The urban drift in Kuala Lumpur in the 2008 General Election: a return to the old ways?

The 2008 Malaysian General Election was a watershed election in the nation’s electoral history. For the first time in almost forty years the ruling Barisan Nasional failed to obtain a two-third majority in Parliament. The coalition also lost five states to the opposition coalition. The results indicated a significant swing in the voting pattern of the electorate. This article examines the electoral campaign in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, the issues of debate and the outcome of the general election in the city which also witnessed a tremendous swing in votes to the opposition coalition. It analyses the reasons for the shift in voter perceptions which resulted in the ruling coalition retaining only one of the eleven seats compared to the seven seats they captured in the 2004 general election. The article shows that the voters in the city were affected by a range of national issues, including the call for electoral reforms, grievances over the rise of essential goods and fuel and issues of corruption and discriminative legislation. This invariably led to a significant shift in the voting pattern.