KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 11): Malaysian United Democratic Alliance, which is going into the state polls independently from its former ally Pakatan Harapan, has run into some trouble right before polling day.

The young party that is mostly known to Malaysians as "Syed Saddiq's party" has now been slammed as "childish" and "budak", among others, for the remarks made by a couple of its members who body-shamed the Bukit Gasing incumbent Rajiv Rishyakaran on social media.

The episode prompted Muda deputy president Amira Aisya to issue an apology on behalf of the party for the remarks made by its Bukit Gasing candidate VKK Raja and another Muda member Thinesh Raj against Rajiv, saying their statements do not reflect the party’s beliefs and values.

This isn't the first time Muda members got into trouble for what are seen as immature and inconsiderate posts on social media, in the run-up to the Aug 12 state polls.

One of the 20 candidates the party intended to field for the elections, Muhammad Noriswan Ishak — previously announced as the party’s candidate to contest the Repah seat in Negeri Sembilan — withdrew from the race for "personal reasons" right before the July 29 nomination day, following backlash he received about an old video, in which a friend of his acted like a disabled to get parking space, resurfaced following the announcement of his candidacy.

Noriswan apologised after the video drew criticism, saying the video was only to make fun of people who pretended to be disabled to get parking space. The party's leadership then said all Muda candidates and party top brass will attend a disability sensitisation training.

These episodes do not help the chances of the party, which is already facing an uphill battle trying to make itself known as a viable alternative to the bigger and more established coalitions of PH, Barisan Nasional and Perikatan Nasional.

As it is, many are already not optimistic about the party's chances of securing any of the 19 seats it is contesting on Saturday, most of them being ones previously won by PH. Besides the prospect of losing, analysts have said Muda is setting itself up as a vote splitter, by taking votes that would likely go to PH.

“This is funny because PN is saying Muda's entrance will split the Malay votes; PH is saying I'm splitting their votes. I mean, either one of them must be right or the reality is we are building a base for the future of Malaysia,” said Muda president Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, who plugged his party as the "bigger check and balance" to the PH-led Unity Government.

The 30-year-old politician, who already had a stint as Minister of Youth and Sports previously, is unfazed by all the glass-half-empty predictions, saying he views Muda’s latest move to contest solo as an attempt to “inject new politics”, and being “realistic” in its seat selection — and not because it was gunning for PH, or indirectly helping PN.

“If we have the resources, we would love to contest in all 245 seats. The fact of the matter is, we don't. I may ask the same question: why doesn't, for example, the DAP contest in the rural heartlands of Umno? Why don’t you ask, for example, Umno or PAS to contest in the most urban areas?” the member of Parliament for Muar said in a recent interview with The Edge.

“It's a very lazy response to just say ‘you're splitting votes’ instead of proving your track record that you want to genuinely change Malaysia. You cannot use fear-mongering to justify incompetency and blatant lies — where you say you want to do something else before [when in opposition], but now you're doing something else [after forming government],” he added.

Syed Saddiq also lamented that the Unity Government is resorting to “politics of pandering”, repeating the same mistake the PH administration made prior to its downfall in 2020.

“I was part of that Cabinet and this is also a criticism of myself,” he said. “You try so much to pander, in the end you take your base lightly, as if they are merely numbers and statistics in your electoral support. In the end, these numbers and statistics, your safe deposits, will also swing."

Of the 19 seats Muda is contesting, 14 of them are in Selangor, three in Penang and one each in Terengganu and Negeri Sembilan.

Based on the voting pattern in the 15th General Election last November, 13 of the 14 seats in Selangor would have been won by PH if a state poll was called, with a winning margin of between 3.4% to 78.4%, while the remaining seat — Sungai Kandis — would have been won by PN with a 2.2% margin.

Likewise, all three state constituencies Muda is contesting in Penang would have been won by PH if the state poll was held simultaneously, with winning margins of between 45.8% and 74.6%, according to voting data from the Election Commission.

In Negeri Sembilan, Muda is contesting the Temiang seat, where PH had the highest votes last November, with a margin of 40.4%. Breakdown of votes for the sole east coast seat of Bandar that Muda is contesting in Kuala Terengganu is not available as the GE15 results were invalidated by the court recently.

This is not the first time Muda is taking part in a state poll — the party had joined forces with PH during the Johor state election in March last year, and won the Puteri Wangsa state constituency. In GE15, Syed Saddiq managed to defend his Muar seat.

But Syed Saddiq acknowledged that Muda is at a disadvantage as it goes up against opponents with more established election machinery.

“I would say we are the underdog of underdogs," he said. "We don't have the patronage power structures like other mainstream political parties that are well financed and with strong machinery. We are clearly underfunded, under-resourced, undermanned,” he said.

Nevertheless, Syed Saddiq sees the Aug 12 state polls as a head start for Muda to embark on a 10 to 20-year political journey. “If I see this state election as just do or die, then I am very narrow minded and short sighted. This is meant for the long term and investing in Muda leaders for the next 20 years,” he said, adding it is part of efforts to dilute his image from being overly associated with the party.

Syed Saddiq also said 80% of Muda's political funding is crowdfunded, which he deems more sustainable over the longer term.

“Muda is run like a lean and mean political startup. We are filled with volunteers who are not paid, but are here with the right ideas and visions. Even our candidates fund raise on their own. I just have to support them in terms of a little bit of media buy. They run their own operations.

“It takes time to build up, but we're going to start with our base, which is truly those who believe in making Malaysia a multiracial, diverse, reform-centred country — in which decision making is data driven,” he added.

Unfortunately, the party that has been making quite a few headlines for the wrong reasons this campaign period has yet to show that it has the candidates that can match his thoughts, according to Universiti Sains Malaysia's Prof Sivamurugan Pandian.

And while the young party that is still "extremely focused on Syed Saddiq" wants to be recognised as the third force to reflect the thoughts of youths, it has yet to show they have the maturity required for national politics — as demonstrated by the recent controversial episodes, said the political analyst.

"They talk about respecting others, respecting differences... but making fun of OKU (the disabled) and body sizes — that don't reflect the values they espouse. We are not living in a society where there are two blocs of ideologies, but where people can be easily swayed by emotions and sentiment. I hope they learn from this," said Sivamurugan.

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