This page explains, in plain prose, the terms the GE16 projection
uses throughout: what a Seat and a Majority are, where Sentiment
comes from, how a Swing turns into a Projection, and what Election
Status means. Each definition here is a plain-language restatement
of this project's own glossary in CONTEXT.md, not a new
claim about Malaysian politics.
a group of parties that contests and governs together
A Coalition is a group of parties that contests and governs together. The five Coalitions this site tracks are PH, BN, PN, GPS and GRS. For how each of the five came to exist, including founding dates, member parties, and the splits and mergers behind them, see the Coalitions page.
the unit an election is won or lost in
The Dewan Rakyat has 222 Seats. "Seats" is the term this site uses for what are otherwise called parliamentary constituencies. A Seat is the unit an election is actually won or lost in.
the threshold a Coalition needs to form government alone
A Majority means holding more than half of the Dewan Rakyat's 222 Seats, that is 112 or more. A Majority is the threshold a Coalition needs to form government on its own.
The Government Coalition, the current governing bloc, is made up of PH, BN, GPS and GRS together with minor parties. The Government Coalition holds the Majority, as of the most recent count in the Dewan Rakyat.
Non-government means every Seat or Coalition outside the Government Coalition. PN is the opposition, but WARISAN, KDM, PBM and independents are neither in the Government Coalition nor in opposition to it. Calling those parties "opposition" would assert a political alignment they have not declared. This site's chamber of Seats runs along a single axis, from the safest Government Seat to the safest Non-government Seat.
the fixed starting point every Projection is computed from
A Seat's Baseline is its GE15 (2022) result and demographic profile: vote share, margin, and the ethnicity and age breakdown of its voters. The Baseline is the fixed starting point every Projection is computed from.
the measured public political mood, derived from two sources
Sentiment captures the measured public political mood, tagged per Coalition or party. Sentiment draws on two sources: continuous News Sentiment and periodic Poll Calibration. Sentiment is an input signal the Swing Model consumes.
News Sentiment is computed with an open-source, self-hosted multilingual sentiment model that runs as local CPU inference, with no external API. News Sentiment draws on headlines and articles scraped from major Malaysian outlets, in both English and Bahasa Malaysia: FMT, Malay Mail, NST, The Star, The Vibes, Sinar Daily, Bernama, Berita Harian and Utusan Malaysia. News Sentiment is the continuous, day-to-day component of Sentiment. News Sentiment is zero-cost by requirement.
Poll Calibration comes from Merdeka Center's periodically published survey results, such as approval ratings. When a new report drops, Poll Calibration is ingested to sanity-check News Sentiment against real survey data. Poll Calibration is not continuous, but there is no API for it, so reports appear only every few months.
derived from Sentiment, applied against the Baseline
Swing measures the estimated shift in vote or seat share for a Coalition. Derived from Sentiment, Swing is applied against the Baseline.
A State Election Signal comes from results of state elections held before GE16, such as the 2026 Johor and Malacca elections. A State Election Signal is a leading-indicator input into the Swing Model. A State Election Signal is distinct from the Baseline, which stays fixed at the GE15 federal results.
The Swing Model is the method for turning Sentiment into a per-Seat or per-Coalition Swing. The Swing Model applies a uniform Swing within each state, with a State Election Signal blended in for the state that voted. The Swing Model is the hard, research-grade part of this project, distinct from the Baseline, which is simply historical fact.
the tool's output: a seat-count estimate per Coalition
A Projection is the tool's output: a seat-count estimate per Coalition for GE16. A Projection states whether the Government Coalition is projected to retain its Majority. A Projection includes the Seat-Level Projection behind both of those figures.
The Seat-Level Projection is the Coalition each of the 222 Seats is projected to fall to, with the projected margin, alongside the aggregate totals. Because the Swing Model is uniform within a state and carries no Seat-specific signal, a Seat's call is arithmetic against its GE15 margin; it is never a bespoke judgement about that particular constituency, and it must not be presented as one.
A Seat Call is one Seat's entry in the Seat-Level Projection: the Coalition projected to take it and the projected margin over the runner-up.
context for reading a Projection, not an input to one
Election Status tracks whether GE16 has been called yet, and the polling date once one is set. "Called" means the Dewan Rakyat has been dissolved, the act that starts a Malaysian general election. The Election Commission announces the polling date after dissolution, so a general election can be called with no polling date set yet, which is a real state rather than missing information. Election Status is context for reading a Projection, not an input that feeds into one.