PRESTASI UMNO DAN PARTI AMANAH NEGARA (AMANAH) DALAM PRU-14 DAN PASCA PRU-14

Abstract

The 14th General Election, 2018 (GE-14, 2018) has taken place and is finished with calm and full of surprises. For the first time, the Barisan Nasional (BN), which was promoted by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), has lost its main opposition party, namely Pakatan Harapan (PH) using the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) logo along with the Parti Warisan Sabah (WARISAN). Thus, BN/UMNO also failed to defend its power after 63 years of mastering the rule of the Federal Government. The atmosphere of euphoria or the feeling of excitement among the people in this country is the result of the GE13 2018 demands for the necessity of a new Federal Government regime that is different from the previous BN government rule. The new atmosphere is also called ‘New Malaysia’. The results of the 2018 General Election can be highlighted in the performance of political parties competing in the GE. In the context of this article, UMNO and AMANAH were chosen to analyze the performance of the political party in the 2018 General Election because of UMNO’s status as an old political party (founded in 1946) while AMANAH is a newly formed political party in 2015 which is a PAS splinter party. It is important to see the old party's performance experienced in the political and governance (UMNO); and realistic, professional, progressive, and dynamic new party (AMANAH) formed as a result of the original party (PAS) was not suitable for mixed ethnicity in this country and seen as a conservative party. The writing of this paper uses primary data (the result of GE2018) and secondary data processing (information from published sources) that are critically and rationally analyzed and based on current ‘real politics’ in the country. The findings show that although UMNO as a spear in BN has lost federal and state levels the political party still retains control over the majority of Malay ethnic voters in rural areas. UMNO managed to dominate Pahang and Perlis State Governments in addition to being the majority opposition in parliament. AMANAH, however despite not contesting many parliamentary and state seats resulting from the distribution of election seats among the parties in PH but still managed to win seats in urban and semi-urban areas composed of mixed ethnic groups. People's representative from AMANAH also managed to oversee the post of the Chief Minister in the State of Malacca besides receiving the post of EXCO in several State Governments as well as the post of Minister and Deputy Minister at the Federal level. After the PRU 2018, it appears that there are some scenarios in the current issue that involve the continuity of UMNO and AMANAH politics which may affect the direction of the two parties towards the next general election.