JOHOR BAHRU: The Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition will contest all 56 seats in Johor’s next state election, said Johor Chief Minister and Johor BN Onn Hafiz Ghazi on Saturday (May 16).
This means BN – whose lynchpin party is the United Malays National Organisation – will go it alone and not cooperate with other political pacts like Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan (PH), as well as the Perikatan Nasional (PN) or the Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (MUDA) in the opposition camp.
The decision to contest all 56 seats in next Johor state election is a “clear offer to the people that we are ready to continue to form a stable, strong government and fully serve to the development of the state and the welfare of Johor”, said Onn Hafiz in a Facebook post.
Johor’s state election is only due by mid-2027 but there is growing talk of Johor UMNO leaders pushing for polls as early as August or September, with party insiders indicating that the party’s recent supreme council meetings have increasingly centred on election readiness, CNA reported on May 15.
The same also applies to Melaka, another state controlled by BN, whose state election is due by early 2027.
An UMNO Johor state assemblyman told CNA that party machinery has been quietly activated for a potential vote in the latter half of the year.
It is the prerogative of the state’s ruler or governor to dissolve the state assemblies on the advice of the chief minister, who is typically from the state’s ruling party or coalition.
Besides UMNO, BN is made up of smaller parties such as the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress.
Although BN is aligned with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s PH at the federal level, they are rivals at the state level in Johor and Melaka.
If victorious in early state polls, it would allow BN to rebuild momentum independently of the federal unity government, positioning itself more strongly ahead of a general election due by early 2028, political analysts told CNA.
BN has a strong incentive to call early state polls rather than align them with the next general election, as lower turnout in standalone contests tend to favour the incumbent while putting its main rival PH at a disadvantage, they added.
Meanwhile, opposition coalition PN on Saturday named its chairman Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar as the new opposition leader in Parliament. Ahmad Samsuri is also Chief Minister of Terengganu.
He replaces Hamzah Zainudin, who was sacked by Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) – a member of the PN pact together with Parti Islam Se-Malaysia – in February this year for allegedly breaching the party’s constitution.