Malaysia’s ethnic politics: A post-12th General Election analysis of the non-Malay support of UMNO and PAS

In Malaysian ethnic politics, the two rival Malay parties of UMNO and PAS have always been perceived as championing the ethnic Malay cause even with PAS giving an overt emphasis on Islam. The ethnic Malay electorate therefore is the only source of support and thus survival of the two parties. However, to secure a greater victory, both UMNO and PAS need to gain significant votes of the non-Malays. This paper examines this thesis by analysing the results of the 12th General Elections (GE) and post GE by-elections. Employing the correlation and regression analysis techniques the results show that the ethnic Chinese and Indian electrotates have rendered full support to the opposition candidates regardless of their ethnicity and that included Malay candidates. The results also show however that the opposition parties did not garner total support of the Malay voters. These negative statistical correlations mean that the higher the number of Malay voters in an area the less support of the Malays the opposition would obtain. The conclusion is a conundrum: UMNO and PAS are still crucially dependent on the Malay factor to win elections; but if the non Malay ethnics are sidelined they would still suffer.