Visual Representation of Malaysian Candidates in General Election in Selected Coalition Parties: A Visual Survey on Social Media

The results of the recent 2018 general election (GE14) in Malaysia were exceptional. The ruling party – Barisan Nasional (BN) – was ousted from power after over six decades of authoritarian rule, by a new opposition coalition – the Pakatan Harapan (PH). In this historic election, BN lost all the federal states in Peninsular Malaysia except for the two less developed ones of Perlis and Pahang. BN was also defeated in Sabah for the second time since its dramatic recapture in 1995. However, these results are not as surprising if one looks at the outcome from its historical and developmental perspectives. The indication of the breakdown of the one-party dominant state of Malaysia can (at least) be traced back to 10 years ago – since the 2008 general election (GE12). BN then lost several parliamentary seats in the urban centres, even with a less unified opposition. It had also lost four states on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, and had been fairly incompetent in reclaiming control over Selangor and Penang since that particular election. Five years later, in the 2013 general election (GE13), the results aggravated BN. It had lost its popular votes to the then opposition coalition – the Pakatan Rakyat (PR). The main objectives of this article, therefore, are twofold. First, it intends to shed light on the recent general elections through historical and developmental approaches by linking them to the electoral results, and political development in Malaysia, respective to GE12 and GE13. Second, it strives to make available for analysis the arguments on how the opposition pact managed to unseat BN in GE14. The analysis in this article is based on the data gathered by the author through a mixture of media studies, library research, and direct observation – as this author was one of the official observers appointed by the Election Commission of Malaysia for GE14. The main argument of this article on the breakthrough of PH to the federal government is that the opposition managed to reshape the multiparty electoral system to a “two-plus-one party system” from late 2016, which boosted the level of political competition between the two main parties in Malaysia – namely, BN and PH – in GE14. Four major factors have been identified as constituting the triumph of PH and the fall of BN in the election. These are: the existence of a credible representative and strong opposition, with the inclusion of Mahathir and two Malay/ Bumiputra (“the natives”) political parties; the rupture of the elites within the ruling regime; the presence of impactful issues surrounding Najib's administration; and, the advancement of information and communications technology as well as its impact on the emergence of a digital and much more participative society in Malaysia.

The 2023 General Elections (GE) in the state of Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Penang, Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah in Malaysia is an important election to see the impact of GE-15 in 2022 on the parties in the Unity Government namely Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Barisan Nasional (BN) and political parties from Sabah and Sarawak; with and Perikatan Nasional (PN) either continue or create a new pattern. The intended impact is the support pattern of Malay and Chinese voters, as well as the policies or policies of the Unity Government carried out by PMX. Voter support for political parties in the 2023 state election is also influenced by the relationship between voters and other individuals as well as the influence of the environment. Therefore, it is the purpose of writing this article to analyze the geographical and sociological factors in the State General Election in Malaysia in 2023. Based on the data analysis of the State General Election 2023 in Malaysia, observations in the field and analysis of secondary sources such as journal articles and conference papers, the findings of the study show that from a geographical point of view, PH and PN each remain in control of the states they won in GE-14 2018, namely PH remains in control of Penang, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan but with a decrease in seats in rural Malay areas; while PN remains in Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah. From a sociological point of view, the narrative that "green wave" or "referendum against PH-BN" needs to be rethought and should not be accepted in totality. This article explains that based on the analysis from the sociological and structural dimensions it clearly shows that the results of the 6 State PRN contain different narratives that can be raised and considered, namely the strengthening of the "red wave" and the "referendum of UMNO members" against the UMNO party which is now the main ally. PH-BN in a unity government. Therefore, geographical and sociological factors will continue to influence the direction and pattern of voter support in elections in Malaysia.

The year 2022 is an important year for democratic politics in Malaysia. This is because a General Election (GE) was held to elect representatives to form a stronger and more stable government after the country experienced political turmoil with the appointment of three Prime Ministers to the extent that foreign investors were confused by Malaysia's political position. After the GE was held, Malaysian politics was still at a standstill because no single political party coalition won the GE with a simple majority of 112 parliamentary seats, therefore, the purpose of writing this article is to analyze the results, which is the first time in Malaysian political history that there is no political party won the GE just like the previous 14 GEs. Based on data analysis of the 2022 GE results, observations in the field and analysis of secondary sources such as journal articles and conference papers, the findings show that Pakatan Harapan (PH) won 82 seats, Perikatan Nasional (PN) won 74 seats, Barisan Nasional (BN) 30 seats , Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) 23 seats, Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) 6 seats, Parti Warisan Sabah (WARISAN) 3 seats, Parti Bangsa Malaysia (PBM) 1 seat, Social Democratic Prosperity Party (KDM) 1 seat and Independent 2 seats. The results of this general election show that no single party managed to get a simple majority of 112 seats to dominate Parliament and the Federal Government. This result is due to BN's failure to win a simple majority due to the large shift of Malay votes to PN. This large shift in votes is a factor in the awareness of Malay voters to choose clean political parties and leaders who can be expected to fight for the rights of Malays and Muslims. As a result of the wisdom of His Majesty the Yang Dipertuan Agong's orders and advice, a Unity Government was formed from 148 members of Parliament which is a 2/3 majority of the 222 members of the Malaysian Parliament consisting of PH, BN, GPS, GRS, WARISAN, KDM, PBM and 2 Independent Members of Parliament. PN (74 members of Parliament) did not join the Unity Government and acted as the opposition. With that as well, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim from PH has been appointed as the 10th Prime Minister. Therefore, political parties in this country do not have the best option as long as they need Malay-Muslim votes to control as many Parliament seats as possible and be able to form a strong and stable Government.

The 13th general election in 2013 (GE13) was the most recent general election in Malaysia. It was a display of stiff competition as the main opposition coalition at the time, Pakatan Rakyat (PR), was a strong competitor for Barisan Nasional (BN), the ruling coalition. BN learned its lesson from the 12th general election campaign in 2008 (GE12) and came up with a large scale campaign and active participation on social media in GE13. The former prime minister of Malaysia who led the GE12 campaign, Abdullah Badawi, mentioned it was “a serious misjudgment” when BN depended on government- controlled newspapers and television as the opposition attracted young voters with mobile phone text messages and blogs for the elections (“Malaysian leader admits ignoring Internet was a mistake,” 2008). PR performed better in the election compared to the ruling coalition in GE12, increasing their seats from 19 to 82 in a parliament of 222 members. That election denied BN a two- thirds majority in the parliament. GE13 was regarded as the fi rst social media election by the new leader of BN at the time, Najib Tun Razak, because politicians from the two main coalitions used social media to engage with voters online (Lim, 2013 ; Sani, 2014 ). Gomez ( 2013 ) dispels this notion due to the BN’s poor election performance and described the election instead as BN losing the social media election. BN used both traditional and social media in the GE13 campaign (Bakar, Yusoff , & Hussin, 2014 ). Whichever view one takes, it is clear that the Internet has transformed the political communication style of Malaysian elections from the use of traditional mass media to a symbiosis of both traditional mass media for predominantly one- way communication and online media for interactive communication with voters. Of great interest to this chapter are the previous qualitative studies and reviews of the GE13 campaign in terms of advertising. A meta- ethnographic synthesis of qualitative research studies and reviews of the political campaigns for the 13th general election in Malaysia has generated themes and identifi ed keywords for comparison and contrast. These studies provide an insight into the GE13 campaign in relation to advertising. Before turning to the advertising in the GE13, it is important fi rst to understand the Malaysian populace and the country’s aspirations, which determine the signifi cant aspects of the election campaigns in GE13 and in previous elections.

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.

The 15th Malaysian General Election in 2022 is a democratic celebration in Malaysia which is held every five years. What was interesting about the 15th General Election was the political drama, because there were no political parties or coalitions that achieved a minimum majority, namely 122 seats out of 222 seats. Barisan Nasional and UMNO conducted a Unity Kingdom with Pakatan Harapan after the 15th General Election. In this research, researchers looked at qualitative methods for this case. Unity Politics is considered to be a new political constellation in Malaysia. This is because UMNO and Barisan Nasional have more experience than the other competing parties. Therefore, this research looks at how Pakatan Harapan was able to win in the 15th General Election and the joining of Barisan Nasional-UMNO to Pakatan Harapan.

Public discourse commonly takes place in public forums of free media. The 4th estate provides an external dimension to the democratic check and balance to the executive (1st estate), the legislative (2nd estate), and the judiciary (3rd estate). This paper discusses the rise of a social media 5th estate, as exemplified by online public discourse surrounding the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, and the country’s ensuing electoral change of government. Drawing upon thematic analyses of 1MDB-related comments in the official Facebook page of Free Malaysia Today, this paper illustrates the rise of a social media 5th estate in the run-up to Pakatan Harapan ’s win in the Malaysian 2018 14th General Election. Since international public disclosure in 2015 of former Malaysian premier Najib Razak’s purported siphoning of billions of ringgit from 1MDB, the scandal continues to be a trending topic on Malaysian social media. The online discourse of 1MDB evolved from heated posts discussing Najib’s culpability and criticism of his Barisan Nasional administration, into support to the opposition Pakatan Harapan coalition, particularly in the run-up to the 14th Malaysian General Elections (GE14) that was held on 9th May 2018. Pakatan Harapan ’s win, following the social media support, exemplifies the power of a netizen-fuelled 5th estate. Keywords: GE14, Pakatan Harapan, 1MDB, Najib, Barisan Nasional.

This article explores the mainstream media favorability towards political parties in the context of newspaper coverage in Malaysia during the 14th general election in 2018 (GE-14). The newspapers selected for this study are three Malay, two English, two Mandarin and two Tamil newspapers namely: 'Utusan Malaysia,' 'Berita Harian', 'Sinar Harian', 'New Straits Times', 'The Star', 'Nanyang Siang Pau', 'Sin Chew Daily', 'Nanban' and 'Osai'. The background of the newspapers was explored in order to understand the ownerships and approaches in covering the news about GE-14. This study was carried out in two separate phases, in which the data were derived from both periods before and after the GE-14. The data were classified into few categories based on reports on Barisan Nasional (BN), Pakatan Harapan (PH), Gagasan Sejahtera (GS) through the frequencies and percentages of the positive, negative, and neutral forms of coverage. The result of this study implies that in 2018, most of the mainstream media reporting was pro-government, which attributed to the linkage to political parties. Surprisingly, the unprecedented victory of the opposition can be seen to relate to the growth of positive coverage towards Pakatan Harapan, subsequently after the general election. Through content analysis of these selected newspapers, the author discussed gender-related coverage and general issues during the chosen period of the study. Keywords: Mainstream media, media ownership, political partisanship, general election, Malaysia.

This chapter discusses the battle of the three political regimes in Malaysia, the Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Harapan (PH), in the 14th General Election and the formation of Perikatan Nasional (PN) after the collapse of the PH government. The BN coalition has shown its political influence throughout 63 years of ruling the country since independence which has been hard to break by other opposition parties in Malaysia. BN has manipulated various government instruments in ruling to form a strong political hegemony that affects the voting behaviour of voters in determining rational choice, especially when elections are conducted. However, the strong political domination has been broken by the opposition movement that began in the 12th General Election that eventually toppled the old political regime, BN in the last GE-14. The failure of BN to defend its position as a government is due to several factors including scandals and misuse of power by political leaders, the weaknesses of the government in addressing economic issues, and pressures faced by the people on the cost of living, and limited employment opportunities. Issues that arise are then manipulated by the opposition parties at the same time, which managed to convince voters to change their support from BN to PH in the last GE-14. However, PH, which then had the opportunity to govern the country with a dilemma, as it failed to capitalize on the opportunity and fulfilled its manifesto as promised in their election campaigns. Subsequently, Malaysians, especially the voters in a series of by-election have begun to send a message to the government by voting for opposition candidates as a gesture of protest against the PH government. Furthermore, an analysis of the developments and dilemmas of the direction of the two political regimes before and after the GE-14 is discussed in detail in this chapter.

The 15th general election held on 19th November 2022 was the most intense and unpredictable in the Malaysian electoral history. This is due to the fact that there were four main coalitions contesting in the Peninsular Malaysia, namely Barisan Nasional (BN), Pakatan Harapan (PH), Perikatan Nasional (PN) and Gerakan Tanah air (GTA). The 15th general election took place in the midst of political turmoil in Malaysia stemming from the previous 14th general election whereby within approximately four years, Malaysia had experienced three alternating governments. This study aims to analyze the results of the 15th general election as well as examining the factors that shaped the results. This study uses qualitative method via analysis of commentary and observation on the political landscape of Malaysia circa the date of the dissolution of parliament on 20th October until the polling day. The study finds that subsequent to the announcement of the 15th general election results, no one party had secured an easy majority victory resulting in a hung parliament. The coalition which garnered the most seats won was Pakatan Harapan at 82 seats followed by Perikatan Nasional at 73 seats and Barisan Nasional at 30 seats. In addition, this election also witnessed the declined support for Pakatan Harapan, even more deteriorating for Barisan Nasional, while drastic increase of support was seen for Perikatan Nasional. A variety of factors were identified as instrumental to the results such as poor leadership, young voters and social media campaign.

The lengthy years of the Perikatan (Alliance) and its successor Barisan Nasional (BN) administrations (1957–2018) gave Malaysia the opportunity to construct and mould the practice of democracy. Democracy is reflected through the existence of various political parties, the holding of regular elections under closely administered electoral processes, the upholding of rights and freedoms of the people to participate in party politics and civil society, the heated interactions among multi-ethnic citizens over mainstream and social media and the limited avenues provided by the law for the populace to express and display dissent. In Peninsular Malaysian politics, fault lines along the divisive racial and religious lines appear to dominate the discursive scene, with related issues over the role of Malay royalty trailing not too distantly behind. The past decade or so has seen political fortunes of the opposition, defined here as parties that oppose BN whether separately or together in coalitions during general elections, progressively improving, culminating in Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) trouncing of BN in the fourteenth general elections (GE14) in 2018. However, in Malaysian politics, elected politicians do not by themselves fill all political gaps. In uncertain times, as have prevailed in Malaysia since Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia’s (PPBM) betrayal of PH in February 2020, the Malay monarchy has become more important than ever in deciding who and which political coalition gets to form the country’s executive branch. This chapter presents an overview of how race, religion and royalty are routinely encountered in the country’s politics, particularly over the last decade.

Since the 2008 General Election (GE), Barisan Nasional (BN) has experienced a steady decline – particularly among the urban voters and the youth, including the Malays. Accordingly, the BN government fell in the 2018 GE before returning to Putrajaya in March 2020 (in the Muhyiddin Yassin administration) and in August 2021 (the Ismail Sabri administration) through a political pact with the National Alliance (PN). In the 2022 GE, scheduled in November, the BN Chairperson Ahmad Zahid Hamidi decided for the BN to go solo in the election and caused an intense multi-cornered fight throughout the country. Ahmad Zahid’s confidence, however, was not without basis. In late 2021, a state election took place in Melaka, before another state election in Johor in March 2022. The BN went alone in these elections and recaptured both of the states from the Pakatan Harapan (PH). Surprisingly, BN recorded poor performance in the 2022 GE, winning only 30 parliamentary constituencies, in contrast to 79 seats in the 2018 GE, out of the total of 222 seats. Based on field research and secondary sources, this article analyses the competition for the Malay vote in the 2022 GE, involving issues and campaigning strategies among the main parties/coalitions, by exploring the factors that shape and change Malay voting patterns in the election.

The article discusses the election manifesto in Malaysia presented by a coalition of major parties contesting in the 2018 General Election (GE), particularly Barisan Nasional (BN), Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Gagasan Sejahtera. This study is important to compare the differences of these three manifestos of a party coalition and analyse the advantages and disadvantages of the manifesto offered as it can be improved in the future. To achieve this objective, content analysis was used to examine the three manifestos offered. The results find five main findings. First, state-level manifesto studies show that there is a relationship between the party that won the election and the manifesto. In addition, local issues play an important role in the manifesto at the state level. Second, although economics is an important element in the manifesto, there are other issues that influence voters and need to be emphasized, especially in the aspects of integrity, transparency and good governance by the government. Third, in the social aspect, the findings show that important issues that can affect the youth are related to the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) loan issue, employment opportunities, the increase in the price of goods and several other issues that have contributed to BN's defeat in the 2018 GE. The fourth is related to the political aspect, the issue of good governance became important in the 2013 GE and became more evident in the 2018 GE when BN's defeat in Sabah was also linked to one of the issues of good governance. Thus, the element of good governance in the manifesto is important and can influence voters. Finally, the manifestos offer to voters must be practical and workable. If it cannot be implemented, the incident occurred in the By-Election (PRK) in Cameron Highlands has been one of the factors in PH's defeat due to the failure to fulfill the promises in the GE 2018 manifesto. Therefore, it is recommended that the parties contesting in the election must take an approach or a better strategy in offering a manifesto to voters in the future. This approach includes listening to grassroots needs, realistic, practical and guaranteed in terms of feasibility in a plan. The implication is that, a good, realistic and workable manifesto will provide a win-win situation for both parties, namely the contesting party and the people.

Malaysia had its 14th General Election on 9th May 2018 that resulted in a change of government from the Barisan Nasional (BN) who ruled since 1957’s independence to the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition. Acknowledging the power that social media had in influencing voters, The Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA) was mobilised to hunt dissenters, where some cases resulted in successful prosecution. Despite the drastic move taken to enact the Anti-Fake News Act 2018 one month before the election, the previous government failed to convince the public that fake news was grave threats to society. Instead, the above initiative may have contributed to BN’s painful defeat against the inexperienced PH. After the election, PH faced similar issues of having to deal with a plethora of fake news online and the ‘gun’ had now turned towards them. The PH Ministers had difficult times correcting misstatements issued through social media which was flooded with sarcastic trolls, some of which may amount to illegal content. Through a qualitative method, this article assesses how social media influenced the landscape of 14th GE. Consequently, international and national legal frameworks have been developed to combat the dissemination of fake news online, as analysed in the second part of this paper. The third part further examines how popular social media platforms provide countermeasures in dealing with fake news and how far legal frameworks correspond to the practices of service providers. It is hypothesised that in time, the PH coalition should have turned towards censoring the internet as done by the previous BN government due to the emerging threat of online fake news all over the world.

Compared to other states, the political scenario in Sabah is rather not static and it is quite dynamic, making it a bit difficult to predict. This was evident once more during the results of the 15th General Election (GE-15) in which no political party or coalition, including the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah – Barisan Nasional (GRS-BN), WARISAN, Pakatan Harapan, Bebas, and others, achieved a comfortable victory. Since the 14th General Election, the idea that Sabah is a fixed deposit for any political party or coalition may no longer be an accurate indicator of election results and narratives. Factors such as the East Coast-West Coast territorial factor and the party factor were also not significant. Instead, other factors may have contributed to the “division” of seats. Therefore, this article discusses the dynamics of electoral competition that influence the sentiments and choices of Sabah’s voters during GE-15. This article will examine seven key issues: the relationship between the Federal and State governments, primordial sentiments, candidate factors, young voters, urban voters factors, the factor of political party fragmentation, and the situation of coalition victories. Thus, based on a qualitative approach, specifically interviews and observations, this article argues that the issues, trends, and challenges that exist and shape the political landscape in Sabah are part of the current political climate and a normal democratic process.