Letter to Editor
WHILE on the surface it appears like voters in Johor have shifted their preferences back to Barisan Nasional (BN), a closer look at the results will prove otherwise.
First, it would be unfair to say BN won over the majority of Johor voters, as in reality, they only managed 43%.
Yes, a win is a win, but one cannot say his horse came out second when only two horses took part.
In reality, it is not that the BN has regained favour among voters, but rather that the Opposition lost support among all communities.
The support for the Pakatan Harapan (PH) was a far cry from the heydays of Reformasi.
Numbers don’t lie and as far as the Johor state polls were concerned, the only party that held onto its support was Perikatan Nasional (PN).
PN not only held onto its support, but in fact achieved gains across Malay, Chinese and Indian voters.
Overall, UMNO gained 3.6% in its share of votes, while MCA gained 1.6% and the MIC a marginal 0.4%.
This is hardly a landslide victory, considering Bersatu and PAS actually held on to their vote shares from 2018.
PAS only lost a marginal 0.9%, while Gerakan successfully gained 1.9% of the votes.
PN made plenty of inroads into PH’s support bases, while in 35 out of 56 seats, the votes from PN and PH were much bigger than BN.
BN only benefitted because there was a split in votes, nothing else.
On the other hand, PN achieved gains across all ethnic communities and more than doubled support among Malays.
PN captured an estimated 33% of the community in Johor.
Another factor that attributed to BN’s so-called “landslide” victory was the poor voter turnout from 84.5% in 2018 to a mere 54.9% in last week’s Johor state polls.
This could particularly be due to the fears arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and also the restrictions imposed on campaigning.
So, in conclusion, for voters like us, it would be unfair to assume that we have “returned” to BN.
Voters are neither dumb nor blind. The likes of Najib Razak and his bandwagon of cronies may be able to fool a few, but overall, the electorate still know the truth behind the so-called “Bossku”. – March 14, 2022
Rizalman Hamid Kusnan
Pelangi Heights, Johor Bahru
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
Pic credit: Bernama
