My First Time: 2023 Selangor State Elections

The August 2023 State elections were important for many reasons: six states voted for their state representatives, it acted as a referendum for the incumbent federal government’s performance, and it was my first time voting!

The Results

The August elections were a referendum for Anwar Ibrahim’s newly-elected party proxied through a state election. The election results revealed that Ibrahim’s Coalition, the Unity Government (UG), was not as popular as it hoped. UG won the majority vote in three states – Selangor, Penang and Negeri Sembilan – and lost the others. Perikatan Nasional (PN), the opposition, won Islamic strongholds – Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu. UG’s wins demonstrated setbacks even among the “secure” states, like Selangor and Penang, because they had lost seats to PN. For example, UG’s seat count in Selangor fell from 45 to 34, while PN’s rose from 5 to 22. My constituency, N.33 Taman Medan, was won by PN by only 30 votes per total 44,602!

The Analysis

So, what does this tell us? Even in UG strongholds, many voters believe that UG had performed so badly they were willing to vote for a fundamentalist, conservative Islamic party. Alternatively, political apathy discouraged more voters from voting, which was strange because the threat of another change of government was imminent. For example, the threat of Selangor being taken over by PN was salient yet subdued. My 16-year-old cousin urged me to vote because he “didn’t want to live in a state where he wasn’t allowed to wear shorts outside of the home.” Yet, the threat was subdued enough for voters, like many of my friends from high school, to believe that a PN takeover of Selangor would be mere fantasy. Hence, voter turnout fell from 80% in November 2022 to 72% in August 2023.  

The results also show deepened political polarisation along ethnic lines, especially when UG campaigned based on multiculturalism while PN campaigned for Malay supremacy. Lee Hwok Aun (2023) uses Selangor electoral results and demographic data to prove that Malay (super-) majority constituencies would vote for PN. In fact, all of PN’s wins were in constituencies with more than 60% of Malay voters. Lee explains that the 2018 gerrymandering exacerbated the polarisation between Malay and non-Malay. This is not a new phenomenon because Malaysians have historically voted for a race and/or a party, rather than voting for a candidate. For example, most political parties in Malaysia are race-based. Hence, when a voter votes for a candidate, their race is a conduit for their party affiliation. Alternatively, the justified political apathy due to Malaysia’s political instability and poor governance may have caused many to have lost trust in democracy itself. So, the act of voting becomes an action against a greater evil. Since, voters have felt a loss of reasonable choice, this might lead them to vote as a pact vis-à-vis racial groups because their choice has already been cheapened.

The Lesson

In this era of political doom and gloom, I am reminded of the real leaders of this democracy: us, the rakyat. The August 2023 State elections have shown us how easily a party can lose and gain power. But their power rests in the hands of voters, who care enough to spend a Saturday at the polls. I would urge fellow Malaysians not to lose hope, to educate themselves, remain open-minded, and take action to make this democracy work for them. As Fahmi Reza often says, Rakyat Adalah Boss.