Barisan Nasional won 23 of the 165 seats in peninsular Malaysia at the 2022 general election, out of 222 nationally. Perikatan Nasional won 71. Barisan is in government today, as the smaller partner to Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan.
If the two agree a seat pact, most of the argument is settled before anybody sits down.
The rule does the damage
A seat pact is an agreement to stop competing. Think of two shops that have been fighting over the same street. Each keeps the customers it already had. Neither takes a stretch of road it was losing on.
Seats get divided by who did better last time. Perikatan won 71 peninsular seats in 2022, and winning a seat means it got more votes than Barisan there.
So Barisan’s claim on those 71 is zero from the start. That is not something it can talk its way out of. It is arithmetic.
The problem is wider than the 71. Across all 165 peninsular seats, Barisan finished ahead of Perikatan in 49 of them. Perikatan finished ahead in the other 116.
It is the map, not one bad year
Maybe 2022 was just a terrible year. It was Barisan’s worst result in 67 years. It won 146 peninsular seats in 2004, 85 in 2008 and again in 2013, 49 in 2018 and 23 in 2022.
But a bad year would leave Barisan behind everywhere. That is not what happened.
Ignore everyone else. Of every 100 votes that went to one of these two, how many went to Barisan? More than half and Barisan is ahead in that state. Less than half and it is not.
Barisan is past halfway in Negeri Sembilan, Johor and Pahang. It is furthest below in the four northern states of Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu and Perlis. Its share there runs from about a quarter of the vote in Kedah to a third in Terengganu.
Those four states hold 40 seats between them. Barisan trailed Perikatan in all 40.
A Malay unity pact means the main Malay parties stop fighting each other and run as one side. That is a northern idea, and Barisan is a southern party. It brings Negeri Sembilan, Johor and Pahang. It cannot bring the north, where the pact would be built.
Bersatu’s collapse does not help either
Barisan is mostly Umno. Perikatan is mostly two parties, PAS and Bersatu. Barisan hopes Bersatu’s troubles free its seats up. They will go elsewhere.
Bersatu won 28 peninsular seats in 2022, and Barisan was runner-up in 21 of them. That sounds like a queue. It is not one. Across those 21 seats Barisan took 35.7% of the two coalitions’ combined vote. That leaves it nearly 29 points behind. PAS is in line to take those 21 seats.
Negeri Sembilan on 1 August showed how that works. Umno contested 16 seats and won all 16. PAS contested five and won four. Wawasan Negara, founded in June by Hamzah Zainudin after Bersatu sacked him, contested four and won three. Bersatu and its allies contested 24 and won none, on 3.9% of the vote.
PAS and Wawasan did not stand against each other once, and neither stood against Barisan. PAS and Hamzah’s new party simply carried on as the same side, and Barisan gained nothing from the break.
What the pact would actually be
Barisan would enter the pact with 23 peninsular seats to Perikatan’s 71. It could claim none of those 71. It is behind in 116 of the 165.
It cannot argue from the north, where it leads in no state. It cannot argue from Bersatu’s collapse, because it was not close in those seats either. It can argue from Johor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang. That is three states, a minority of the peninsula.
Barisan’s own history is the strongest thing it has, and that history runs the wrong way. The coalition that won 146 peninsular seats in 2004 now holds 23.
None of this says a pact will not happen. Barisan and Perikatan divided Negeri Sembilan between them and took two-thirds of the seats. The numbers say what Barisan would bring, and what it could ask in return.
The offer is a junior place in a new coalition. Barisan could only build it by breaking the one where it is needed today.
