Madani Wins Ayer Kuning But Psm Makes Waves While Pn S Pig Agenda Fails

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AYER KUNING POLLS | The Madani coalition succeeded in retaining the Ayer Kuning state seat in Perak, with BN handsomely beating Perikatan Nasional in the by-election.
However, a deeper look at the numbers suggests that the ruling coalition should not be resting on its laurels.
In the 2022 general election, BN had 38.7 percent of the vote and Pakatan Harapan 29.3 percent - which combined is 68 percent.
However, Madani only secured 60.7 percent in this election - a drop of over seven percentage points.
Part of this can be explained by the lower voter turnout - around 58 percent today compared to 74 percent in 2022 - with 5,300 fewer ballots cast.
While this also affected PN - whose total vote count dropped by around 750 votes - the opposition pact's vote share increased from 29 percent in 2022 to 33.2 percent tonight.
This points to Madani supporters being less motivated to vote.
Perhaps, more worryingly for Madani - and Harapan in particular - was how PSM performed.
Despite losing its deposit yet again, PSM more than doubled its vote share from 2.5 percent to six percent, while total votes shot up from 586 to 1,106.
A look at granular data shows that PSM made gains in 18 out of 20 districts.
In the two districts where it did experience a drop in votes, the decrease was minimal, with 17 fewer votes in the Ayer Kuning district and just four fewer votes in Ayer Kuning Selatan.
Madani had 456 fewer votes in Ayer Kuning and 247 votes in Ayer Kuning Selatan.
ADSBoth districts have a large non-Malay voter base.
Buying into PSM’s positioning
The data suggests that some Madani supporters - likely from Harapan's non-Malay base - are beginning to buy into PSM's positioning that it is the alternative for disgruntled Harapan voters.
PSM has been touting that it would truly safeguard the interests of all Malaysians, while also being actually committed to reforms and progressive policies, areas where Harapan's credibility has been suffering of late.
While the impact based on today's outcome might seem small, it does indicate that Harapan, as the leader of the Madani coalition, may want to pay more attention to the grievances of its supporters.
Failure to respond could see not just isolated losses, but a broader erosion of Madani’s support base in future elections.
PN’s pig agenda fails to gain tractionAs for PN, the by-election results suggest that its attempts to gain votes through stoking Malay sentiments by playing up the pig farms issue in Ayer Kuning failed to gain traction.
Likewise, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang's attempts to pressure the Malays into voting for PN by saying it was more important than going on the haj also failed to deliver results. - Mkini

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