Anwar's PH Faces Must-Win Negeri Sembilan Vote
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- Pakatan Harapan enters the Aug 1 Negeri Sembilan vote needing a win after being trounced in Sabah (just 1 of 22 seats in November) and routed in Johor on July 11, where BN surged from 40 to 48 seats while PH collapsed from 12 to 8
- Barisan Nasional is contesting only 25 of 36 Negeri Sembilan seats, prompting dismay among Malaysian Chinese Association leaders and pointing to a tacit BN–PAS pact, with PAS already offering to back a UMNO chief minister
- Three ruling-party congresses cluster immediately after the vote: DAP meets within two weeks to decide its future in the Anwar unity government, while PKR and UMNO hold their annual assemblies the same weekend
- In Johor, PAS-led Perikatan Nasional contested only 33 of 56 wards and told supporters to back BN in the other 23, with BN and PN combining for 9 of 10 votes in seats where Malays were over 80% of the electorate
- Adib Zalkapli of Viewfinder Global Affairs told The Straits Times that PH could still emerge as the largest bloc in a general election if multi-cornered contests split Malay votes among UMNO, Bersatu, and Hamzah Zainudin's new Parti Wawasan Negara
- In 2023, Negeri Sembilan was one of six states PH ruled via a PH–BN pact, with BN winning 14 of 16 seats it contested partly on PH backing — exceeding that number this time would make the case for BN to realign with PAS
Why it matters: A Negeri Sembilan loss would solidify a BN–PAS Malay unity pact ahead of the next general election, in which 123 of Malaysia's 222 parliamentary seats are Malay-majority — putting national polls out of Anwar's reach and forcing DAP, PKR and UMNO to decide whether to stay in his unity government at their post-vote congresses.
