JOHOR BAHRU, Mar 13 (NNN-BERNAMA) – Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, led by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), scored another key election victory late last night, winning over control of Johor state.
The coalition took 37 out of 56 state assembly seats, granting it a two-thirds majority in the state assembly, according to the election commission as of 11:40 p.m. local time.
The state election was triggered after the chief minister of the state, Hasni Mohammad, received consent from the Johor ruler, Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, to dissolve the state assembly. Hasni justified the move due to the state government only having a majority of one seat.
The state election is notable for being the first since the implementation of a new law that lowered the voting age to 18, and allowed for unregistered eligible voters to be automatically added to the electoral roll.
BN, which had governed Malaysia since the country’s independence in 1957, lost the state and also lost control of the government for the first time, after being defeated by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition in the national and state polls in 2018.
However, it has since enjoyed a strong revival, winning a string of by-elections and winning the state election in Malacca in Nov last year by a landslide.– NNN-BERNAMA