First-past-the-post and its effects
Why winning more votes nationwide does not necessarily produce more seats. GE13 is the case study.
The short answer
First-past-the-post means that Malaysia elects one MP in each constituency, and the candidate with the most valid votes there wins the seat. It is therefore a constituency-by-constituency system, rather than one that assigns seats from a national party vote total.
GE13, held on 5 May 2013, makes this easy to see. PR received 5,623,984 votes, or 50.87%, while BN received 5,237,699 votes, or 47.38%. Yet BN won 133 of the 222 parliamentary seats and PR won 89.
Those results meant BN held about 59.9% of seats with 47.38% of the vote, while PR held about 40.1% of seats with 50.87% of the vote. A House majority required 112 seats, so BN’s 133 seats gave it a parliamentary majority. Najib Razak was sworn in as Prime Minister on 6 May 2013.
Constituency boundaries matter because each constituency elects one person. The Constitution calls for elector numbers within a state to be approximately equal, but it also permits area weightage for rural constituencies. That rule can affect how many voters are represented by a single seat, although the GE13 totals alone do not show why each boundary had its particular shape.
There is debate about the explanation for the GE13 gap. Ostwald’s research emphasised malapportionment and found evidence consistent with partisan bias, while other academic work found both ethnic and urban effects in the distribution of seats. The agreed starting point is the result itself: in a system that awards seats locally, a nationwide vote lead does not automatically create a parliamentary-seat majority.
What the sources say
How the system works
Under section 13(1) of the Elections Act 1958, the candidate with the greatest number of valid votes in a constituency is elected; the law does not require that candidate to receive more than half of the votes.
Malaysia uses a first-past-the-post system for elections, under which each parliamentary constituency returns one MP.
The Federal Constitution provides that the Federation is divided into constituencies for House of Representatives elections and that one member is elected for each constituency.
Because seats are decided constituency by constituency, a national total of votes is not itself used to allocate Dewan Rakyat seats.
The Constitution says the Election Commission must review constituency divisions at intervals of no more than ten and no less than eight years, subject to the constitutional provisions.
The Thirteenth Schedule says elector numbers within each constituency in a state should be approximately equal, while allowing a measure of area weightage for rural constituencies because of the difficulties and disadvantages they face.
GE13: votes and seats
GE13 for the House of Representatives was held on 5 May 2013.
All 222 Dewan Rakyat seats were contested at GE13.
Barisan Nasional (BN) won 133 of the 222 seats at GE13.
Pakatan Rakyat (PR) won 89 of the 222 seats at GE13.
BN received 5,237,699 votes, or 47.38% of votes recorded in the GE13 parliamentary results.
PR received 5,623,984 votes, or 50.87% of votes recorded in the GE13 parliamentary results.
BN’s 133 seats were about 59.9% of the 222-seat House, while PR’s 89 seats were about 40.1%; these seat shares differed from their respective vote shares.
A simple majority in the 222-seat House is 112 seats, so BN’s 133 seats constituted a House majority.
BN retained the federal government after GE13, and Najib Razak was sworn in as Prime Minister on 6 May 2013.
Inter-Parliamentary UnionMalaysia Ministry of Foreign Affairs
All 222 elected MPs took their oaths at the first sitting of the Thirteenth Parliament on 24 June 2013.
The Constitution provides that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong appoints as Prime Minister a Dewan Rakyat member who, in the Agong’s judgment, is likely to command the confidence of the majority of House members.
Published models produce different GE13 counterfactual outcomes because they make different assumptions about electoral rules, districting, party labels and vote transfers; their estimates are model results, not GE13’s single “true” alternative outcome.
No adjudicated finding or documentary record was identified proving that a specified GE13 boundary was drawn with partisan intent; analyses may describe partisan effects, but should not state intent as established.
Published research decomposes Malaysian partisan bias using stated models, including electorate size, party vote distribution and turnout, while other work models multi-cornered contests; these are model-dependent estimates rather than a single authoritative allocation of the entire GE13 vote-seat gap.
Where accounts differ
No winner is picked.
Political scientist Kai Ostwald argued that Malaysia’s electoral institutions, particularly malapportionment, were responsible for turning BN’s popular-vote deficit in GE13 into a parliamentary-seat majority; he reported that his analysis indicated a partisan element to that malapportionment.
Jason Wei Jian Ng, Gary John Rangel, Santha Vaithilingam and Subramaniam S. Pillay reported that both ethnic and urban effects helped explain the distribution of parliamentary seats in GE13; this is a different emphasis from accounts that chiefly attribute the result to constituency size and boundaries.
The 2013 Malaysian Elections: Ethnic Politics or Urban Wave?PDF version
The Oxford International Journal of Constitutional Law described the lack of fixed numerical ratios in the Thirteenth Schedule, together with first-past-the-post, as producing the GE13 outcome in which BN polled 47% in an essentially two-party contest and secured 60% of seats.
Malaysia: The state of liberal democracyFederal Constitution of Malaysia
Ramesh Rajaratnam of Transparency International Malaysia argued after GE13 that unequal constituency sizes and the electoral system created major distortions between votes and seats; this was an advocacy assessment, not a court finding.
The claim that particular constituency boundaries were intentionally designed to favour a party is an allegation requiring evidence of intent; the GE13 vote-and-seat totals alone do not establish intent.
Common questions
Do I need more than half the votes to win an MP seat?
No. The candidate with the greatest number of valid votes in a constituency is elected, so the law does not require the winner to receive more than half of the votes. Malaysia elects one MP for each parliamentary constituency under this first-past-the-post system.
Why could BN win more seats than PR in GE13 with fewer votes?
Because parliamentary seats are decided separately in each constituency, a national vote total is not used to allocate Dewan Rakyat seats. At GE13, PR received 5,623,984 votes to BN’s 5,237,699, but BN won 133 of the 222 seats while PR won 89.
Does the popular vote decide who gets a House majority?
No. A House majority depends on seats, not on the nationwide party vote total. In the 222-seat House at GE13, 112 seats were a simple majority; BN’s 133 seats gave it that majority even though its recorded vote share was 47.38%, while PR’s was 50.87%.
Why are some constituencies not the same size?
The Constitution says the number of electors in constituencies within a state should be approximately equal, but it permits a measure of area weightage for rural constituencies because of their difficulties and disadvantages. The Election Commission must review constituency divisions at intervals of no more than ten and no less than eight years, subject to the constitutional provisions.
Still open
- How do the stated assumptions of published models affect their estimates of the respective roles of first-past-the-post, constituency size differences, geographic concentration of support, and three- or multi-cornered contests in the GE13 vote-seat gap?