Dari Barisan Ke Perikatan: Politik, Parti, dan Pengundi Melayu dalam Pilihan Raya Umum 2022 (From Barisan To Perikatan: Politics, Parties, and The Malay Electorate In The 2022 General Election)

Abstract

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.