INTRODUCTION

Despite solid macroeconomic data, power of incumbency and unlimited political funding, the coalition party that had ruled Malaysia for over six decades and was widely expected to win the 14th General Elections (GE-14), lost to a newly constituted opposition coalition led by a ninety-three-year-old former prime minister of the country. Various social, economic, political and psychological dynamics have been advanced to explain the surprise victory. A primary factor is the influence of the state of the economy and how voters perceive their economic well-being is being taken care of by the ruling government.

Public opinion polls had consistently identified economic issues, specifically the rising cost of living, as a key voting factor. However, positive macroeconomic conditions prevailed at the time of the election. The surprise election outcome seems at odds with what we would expect of economic voting—whereby voters reward the incumbents for bringing economic prosperity. The influence of economics on election outcomes in democratic countries has been found to be pervasive across countries and over different time periods although the relative importance of the economic variables such as income growth, inflation and unemployment may vary depending on the country's prevailing socio-economic conditions.

Were voters in Malaysia less concerned about how the economy performed? Could it be that the economic indicators such as national income, inflation and unemployment did not reflect on-the-ground realities? In other words, the country's positive overall economic indicators masked the variation in performance across industries, income groups and rural-urban divide. Or, could it be that economic issues are much more complex in relation to election outcomes?

This chapter will discuss these three themes to better understand the influence of the economy on voting behaviour, particularly the extent to which economic factors could have provided early indicators on vote swings that resulted in the unexpected change in government. Given the strength of the overall economy prevailing at the time when the ruling government called the election, a primary focus of the analysis is the extent to which unevenness in growth, income inequality and distributional issues have contributed to the divergence between the economic indicators and voters’ economic realities and discontent.