ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY IN THE BY-ELECTION IN PARLIAMENT OF TANJONG PIAI, JOHOR
Authors: Awang Besar Junaidi 
Published: October 2020

Political geography is one of the aspects of human geography that is a larger study, but it contains more specific elements. Political geography focuses on political phenomena and focuses on the structure of the institution and how it is involved in the formation of geographical patterns and relationships. In this paper, two aspects of political geography will be explored in the by-election of the Tanjong Piai parliamentary, namely geopolitics and electoral geography. Geopolitics means the influence of power on an area in terms of ethnicity, political parties, leaders, governments, and local authorities. Election geography is a field of study on the various aspects of geography such as area, borders, population, development, and economic influence on political trends of the state. It is well known that the BN won the Tanjong Piai parliamentary seat in the 2019 by-election and the seat is won by the PH in 2018. The post-election 2018 sees the Tanjong Piai Parliamentary Election on November 16, 2019. BN/MCA candidate Datuk Seri Dr. Wee Jeck Seng won the Tanjong Piai parliamentary by-election with 15,086 votes after gaining 25,466 votes. Thus, the geopolitical aspects that will be uncovered are the influence of ethnic geopolitics, political parties, and leaders in influencing the election results and voting patterns while the geographical aspects of the electorate that will be elaborated in this paper are mapping in terms of area influence (development), border, location (urban-rural), accessible, physical (natural and man-made). In terms of geopolitics ethnicity, found both ethnic Malay and Chinese support BN/MCA ethnic Chinese caused by the candidates and the identification of a party in the by-election of Parliament for Tanjong Piai while the electoral geography, in the polling district outside the city, the majority of ethnic Malays continued strong support BN/MCA while the town/urban where the majority of ethnic Chinese took place a little swing of PH in the BN/MCA caused by the candidates, the socio-economic situation and current issues in favor of the BN/MCA. One of the main factors contributing to the Barisan Nasional’s majority in the Tanjung Piai by-election on Nov 16 was because of its candidate Datuk Seri Dr. Wee Jeck Seng himself. The charm, popularity, and service of Wee, who has been a member of the state legislative assembly of the Pekan Nenas for three years, and the Tanjung Piai MP for two terms, certainly met the level of community satisfaction there. The former Tanjung Piai MP is seen as more experienced, credible, and friendly than Pakatan Harapan (PH) candidate Karmaine Sardini. Wee Jeck Seng’s personal and BN’s machine power-assisted by PAS through the cooperation of the Muafakat Nasional is considered to be the key factor in winning the BN. Jeck Seng’s strength is also reflected in the BN and PAS’s unified machine power which was successfully consolidated through the Muafakat Nasional. This factor is significant because the UMNO and PAS machinery are seen as working hard to ensure that all white voters are cast out, despite the Tanjung Piai parliamentary seat being contested by MCA candidates. Moreover, issues of anger and frustration of the people and especially the Chinese community over the failure of the government to deal with the rising cost of living, the promise of the 14th General Election (GE14) manifesto were not met and the failure of the PH to address sensational issues played by BN also contributed to the defeating factor for PH this time. PH candidates are also seen to be caught up in the issue of their own mistakes as well as the wisdom of the BN machinery to play negative issues involving the PH Government which ultimately influences the electorate.