How BN’s bigger surge erased PH’s gains in Johor

 Barisan Nasional's landslide win was driven by the scale of its growth, as votes previously divided among several parties converged behind the coalition.

From Syed Farhan Syed Feizal

Everyone said it was a cold election, marked by low interest, low stakes, and a result that was already known.

I spent the final stretch of the campaign in Johor, and that description did not quite fit what I saw. Voters were not necessarily disengaged. Many had simply made up their minds much earlier.

Barisan Nasional won 48 of Johor’s 56 state seats, up from 40 in 2022. Pakatan Harapan ended with eight, down from 12, while Perikatan Nasional and Muda were wiped out.

The seat count makes PH’s performance look like a collapse, but its vote total tells a more complicated story.

PH received 556,898 votes, an increase of 189,373 from 2022, yet it lost five constituencies, gained only Puteri Wangsa, and finished with a net loss of four seats.

BN’s growth was much larger. Its vote surged by 463,557 to more than 1.06 million. PN, meanwhile, lost 235,326 votes, and Muda lost another 38,322.

A higher turnout brought both BN and PH more votes, but the collapse of their rivals allowed BN to grow much faster.

Voters responded to new leadership

On the ground, the choice had a name. Time and again, voters told me they were not primarily voting for their local candidate. They were voting to keep Onn Hafiz Ghazi as menteri besar and BN in government.

Many pointed to visible development, investment announcements, and a sense that Johor had enjoyed stability under his leadership.

Whether these perceptions fully reflected reality mattered less than the fact that they had become politically dominant. For many voters, the election was effectively a referendum on Onn Hafiz, and PH struggled to disrupt that momentum.

Voters wanted a fresh narrative

BN offered a narrative about delivery and forward-looking policies.

It promoted household support through Kasih Johor, providing targeted aid to lower-income families, students, senior citizens and vulnerable groups. Its education agenda included Sekolah Rintis Bangsa Johor, improvements to religious and state schools, and stronger technical and vocational training. These initiatives were linked to a promise that Johor’s investment boom would produce better-paying jobs.

At the PH rallies I attended, familiar attacks on Najib Razak, corruption, and BN’s record continued to dominate the speeches.

At BN’s Larkin rally, Umno Youth chief Dr Akmal Saleh directly challenged that approach. He pointed out that Najib was already serving his prison sentence and questioned whether Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim should receive all the credit for Johor’s development.

BN’s message felt more connected to the immediate election. PH found it difficult to explain why Johor should replace a state government and menteri besar that many voters believed were performing reasonably well.

PN’s collapse changed the contest

Across seats where the same main parties stood in both elections, BN’s vote share rose from about 46% to 62%. PH also improved, from 25% to almost 30%. PN was the party that gave way, falling from roughly one-quarter of the vote to about 7%.

Malay support was central to that shift. BN swept every seat where Malays made up more than 65% of voters. PAS supporters also appeared willing to back BN in constituencies where PN was absent, helping to consolidate a vote that had been divided in 2022.

However, this was a shift towards BN rather than simply a Malay wave. MCA won Jementah, Tangkak and Johor Jaya, while MIC won all the four seats it contested. This aligned with Umno’s Rumah Bangsa narrative, which presents BN as a coalition capable of uniting Malay and non-Malay support.

Voters appeared to be choosing BN as a governing coalition, often paying less attention to the ethnicity or party of the individual candidate. Once these votes converged behind BN, the first-past-the-post system magnified the movement into a 48-seat landslide.

Why higher turnout did not save PH

Johor challenged the traditional assumption that low turnout favours BN while high turnout benefits PH.

In the five seats PH lost, its total vote rose from 64,831 to 99,546. BN’s vote in the same constituencies nearly doubled, from 58,339 to 112,951.

Higher turnout helped PH, but it helped BN considerably more. The decisive question was not simply how many voters turned up, but which coalition attracted the additional voters and those abandoning PN and Muda.

PH also suffered from the distribution of its support. It won Skudai by 14,479 votes but lost Bukit Batu by only 174, and Jementah by 913, while retaining Simpang Jeram by just 170. It remained strong in several urban Chinese-majority seats but lost crucial mixed constituencies.

Parti Bersama Malaysia may have affected some close contests, but it did not cause the wider defeat. Even if every Bersama vote in Perling and Bukit Batu had gone to PH, BN would still have won about 46 seats.

Johor’s return to its old pattern

Johor has historically been one of BN’s strongest states. Its defeat in 2018 was an exceptional rupture, driven by the 1MDB scandal, anger towards Najib, and a united opposition that then included Bersatu.

BN recovered much of that ground when it won 40 seats in the 2022 state election. This latest result completes that restoration, with the collapse of PN allowing many voters who once supported competing Malay parties to converge behind BN.

The scale of the victory is significant, but it may reflect Johor returning to its traditional political pattern more than a major nationwide shift away from PH. After BN won 40 state seats in March 2022, PH and Muda still captured 15 of Johor’s 26 parliamentary seats at the general election eight months later.

BN’s victory ultimately reflected a popular menteri besar, a clearer campaign, and the reunification of its old coalition, restoring Johor as its strongest base without necessarily signalling a national wave. - FMT

Syed Farhan Syed Feizal is a political risk analyst at Global Asia Consulting.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.