So Close and Yet So Far: Strategies in the 13th Malaysian Elections JAMES CHIN Monash University, Malaysia ABSTRACT This article examines the strategies employed by the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (or National Front), and the opposition alliance, Pakatan Rakyat (People’ s Alliance), in the 13th general election held in Malaysia in May 2013. It argues that while the opposition used the right strategy for the 2013 campaign, it lost because it could not overcome the three biggest hurdles for opposition politics in Malaysia: East Malaysia, the rural Malay votes and a biased electoral system. KEY WORDS: Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Rakyat, Najib Razak, Anwar Ibrahim, election strategies, United Malays National Organisation, Malaysian Chinese Association, Malaysian Indian Congress Introduction Prior to the 2013 Malaysian general elections, some were predicting that Pakatan Rakyat (PR), the opposition alliance led by Anwar Ibrahim, had a real chance of ousting the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN). The optimism was based on the following factors. First, Najib Razak, the incumbent Prime Minister, looked scared because he did not call the elections within the ‘normal’ period, i.e. one year immediately after taking power in 2009. Both his predecessors, Mahathir Mohammad and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, called for elections within 12 months of taking office. The last general election was held in March 2008 and many had expected Najib to call a general election in the second half of 2011 at the very latest. Second, delaying the elections to the last possible date (past the mandatory five-year term limit) allowed the opposition more time to pre- pare and put together resources to fight the BN. Third, and perhaps the most important, the delay in calling the elections gave the opposition additional issues and scandals that were exposed in the whole of 2012. The BN’s Campaign Strategy Unlike earlier campaigns, the BN went into the 2013 general election knowing that it would not get the all-important two-thirds majority in parliament. BN lost its two-thirds majority in 2008 after nearly half a century in power. Hence, the BN strategy was to hang on to power and perhaps perform better than in 2008. The eight main components Correspondence Address: James Chin, School of Arts and Social Science, Monash University, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 47500 Bandar Sunway, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. Email: james.chin@monash.edu © 2013 The Round Table Ltd The Round Table, 2013 Vol. 102, No. 6, 533–540, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2013.857145