Interviews | Politics | Southeast Asia

What Malaysia’s Recent State Election Results Say About the Country’s Political Direction

Oh Ei Sun of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs discusses the outcome of the recent elections in Johor and Negeri Sembilan.

Supporters of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition rally in Negeri Sembilan ahead of state elections, July 31, 2026.

The Malaysian states Johor and Negeri Sembilan recently held state elections that produced disappointing results for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s coalition.

During the July 11 polls in Johor, an economically important state at the tip of peninsular Malaysia, Barisan Nasional (BN), ​secured a commanding victory, winning 48 of 56 state assembly seats, up from 40 at the last election in 2022. Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition won the remaining eight seats, down from 12 previously.

This result was largely replicated in Negeri Sembilan on August 1. Here BN won 18 of the 36 seats in the state’s legislative assembly and was set to form government with the pan-Malay Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition, which won seven seats. PH, which had ruled the state in coalition with BN prior to the election, saw its share of seats drop from 17 to 11.

In both contests, the losses were particularly marked for the Democratic Action Party (DAP), a key member of the PH coalition that is traditionally associated with Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese community. In Negeri Sembilan, the election was also marked by close cooperation between the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and the Islamist party PAS, the primary components of the BN and PN coalitions, respectively. This has raised suggestions that a new “Malay wave” could be set to wash away Anwar’s coalition at the next general election.

The twist is that BN and PH remain in coalition at the federal level, following the close-run general election of 2022. The growing competition between the two nominal partners has even raised the possibility that Anwar may choose to call a snap election.

Dr. Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, spoke to The Diplomat’s Southeast Asia Editor Sebastian Strangio recently about what the results might mean for Anwar’s leadership and federal politics as Malaysia moves toward its next general election.

Let’s start with the most obvious question: How do you interpret the collapse of PH’s position in Johor and Negeri Sembilan?

I think there are similarities and differences in some of the major factors that led to PH’s collapse in these two states. The similarities lie primarily in the voters’ seeming conflation of PH’s perceived performance (or non-performance) at the federal level with their political solicitation at the state level.

To be more specific, we may look closer into PKR [the People’s Justice Party] and DAP – PH’s two largest component parties – respectively but also relatedly. PKR’s core supporters are those seeking social and political reforms, ranging from those advocating revamp of parliamentary and electoral systems to those who are fervently against corruption and power abuses. Many of them have become increasingly impatient with what they perceived as PKR’s feet-dragging since coming to federal power at fulfilling its reform promises that were loudly proclaimed during its opposition years. Worse still, some of them saw regressive measures that were unashamedly touted, such as those controlling freedom of expression online, that were reminiscent of pre-2018 BN days.

At the same time, PKR at the government’s driver seat was also perceived to be at best lackluster in its microeconomic performance, with many members of lower- and even middle-income groups finding it hard to carry on with livelihood, a scenario that was perceived to be worse than the BN days. So these core PKR supporters carried this rather disgruntled attitude toward PKR from the federal to the state level, and did not come out in droves to support PKR. Yet PKR, with its same, reformist image, remained inept in competing with UMNO and PAS in attracting an increasingly conservative Malay voters cohort to make up or surpass the difference.

DAP shared many of these misgivings and thus non-votes by its core supporters as PKR, plus disillusion from its non-Malay core supporters who had even higher expectations of DAP championing their long-held dream of attaining political and social equality. When they perceived DAP as having been non-enthusiastic in advancing this dear cause of theirs since coming to federal power, and furthermore remained silent when their rights were perceived to have been trampled upon, they wanted to “punish” DAP by not voting for it.

But these conflated or “transferred” disfavors against PH aside, there were also respective distinct factors that favor BN in these two states. The Johor chief minister, Onn Hafiz, turned out to be both charismatic and pragmatic, having brought in large amounts of foreign investment into the state that were transforming the state’s economic outlook. So the voters were comfortable with his helmsmanship and would like to see him continue in his leading role. In Negeri Sembilan, UMNO and PAS non-contest arrangements prevented vote splitting and........

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