 24% among Malays, there will be enough voters – if voter turnout among the three communities is the same – for Pakatan to win the seat.

For Perikatan Nasional to win Pulai, it would need a big Malay swing to the Opposition coalition and a low turnout of Chinese and Indian voters.

Will the Malays in Pulai overwhelmingly support Perikatan, which comprises Bersatu, PAS and Gerakan?

If they do, will it be because of 3R (race, religion and royalty) or bread-and-butter issues?

Can Barisan leader Umno persuade its supporters to vote for Pakatan? Or will they abstain or vote for Perikatan?

In the same survey, the Ilham Centre found that many Umno voters either abstained or voted against the party in the previous state elections because they were dissatisfied with its president, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

In fact, before nomination day yesterday, Umno faced a rebellion of sorts when its Rembia assemblyman, Datuk Muhammad Jailani Khamis, attended the Perikatan machinery launch for the Simpang Jeram by-election on Wednesday night in Muar, Johor.

The Melaka politician explained that he attended the event under Muafakat Nasional, an NGO led by Tan Sri Annuar Musa who is with PAS.

Will enough Chinese turn out to vote in Simpang Jeram?

According to that Ilham Centre survey, Chinese voter turnout was the highest in the Aug 12 state elections. Presumably, Perikatan’s racial and religious rhetoric spooked them into going out to vote.

Some Chinese might have been disappointed with Pakatan, but it was not enough to discourage them from voting for the candidate from the government.

“Some Chinese are beginning to suspect that it is the same old, same old politics regardless of who is in power,” a 30-something advertising execute told me when we chatted about the cancellation of a concert in Penang.

The state government had instructed the Seberang Prai City Council to scrap the approval for the Viral Lagu-Lagu TikTok Malaysia Indonesia 2023 concert scheduled to be held in Kepala Batas next month.

“Let’s see how many of them will be so afraid of PAS that they will turn out to vote.”

Interestingly, if the Chinese votes for Pakatan and the Malay votes for Perikatan are even, the 10% of Indians could be the decider.

Based on the Ilham Centre survey, eight out of 10 Indians favour Anwar and, therefore, Pakatan.

However, there is a big question mark over whether Anwar has an “Indian problem” after the just concluded state polls.

Influential personalities from the community have asked Indian voters to boycott the two by-elections in Johor.

Among them is activist Arun Dorasamy, who said the community should boycott the Prime Minister for presiding over a religious conversion ceremony involving an Indian.

“I’m starting a movement to urge Indian voters to boycott Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional during the upcoming by-elections,” Arun said in a news report.

“I’m not asking for Indians to support Perikatan. Instead, this is a protest against the government of the day.”

But I feel it is unlikely that the community will heed the boycott call.

Pulai is for Pakatan to lose.

On paper, the Simpang Jeram state by-election is also for Pakatan to win.

However, Perikatan has better odds in wrestling Simpang Jeram from Amanah, which is a part of Pakatan.

Malays make up about 55% of the voters in the state seat.

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia politics and governance research group head Assoc Prof Dr Mazlan Ali forecast that there could be a significant shift in Malay support toward Perikatan. He explained that it is more because the community there is dissatisfied with the economic situation than because they support Perikatan.

“Simpang Jeram is quite critical. It is not impossible for Pakatan to lose the seat given the current developments,” he was reported as saying.

Again, just like in the six state polls, especially in Selangor, the outcome of the by-elections goes back to voter turnout.

A low or high turnout, depending on the demographics, could upset the “on paper” Pakatan wins in the two by-elections.