Commentary: Melaka votes, Putrajaya watches - the hotly contested state polls could be harbinger of next Malaysia GE

Commentary The upcoming state poll is not really about Melaka. It is a testbed where Malaysia’s warring political parties will experiment with new alliances that are set to determine the shape of the next general election, writes CNA’s Leslie Lopez. Melaka Chief Minister Ab Rauf Yusoh (with spectacles) and Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (centre) on the campaign trail in the upcoming Melaka state election where the UMNO-led coalition is widely considered to be front-runners. (Photo: Facebook/Ab Rauf Yusoh) New: You can now listen to articles. This audio is generated by an AI tool. KUALA LUMPUR: For one of Malaysia’s smallest states, Melaka has been punching well above its weight in the country’s drawn-out political chaos.Following the 2018 general election, two state administrations collapsed in one term.The Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration headed by then chief minister Adly Zahari fell in March 2020, weeks after the so-called Sheraton Move – the hotel-suite coup in which defecting Members of Parliament (MPs) toppled the PH federal government led by Mahathir Mohamad. The incoming Barisan Nasional (BN) administration was itself later toppled in October 2021 when four assemblymen withdrew support. The snap state election that followed in November produced pitched three-way contests for the dominant ethnic Malay vote, in which BN prevailed. Thirteen of the state’s 28 state assembly seats were won by under one thousand votes. The PH coalition, on the other hand, appears to have an informal arrangement with Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), the party behind the Sheraton Move that brought down the PH government in the first place.In the coming days, all eyes will be on Melaka, especially at the administrative capital of Putrajaya, where strains between the components of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Unity Government are being discussed openly in coffeeshops and the corridors of Parliament.FULL DRESS REHEARSALMelaka’s Saturday election has drawn 79 candidates into 11 straight fights, 11 three-cornered contests and six in four-cornered brawls for the 28 seats. At stake is not just who will control the Melaka state government. The state has become the stage for a full dress rehearsal to Malaysia’s 16th general election, which is due sometime in early 2028 but widely expected in the next 12 months.The headline experiment is the UMNO-PAS axis operating under the BN-PN banner. After knifing each other in previous electoral contests for the Malay vote, the BN coalition will contest in 23 seats, with UMNO running in 18 of them, and the PN coalition in five. There is zero overlap. FUEL FOR AN EARLY GENERAL ELECTIONFor Mr Anwar's PH, which held five seats before dissolution and is contesting in 24 state assembly constituencies in the upcoming polls, the situation is more grim.PH’s survival strategy is based on an alliance it barely wants to acknowledge publicly and to which its main coalition partner, the Democratic Action Party (DAP), is openly uneasy about.Should PH emerge from Melaka with fewer than five seats, the narrative that will dominate the weeks after is of Mr Anwar’s shrinking political mandate.PH has already suffered state election defeats in Johor and Negeri Sembilan this year and a third consecutive drubbing in Melaka would revive questions about the coalition’s pull among Malay voters. That, in turn, would further weaken Mr Anwar’s hand within his own unity government.Conversely, a comfortable PH-Bersatu showing would do the opposite by validating Mr Anwar’s coalition management and strengthen his hand to call for national polls at a time of his own choosing. Pakatan Harapan, the coalition led by PM Anwar Ibrahim which suffered defeats in the recent Johor and Negeri Sembilan state polls, faces grim prospects in the upcoming Melaka state election. (Photo: Facebook/Anwar Ibrahim) A THIRD FORCE ON TRIALThen there is Parti Bersama Malaysia (Bersama), a splinter from Mr Anwar’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) led by former PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli. The question hanging over Bersama is whether it can become a sustained third force.The party, which Rafizi launched in May after taking over an obscure Penang-registered party, isn’t expected to win any seats. Bersama’s actual debut was in the July Johor state election, where it suffered a wipeout with all of its 15 candidates losing their deposits.But Melaka could be different.Bersama is contesting in 16 seats and its stated goal is modest: keeping its electoral deposits, which requires securing 12.5 per cent of the votes cast in contested areas. The party unveiled its candidates back in August, two months before nomination days to give its unknown faces time to work the ground and present a new brand. Melaka’s electorate has ballooned to over 680,000 from 495,000 in 2021, with the new voters made up of largely young Malaysians, who hold no allegiances. That is precisely the demographic Bersama’s data-driven and policy-heavy pitch is engineered to appeal to. Bersama’s Melaka manifesto that was launched on Nov 2, includes channeling at least 30 per cent of the state operating expenditure - equivalent to over RM86 million (US$21.1 million) based on the 2024 budget - into direct-to-the-people programmes and a freeze on sea reclamation approvals.If Bersama draws meaningfully from the urban, reform-minded Malays who once backed PKR and PH, it could establish itself as a credible protest vehicle ahead of the next general election.But then again, Malaysia’s political graveyard is filled with wannabe third forces, which are now either defunct or effectively dead. Among them include Semangat 46, which was founded by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah as a breakaway from UMNO in the late 1980s. It was dissolved in 1996 and Tengku Razaleign returned to UMNO. To be sure, state elections are imperfect federal barometers because voters reward and punish differently in these contests, especially when no prime minister is on the ballot.Whatever the case, the results and data after Melaka votes will be mined seat for seat for clues over what could shape outcomes for GE16.