Malaysian PM’s Coalition Suffers Significant Defeat in Johor State Election
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- Barisan Nasional (BN) won 48 of 56 Johor state assembly seats, up from 40 in 2022, while Pakatan Harapan (PH) dropped to 8 seats from 12, with Perikatan Nasional (PN) losing all 33 seats it contested including the three it previously held.
- Onn Hafiz Ghazi was sworn in for a second term as Johor chief minister after campaigning energetically across the state, with University of Tasmania professor James Chin calling UMNO "virtually unstoppable" due to a lack of a credible Malay-Muslim challenger.
- PH suffered from depressed turnout in ethnic-minority areas, with analyst James Chin noting that Chinese voters appeared "disillusioned with PH and want to punish DAP," a predominantly Chinese party and key PH component.
- DAP announced in March it would "evaluate its position" in the governing coalition over the government's response to corruption scandals, including reports of misconduct at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission that have tarnished Anwar's anti-corruption credentials.
- Former ministers Rafizi Ramli and Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad resigned from Anwar's PKR in May, accusing him of protecting vested interests, and took charge of a new party (Bersama) that failed to make any impression in the Johor polls.
- UMNO Chairman Ahmad Zahid Hamidi declared hope for a "blue wave across other states," with UMNO's parliamentary seat count down to 30 in 2022 from 79 in 2018 and 133 in 2013 as the party seeks to reclaim dominance ahead of the next general election due by 2028.
- Negeri Sembilan is scheduled to hold a state election on August 1, the next flashpoint in the PH-BN rivalry, with Anwar having said in May he would consider calling a snap general election if the divisions became unmanageable.
Why it matters: UMNO's 48-seat Johor win, layered on top of 30 existing parliamentary seats, strengthens BN's bargaining position within the ruling coalition. The August 1 Negeri Sembilan election is the next test, and with DAP threatening to leave the coalition and two former PKR ministers defecting to a new party, PH's internal cohesion is visibly eroding ahead of a general election due by 2028.
