Corruption, corruption bring down BN, say analysts

SINGAPORE: Analysts said on Sunday that Malaysia's 15th General Election GE 15 marked the end of an era for Barisan Nasional BN with corruption playing a key role in the downfall of the country's former ruling coalition.

Pakatan Harapan PH won 81 seats with the result of one seat still too close to call, while Perikatan Nasional PN won 73 seats, while the result of one seat was too close to call. The BN finished third with 30 seats, down from the 79 it won at the last election in 2018.

Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin and veteran MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah were among the key BN figures who lost their seats.

Caretaker prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob did not lose his seat, as did BN chairman Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

Political observer Serina Abdul Rahman, from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said during CNA's election night that it was the end of an era.

She said that they've lost all the clout that they've had for more than 61 years because of the less than half of the number of seats secured by other parties.

Dr Serina described the result as a pushback for the last two to three years of tumultuous Malaysian politics.

Dr Francis Hutchinson, also from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said later in the broadcast that BN did not do enough after its defeat at the last election in 2018.

He said that there was no cleansing because of the huge loss they had in 2018, and that was one of the things that stands out.

It was very much the old guard and the traditional people in power, so what we're seeing now is this coming home to roost, both in terms of the people leaving or being ejected in the run-up to the election. This is payback for not cleaning up, he said.

Analysts at the CNA said on Sunday that it was clear what brought down the coalition.

Zahid destroyed the party's choices by his leadership and campaign decisions, said Ms Bridget Welsh, an honorary research fellow at the University of Nottingham Malaysia's Asia Research Institute.

He was not the right leader to lead the UMNO United Malays National Organisation into the campaign and his focus on himself backfired. Zahid may have won, but I do think corruption and corruption as an issue dragged them down, said Dr Meredith Weiss, professor of political science at the University at Albany.

Ms Aira Nur Ariana Azhari, the head of the Democracy and Governance unit at the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, pointed out a swing in the Malay vote as well as the youth vote to PN, especially in the northern states of Penang, Kedah and Perak.

BH called the election too late, according to Senior Fellows of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.

If they had called the polls after the Johor state election, where they saw their overwhelming win, then perhaps they could have ridden on the Johor win to a national win, Dr Oh said.

I think that the voters may have second thoughts when more than half a year later, during the rainy season, and when more scandals have been dug out which has implicated a number of leaders in the Barisan Nasional.