Voting trends in Bukit Selambau by-election Malaysia

• Main Authors: Zakaria, Zaherawati, Hussin, Zaliha, Noordin, Nazni, Mohamed Sawal, Mohd Zool Hilmie, Mohd Yusof, Azrul Shahimy, Jusoff, Kamaruzaman
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture 2009
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/17613/1/Voting%20trends%20in%20Bukit%20Selambau%20by.pdf; http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/17613/; http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/css/article/view/j.css.1923669720090504.014
• Institution: Universiti Putra Malaysia

The Bukit Selambau by-election was due to the previous ADUN’s of Bukit Selambau, YB.V Arumugam’s resignation and this had caused SPR to supervise another by-election on the 7th of April 2009. The local population had shown the tendency to support the People’s Coalition (PR) rather than side with the Barisan Nasional (BN). The objectives of this research are to identify the voting trends of Bukit Selambau by- election and to determine the most trends influencing the voting pattern in this by-election. The findings on the observations and interviews that were done concluded that the candidates’ ethnicity, religion, and age played an important role in the Bukit Selambau by-election. As a result, the PR had won even though its candidate S. Manikumar was not well known and BN’s candidate BN Datuk S. Ganesan who was very popular, lost the by-election. BN needs to remember that after the political tsunami that hit a year ago, popular candidates do no guarantee victory to the contesting parties even though there were 50.2 % Malay voters in Bukit Selambau. BN’s failure to take back Bukit Selambau should be taken as an lesson to be learned, in which a more ’people friendly’ campaign should be done later on. In reality, the Malays should stay together so that the political tsunami of PRU 12 will not take place in the upcoming PRU 13. The recommendations were made to the State Government, local society and future research by participating from all parties including citizen in process voting trends more transparency.