在我之前的两篇有关第15届大选的文章中（《谁是下一任首相？》，《道德愤怒能否引发大选海啸？》），我曾做出以下的观察和预测，如今基本上是正确的。这些观察和预测为：
●对贪污、滥权和治理不当的道德愤怒，将在选民投票时起作关键作用。
●多个马来政党相互争夺马来选票，而互揭疮疤，与此同时，我们也看到之前成功挑起马来人和伊斯兰权利和特权将面对著侵蚀的宣导策略的持续，以确保这些课题继续成马来选民首要考量。
●马哈迪的斗士党和祖国行动联盟得票不多和马哈迪本身可能在浮罗交怡国席落败。
●伊党端出以马来人和穆斯林为主的竞选宣言，以确保其在马来腹地的吸引力。伊党也公开表明愿意与任何获胜的联盟合作，除了希盟例外，因伊党不愿与华裔主导的行动党联手。
●巫统主席扎希将是巫统和国阵的负资产。
●土团党主席慕尤丁会是大选的黑马。在伊党和伊党主席哈迪的助推下，土团党在北部和东海岸各州，有成为马来人首选政党趋势。慕尤丁也似乎是马来青年中首选的马来领袖，如果他们积极出来投票，将可提高国盟胜望。
●如果国盟拿下乡区和半城市选区——即使在城市选区没有大斩获，在悬峙议会下，也足以让国盟扮演要角。如果希盟无法在巫统流失马来人支持时，打入马来选区，慕尤丁将很可能重登其在去年8月失去的相位。
●如果安华能够获得多一些马来人在投票日时，转态支持公正党，希盟最终可能成为第15届大选的大赢家。
现在选举已经结束，我们可以反思如何修复国民的凝聚力并减少社会的分化。
从观察所得，首先，我国成功举行了一场和平且无事故的选举。投票率——估计74％约2100万选民投了票——这证明了，尽管我们民主制度存在许多弱点和限制，例如选区划分不均而有利于马来政党，选区划分不公而变相形成对城市选民歧视，但非马来选民一致决心，让选票发挥了作用。
另一个积极的现象是，种族和宗教气焰相对受到控制，除了国盟主席慕尤丁在最后一场造势大会上的演讲外。这名国盟领袖在大马联合民主阵线（MUDA）主席赛沙迪上阵的麻坡选区集会中，不惜打出种族和宗教牌。这也反映，在选前几周与希盟联盟，由赛沙迪领导，走多元种族和以青年为中心路线的MUDA，显然成了土团党一个重要的打击目标。
慕尤丁指控希盟乃犹太人和基督教组织的傀儡，试图殖民化马来西亚，这项指控（据估计其中一个慕尤丁的指控视频，在Tiktok浏览量就已超过60万次）加剧马来选民对族群和宗教的不安全感。尽管慕尤丁澄清说，他的话被断章取义，但这策略成功在麻坡和全国其他地区吸引游离的马来选民转向土团党和伊党。
赛沙迪以微弱优势保住了他在上届选举中以舒适大多数票赢得的议席。但是慕尤丁和伊党领袖哈迪阿旺的种族和宗教诉求，为他们的政党赢得了大部份年轻一代马来人的首投族选票。
很明显，总体而言，选民在投票时，相比经济或阶级问题，更关注于种族和宗教课题。连同选民的道德义愤情绪，导致普遍上拒绝巫统和其领导的国阵，进而改变了政治格局，把宗教政党──伊党推向主导地位，成为国会里最大的政党。马华和国大党也面对惨败，依然难以恢复当年勇。
选举后出现了悬峙议会局面。与此同时，从投票统计数据中，我们可以看出，马来人和穆斯林依然在我国政治制度中占主导地位。马来人政治主导地位是毋庸置疑的，从以下数据表中，我们可以看出：
选举的其他一些结果和要点是：
●新政府在国会或州层面，将面对著来自马来与穆斯林的反对党牵制。特别是伊党在国会拥有45席，并控制著吉打、玻璃市、吉兰丹和登嘉楼州政权，加上马来穆斯林官僚的支持，预料会更强力推动伊斯兰国目标，使社会不管在公共和私人领域各层面更加伊斯兰化。
●明显的是，煽动种族和宗教情绪，让伊党和土团党在此次选举中尝到甜头。如何中和政治人物和煽动种族主义和宗教极端主义势力的政治动态，这将视安华和其内阁的领导才能和手段。
除了国会外，社会其他部门——如被喻为第四权的媒体和第五权的智库与民间社会代表——必须更有力地站出来，否则国家将陷入更大的分化和不稳定危机。
安华被委为联合政府的首相，也显示了国家元首在确保国家和谐和和平发展上，扮演著压舱石角色。国家元首行使宪法赋于的权力
组建一个团结的联合政府，并呼吁政治人物和民众理性看待事件发展和“为我们心爱的国家继续前进”。这一呼吁也获得统治者会议认同，但其能否成为新届国会议员的指导精神和明灯，还有待观察。
林德宜《第15届大选：成绩和成果》原文：Malaysia’s 15th Election: Results and Outcomes
In my earlier 2 articles in the Oriental on the election I had made the following observations and predictions which turned out to be generally correct. They were:
● Moral outrage over corruption, abuses and misgovernance will play a big role in the voting booth
● The multiple Malay based parties will see them focus on each other’s deficiencies. At the same time we will see a continuation of earlier successful tactics focusing on the potential erosion of Malay and Islamic rights to ensure that this issue is uppermost in the minds of the Malay voting masses
● Dr Mahathir’s Pejuang and Gerakan Tanah Air (GTA) will not win many votes and Dr. Mahathir himself is likely to lose his Langkawi seat
● PAS will generate an exclusively Malay Moslem electoral campaign to retain its appeal to the Malay and religious heartland. PAS is open to bedding with any winning coalition with the sole exception of Pakatan which the Islamic party is determined to keep out of power because of the Chinese dominated DAP
● UMNO President Zahid Hamidi will be a negative gamechanger for UMNO and Barisan Nasional
● Bersatu President, Muhyiddin Yassin, is the election dark horse. Bolstered by Awang Hadi and PAS, his party is increasingly seen as the Malay party of choice in the northern and east coast states. Muhyiddin also appears to be the Malay leader of choice among Malay youth who, if they turn out in large numbers to vote, could
provide the winning edge for the Perikatan coalition
● The combination of winning seats in rural and semi-urban areas - even without any big win in the urban constituencies - may be enough to make Perikatan the main player in any hung Parliament. If Pakatan is unable to make inroads into what appears a distinct fall in Malay support for UMNO, Muhyiddin may return to the Prime
Ministership position
● If Anwar Ibrahim is able to win a modest minority of Malay support for PKR, Pakatan can end up as the biggest winner in GE15.
Now that the election is over, we can reflect on what needs to be done to restore cohesion
and lessen the divisions in Malaysia.
The first observation is that the nation had a peaceful and incident free election. The record turnout of voters - an estimated 74 percent of 21 million voters cast votes - is testimony that although there are many weaknesses in our constricted democratic system such as the advantage to Malay parties arising from the massive malapportionment and gerrymandering that discriminate against urban voters, non-Malay voters are still determined to make their
votes count.
Another positive feature was that racial and religious hyper-ventilation was relatively restrained except for the last public rally of Muhyiddin Yassin. The leader of the Perikatan coalition could not resist playing the race and religion card in Muar where the president of the nation’s youngest political party was standing. Espousing a multiracial and youth-centric ideology, Syed Saddiq who had aligned his Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (MUDA)
party with the Pakatan coalition a few weeks before the election, was clearly an important target for Bersatu to take down.
Claiming that Pakatan Harapan was an agent of Jews and Christians who were out to colonise Malaysia, Muhyiddin’s allegation (a video clip of him making the allegation posted by a Tiktok user was estimated to have been viewed over 600,000 times) had the effect of heightening the racial and religious sense of insecurity among the Malay electorate.
Although Muhyiddin has clarified that he was quoted out of context, it was a successful strategy in wooing fence sitting Malay voters in Muar and elsewhere in the nation to the Bersatu and PAS camp.
Syed Saddiq managed to narrowly retain his seat which he had won in the last election with a comfortable majority. But Muhyiddin’s and PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang’s racial and religious appeal won for their parties a sizable majority of the younger generation of Malay voters voting for the first time as a result of the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18.
Race and Religion Concerns Dominate Voters Decision
It is clear that overall, race and religion concerns rather than bread and butter or class issues were uppermost in voting decisions. Together with the moral outrage sentiments of voters, they resulted in widespread rejection of UMNO and associated Barisan Nasional parties and resulted in a new reconfiguration of the political landscape with PAS, the dominant religion-based party, emerging as the largest single party in the new parliament. Both MCA and MIC suffered heavy losses which they will find it difficult to recover from.
The election produced a hung parliament. At the same time, Malay and Muslim dominance of the country's political system remains the central feature as seen in the voting statistics.
The continuity in Malay political dominance is also beyond doubt as is apparent from the table on the racial composition of the newly elected representatives.
The Unity Government’s Biggest Challenge
Some of the other outcomes and takeaways from the election are:
● The new government will have a fight to keep at bay the combination of Malay and Islamic opposition representatives in Parliament and at state level. In particular Pas with its 49 members in the new Parliament and control of the state governments in Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu together with supportive Malay Muslim
bureaucrats and its goal of an Islamic state can be expected to push harder for the greater Islamization of the society in all aspects of public and private life.
● It is also clear that the playing up of racial and religious issues contributed to the electoral success of PAS and Bersatu. How to neutralise the political leaders and political dynamics fanning the ethno-nationalist and religious forces of extremism will require Anwar’s and his Cabinet’s leadership and dexterity. Other stake players
besides those in Parliament - the fourth estate of media and fifth estate of think tanks and civil society representatives - have to stand up more forcefully or the nation risks descending into greater disunity and instability.
For now, the appointment of Anwar as the Prime Minister of a unity government highlights the continuing important role of the Yang Di Pertuan Agong in providing the ballast to ensure the nation’s peaceful and harmonious development. In exercising his constitutional authority to decree the formation of a national unity government, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah has called on politicians and the public to “be rational” and to “move forward for our beloved country”.
Whether this call supported by the Conference of Rulers can be the guiding spirit and light for the nation’s new parliamentarians remains to be seen.
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