Permatang Pauh by-election
This page covers the 26 August 2008 by-election in the Penang parliamentary seat of Permatang Pauh, which returned Anwar Ibrahim to the Dewan Rakyat five months after the 2008 general election.
what happened
Permatang Pauh is a parliamentary seat in Penang that Anwar Ibrahim won for UMNO at four consecutive general elections from 1982, holding it until the 1999 election, which he did not contest. His wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail then won it three times, in 1999, 2004 and March 2008. On 31 July 2008 Wan Azizah announced her resignation, creating the vacancy that let Anwar stand. The ban on his holding office, imposed after his 2003 corruption conviction, ran until April 2008, and the observer mission that watched the campaign records that he moved to re-enter electoral politics about a month afterwards.
The Election Commission set nomination day for 16 August and polling for 26 August 2008, and declared three candidates: Anwar for PKR, the Barisan Nasional state assemblyman Arif Shah Omar Shah for UMNO, and Hanafi Hamat for AKIM. The constituency had 58,459 registered voters and 28 polling centres. Anwar won with 31,195 votes and a majority of 15,671 over Arif Shah's 15,524; Hanafi Hamat took 92. Of the 46,811 valid votes recorded by ElectionData.MY, Anwar's share was 66.6 per cent and his majority 33.5 per cent — both are shares of valid votes, and both are a little lower measured against every ballot cast. The two tallies of turnout differ: the observer mission recorded 47,410 votes, 81.1 per cent, while ElectionData.MY records 47,268, or 80.9 per cent. The mission also records that counting took place at the polling centres immediately after the close of poll with no complaints received about the count.
The campaign ran alongside a sodomy allegation made against Anwar by a former aide, which at that date was an untested charge before the courts with a hearing set for September. Anwar said publicly that the governing coalition had organised the allegation and the campaign around it; that is his characterisation, not a finding. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, both advocacy organisations, separately stated that they regarded the case as politically motivated. What later became of the proceedings is dealt with on the Anwar Ibrahim trials page and is not assessed here.
The direct federal consequence was Anwar's return to the Dewan Rakyat. He took his oath on 28 August 2008 and stepped into the role of parliamentary opposition leader for Pakatan Rakyat; the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister were not at the ceremony. Pakatan Rakyat had won 82 of 222 seats in March, 30 short of a majority, and Anwar's stated route to government was to attract defecting government MPs by 16 September 2008. That did not happen, and the unmet deadline itself became a recurring reference point in later Malaysian reporting.
What the margin meant remains argued rather than settled. The observer mission read it mainly as the strength of a family stronghold. Al Jazeera pointed to a Merdeka Centre telephone survey of 544 voters in which, its director said, more than half believed Anwar was "capable of bringing change that will benefit the people regardless of race" — a measure of opinion about Anwar during the campaign rather than an explanation of the margin, and one that does not exclude the stronghold reading. Both are set out here as attributed positions. On the wider effect, Mahathir Mohamad called for Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to resign and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah said the Prime Minister had lost credibility after the result; those are the views of two UMNO figures, reported at the time, and this page does not weigh them.
the working
What the sources say
established
The seat became vacant when the incumbent member of Parliament, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, announced her resignation on 31 July 2008, opening the seat for her husband, Anwar Ibrahim, to contest it.
ANFREL international observer mission report · ANFREL mission summary page
established
Wan Azizah had won Permatang Pauh three times before the vacancy: at the 1999, 2004 and March 2008 general elections. —. The same report's candidate profile of Anwar describes her instead as having secured the seat "for two terms (1999 and 2004)", which its own results annex contradicts; the annex is followed here.
established
Anwar himself had held Permatang Pauh as an UMNO member from 1982, winning it at four consecutive general elections in 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1995. He was dismissed from the Cabinet and from UMNO in September 1998, but that did not vacate the seat: the ANFREL mission puts his tenure at 17 years from 1982, and he did not stand at the 1999 general election.
ANFREL mission report · ElectionData.MY candidate record for Anwar bin Ibrahim
established
Anwar was barred from holding office by a ban imposed in 2003 following his corruption conviction, and Al Jazeera reported in May 2007 that the ban ran until April 2008. The ANFREL mission records that he began his return to electoral politics about a month after the ban was lifted.
established
The Election Commission (Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya, SPR) set nomination day for 16 August 2008 and polling day for 26 August 2008.
established
The Election Commission declared three eligible candidates on nomination day: Anwar Ibrahim (PKR, Pakatan Rakyat), Arif Shah Omar Shah (UMNO, Barisan Nasional) and Hanafi Hamat (AKIM).
established
Arif Shah Omar Shah was at the time the Barisan Nasional state assemblyman for Seberang Jaya, the one BN state seat inside the Permatang Pauh parliamentary constituency.
established
The constituency, P.044 Permatang Pauh in Pulau Pinang, had 58,459 registered voters spread across 28 polling centres.
established
Anwar Ibrahim won the seat for PKR with 31,195 votes. That is 66.6 per cent of the 46,811 valid votes, which is the percentage ElectionData.MY displays; measured against all ballots cast rather than valid votes it is about 66.0 per cent.
ElectionData.MY candidate record for Anwar bin Ibrahim · ElectionData.MY
established
The recorded majority was 15,671 votes. The 33.5 per cent that ElectionData.MY prints alongside it is the majority as a share of valid votes, not of all ballots cast; against all ballots cast it is about 33.2 per cent.
established
Arif Shah Omar Shah polled 15,524 votes and Hanafi Hamat polled 92 votes, according to the result table compiled by the ANFREL observer mission from the Election Commission's count. The three candidates' votes sum to the 46,811 valid votes recorded by ElectionData.MY.
established
The two available tallies of turnout differ slightly. The ANFREL observer mission's result table gives 47,410 votes cast, 81.1 per cent of registered voters. ElectionData.MY gives 47,268, or 80.9 per cent, made up of 46,811 valid votes, 447 rejected ballots and 10 ballots not returned. This page reports both rather than choosing between them; the difference does not affect the winner, the margin or the vote totals, which agree in both sources.
established
The percentage column in the ANFREL result table is internally inconsistent and should not be used: it prints Anwar's 31,195 as 71 per cent, Arif Shah's 15,524 as 28 per cent and the 15,671 majority as 66 per cent, none of which follow from the raw totals in the same table. The raw vote totals and the turnout figure in that table are used here; its calculated percentages are not.
established
Counting was done at the polling centres immediately after the close of poll, consolidated at a central location in the constituency, and the observer mission recorded that no complaints about the count were received.
established
Anwar took his oath as a member of the Dewan Rakyat on the morning of 28 August 2008 and took his place as leader of the parliamentary opposition for the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.
established
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak were not present at the oath-taking.
established
At the 2008 general election in March, the opposition parties that became Pakatan Rakyat had won 82 of the 222 Dewan Rakyat seats, 30 short of a simple majority; Anwar's stated plan was to form a government by attracting defections, with 16 September 2008 named as the target date.
established
The government did not change hands on 16 September 2008, and the failure of the plan became a subject of reporting in its own right.
established
The electoral-roll complaints and the Election Commission’s contemporaneous explanations are documented, but no published formal Election Commission investigation report or final adjudicative finding was located.
ACE Electoral Knowledge Network / ANFREL report · Malaysiakini
uncertain
Contemporaneous reporting places the expiry boundary for Anwar Ibrahim’s disqualification at 14–15 April 2008: Malaysiakini described the ban as expiring on 14 April, while Al Jazeera reported eligibility to contest from 15 April; no primary notice resolving that one-day difference was located.
where accounts differ
The parts nobody agrees on
alleged
A sodomy allegation had been lodged against Anwar by a former aide, Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, and the resulting charge was before the courts during the by-election campaign, with a court appearance scheduled for 10 September 2008. at the date of this by-election —. The eventual course and outcome of the proceedings are covered on the separate Anwar Ibrahim trials page and are not assessed here.
contested
Anwar said during the campaign that the governing coalition had orchestrated the allegation and the campaign around it; this is his characterisation.
contested
Amnesty International stated that it considered the charges against Anwar to be politically motivated, and Human Rights Watch said political motivations undermined the case; these are the positions of those organisations, which are advocacy NGOs.
contested
PKR and other opposition figures alleged that the electoral roll used had been updated on 31 July 2008 after being gazetted on 19 June 2008, and that names had been removed and added without notice. The Election Commission rejected the allegations: the same ANFREL report records of the detailed roll analysis published by the local group MALVU that "this has been officially denied by the SPR, but as yet the SPR has not provided an answer or definite explanation of the issue." The report also records that after the issue was taken up by the media the Deputy Prime Minister ordered the SPR to investigate, but that the order came only a few hours before polling. The mission does not report the allegations being substantiated by any inquiry.
contested
The observer mission itself judged the roll problematic, recorded concerns about postal votes registered to police personnel, described state broadcaster RTM's coverage as one-sided, and reported one incident it labelled alleged phantom voting; these are the mission's own assessments.
contested
Explanations of the size of the majority differ. The ANFREL mission attributes the result largely to the constituency being a long-standing Anwar and Wan Azizah stronghold. Al Jazeera's report cited a telephone survey of 544 voters conducted by the Merdeka Centre over the three days before polling, whose director Ibrahim Suffian said found that more than half believed Anwar was "capable of bringing change that will benefit the people regardless of race". That survey records an opinion held about Anwar during the campaign; it was not presented as an account of why the winning margin had the size it did, and it is not inconsistent with the stronghold explanation. Both readings stand here as attributed positions and this page does not choose between them.
ANFREL mission report · Merdeka Centre survey as reported in Al Jazeera
contested
Whether the by-election result weakened Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's position within UMNO was argued at the time rather than settled: Al Jazeera reported that former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad called on Abdullah to step down and that Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah said Abdullah had lost credibility after the result.
still being researched
- Whether an unpublished Election Commission investigation into the electoral-roll complaints was concluded, and with what finding.
- What primary notice resolves the one-day difference between reports placing the expiry of Anwar Ibrahim’s disqualification on 14 or 15 April 2008.