The Malaysian Insight

AFTER back-to-back landslide wins in Malacca and Sarawak by pro-establishment parties Barisan Nasional (BN) and Gabungan Parti Sarawak, BN is tipped to win Johor easily.

In fact, BN is so confident that Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has talked up their chances of regaining a two-thirds majority or 37 seats in the 56-seat state assembly. 

Some expect BN to win up to 42 seats compared with the 19 it won in 2018. But this was at the start of the campaign on February 26.

After 10 days of campaigning, that optimism has somewhat diminished to the extent that Umno-linked Utusan Malaysia expects BN to win just 30 to 33 seats in its front page story on Tuesday.

What has changed?

The Perikatan threat

For one, it is the number of new parties that have come into this election. 

Instead of a straight fight against Pakatan Harapan (PH), BN now has to deal with Muhyiddin Yassin’s Perikatan Nasional (PN), Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Pejuang, Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman’s Muda, Mohd Shafie Apdal’s Warisan and Parti Bangsa Malaysia.

Of these parties, PN is the most problematic for BN. 

As in Malacca where Muhyiddin’s coalition managed to make inroads, there is genuine interest in PN in Johor this time, despite the “traitor” label thrown at it by PH and BN, first for betraying PH with the “Sheraton move” in 2020, and then over its fallout with Umno after forming a government together to kick PH out.

Sentiments in Johor during two weeks of campaigning show that among Malays there are positive sentiments for PN and Muhyiddin in particular, who is a Johor native, the state’s former menteri besar, and long-time MP for Pagoh.

Much of the interest in Muhyiddin is due to his brief tenure as prime minister during the lockdowns, when he dished out cash handouts and allowed Employees Provident Fund withdrawals.

However, sentiments towards Muhyiddin and PN can differ between urban and rural voters. It must be remembered that both PN and BN are essentially competing for the same Malay vote.

While some urban voters might be willing to vote for PN, their rural counterparts displayed less inclination due to their decades-long relationship with BN. More so in places where the local BN representatives have fulfilled their duties diligently. Johor is Umno’s birthplace, and a BN stronghold.

These factors cannot be underestimated as PN draws its votes from BN and not PH, as the latter’s supporters still hold Muhyiddin responsible for the fall of the government in 2020. 

What this means is even if PN cannot win the urban seats on its own, it can reduce BN’s votes to the benefit of PH. 

Johor is not Malacca

To say BN did well in Malacca is an understatement. With just 38.4% of the popular vote, they managed to win 75% or 21 out of the 28 state seats in Malacca. 

PH and PN’s vote share of 35.8% and 24.3%, only yielded five and two seats respectively.

BN and its leaders who trumpet that they can repeat a landslide win in Johor are looking at seat yield, and not popular vote share. Even if PH and PN have more votes than BN, they would still have fewer seats.

But the math in Johor is different as the nature of the state’s seats is different from Malacca’s.

In Johor in the 2018 general election, BN won 18 out of 20 rural seats. 

Of 23 sub-urban seats, it won only one. In all 13 urban seats, BN lost.

To win Johor with the simple majority of 29, BN will have to take back all 20 rural and at least nine nine sub-urban or urban seats. 

Despite using the popular Najib Razak in the rural seats, BN is not a sure win in all 20 seats.

As for rural seats, in Paloh and Layang-Layang, DAP’s Sheikh Umar Ali in the former and PKR’s Dr Maszlee Malik in the latter, are both popular on the ground. Here, BN voters were inclined to back the two opposition challengers for the seat due to their popularity. A case in point, refering to the Malacca polls, is how former Malacca chief Mminister Adly Zahari managed to defend Bukit Katil despite it being an Umno stronghold. 

In the rural seats of Endau, Tenggaroh, Kahang, Gambir and Bukit Kepong, BN faces a similar problem due to the popularity of opposition candidates. 

In the sub-urban and urban seats, BN’s popularity has not improved either. As opposed to Malacca, some voters feel the Johor snap polls are unnecessary and have begun to fear how an overwhelming BN win would only hasten the 15th general election. 

Although BN will want to reclaim some of the urban seats it lost in 2018 such as Mahkota, Tiram, Puteri Wangsa, Permas, Larkin, Perling and Kempas, sentiments in these areas look dicey.

This is crucial as one of the main winning points for BN in Malacca was to take back five sub-urban (Machap Jaya, Kelebang, Pengkalan Batu, Telok Mas and Durian Tunggal), two urban (Duyong and Paya Rumput) and two rural (Gadek and Rembia) from the opposition it lost in 2018. 

More voters

In Malacca, BN had to work with more or less the same number of voters from 2018, albeit with minor increases in new voter registrations. But in Johor, there is an increase of 41% or 748,000 new voters through the Undi18 and automatic voter registration exercise in January. 

Of this, almost half (45%) of the new voters were distributed to the 13 urban seats around the Greater Johor Baru constituencies, leaving the remainder to be shared by the remaining 43 seats. 

While the rural new voters still share some affiliation with BN due to family ties, their urban counterparts have no such sentiments and many of those who spoke to The Malaysian Insight said they were more inclined to support either PN or PH. 

The urban shift is consistent with the last three general elections where an increasing number of urban seats fell to the opposition.

The only uncertainty is how many of these new voters will come out on polling day, as well as turnout from outstation voters. Many Johor voters either work in Singapore or the Klang Valley. 

As many analysts have pointed out, voter turnout will be key.

All these variables together make Johor an uncertain equation for BN. The only certainty is the unlikelihood of a two-thirds win. – March 11, 2022.