UMNO, which rules Johor with a tenuous majority, must be very confident of winning big in the forthcoming state election as it dissolved the state legislative assembly on Jan 22.
Many analysts said it was done due the momentum of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) landslide victory in the Melaka state election and the weak performance of Pakatan Harapan (Pakatan) in both the Melaka and Sarawak state elections.
Others said it is due the bad blood that exists between UMNO and Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) that made the former to go for the jugular.
It sensed that the timing is right to make Bersatu irrelevant in Johor and thus, embarrassing former prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who is heading Bersatu and also a Johorean.
Another opinion put forth by analysts for this early state election is to pressure the Perikatan Nasional (Perikatan) government led by UMNO vice president Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob to hold the 15th General Election (GE15) sooner rather than later this year or next year.
With the Court of Appeal upholding Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s conviction on the SRC case on Dec 8, and the High Court on Jan 24 ordering UMNO president, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to enter his defence on all 47 corruption charges involving millions of ringgit from charitable foundation Yayasan Akalbudi, it has become more urgent than ever to pressure the premier to hold GE15 as soon as possible after a highly anticipated UMNO’s “strong, formidable and convincing” win in the Johor state election.
It is only when UMNO won a landslide victory in the Melaka state election that some people begin to postulate that a convincing win in a state election is a barometer to gauge the party’s expected good performance in GE15.
In the past, this barometer used to be parliamentary by-elections. Even then, to conclude that a good performance in a GE would happen requires stellar performance in more than two parliamentary by-elections.
In the run-up to GE 14, for instance, there were two simultaneous by-elections in 2016 at the federal level – one in Sungai Besar, Selangor and the other in Kuala Kangsar in Perak.
UMNO misjudged people’s sentiments
Despite the 1Malaysia Development Board (1MDB) issue was used as a fodder in the two by-elections, the two UMNO candidates won with a relatively greater majority than their previous deceased incumbents.
These results were later confidently used by UMNO to think that they could easily win GE14. But come GE14, UMNO/BN was mercilessly trounced by Pakatan.
During Pakatan short rule, there were 10 by-elections – five at the state level and the rest at the parliamentary level. While it won three at the state level, its opposition (BN and PAS) also won three but at the federal level, leading to the talk which was backed by many empirical studies then should GE15 be held, BN would win resoundingly.
With regards to UMNO-BN now, we can’t say with certainty that if GE15 was held today, BN would win convincingly just on the basis of winning in one state election.
UMNO did not do that well in the Sabah state election and did not participate in the Sarawak state election. So, the most we can say is with that one convincing victory in a state election, UMNO has the edge if GE15 is held today.
However, this is mistakenly construed as if it is a given that UMNO is going to win big in both the Johor state election and GE15.
Moreover, UMNO made the decision to dissolve the assembly without consulting its coalition partners. It seems to have forgotten its fall from power in 2018 was because of its arrogance – real or perceived – in ruling the country. This was even admitted by senior UMNO leaders when discussing why it lost GE14.
True, the law does not require UMNO to consult its coalition partners but consultation is meant for the nationalist party to listen what its partners have to say, with the final decision still in its hand.
While some opine that since UMNO is a Malay-Muslim party, it should not turn its back on the value of consultation, which Islam has put on high pedestal, others commented this could result in the loss of barakah (blessings of Allah) in the form of the party losing badly in both the Johor state election and GE15.
If the upcoming state election returns Umno with the most seats but still with a tenuous majority, it will be back to full circle again as far as unstable government is concerned.
There are three surprises that may just frustrate or disrupt UMNO’s plan to win big in the Johor state election and GE15 from the perspective of strategic foresight – a discipline that gathers and processes information about future operating environment. These are:
- Black swan events with low probabilities, high impact surprises and have no precedent, hence unlikely to happen that you discount the very possibility. But they could happen, and if they did, you would be sunk.
- Blind spot surprises in places where you’re not looking because our assumptions and perceptual filters unconsciously ignore some signals around us and pick up on others.
- Wildcards – random events that you could not be expected to have anticipated. These are scenarios we can imagine that have a very low probability of occurring.
In the case of the Johor state election, the blind spots events are the probability of the spread of the Omicron variant and the possibility of the second wave of the floods happening.
Undi18, the game changer?
If the people find themselves in a situation of extreme hardship in coping with mitigation efforts on Omicron and the floods, and worse, if the blind spots events occur while in the midst of campaigning, these will translate into heavy losses for UMNO.
One wildcard event is if Bersatu proceeds with its intention to gain the Malay vote while predicting Chinese votes would be split between MCA and Pakatan, which was tried during the Melaka state election in the Bemban seat.
Perikatan made an audacious move by contesting using a Bersatu candidate despite having the option to field Gerakan, resulting in a razor-thin majority of 328 votes ahead of MCA.
This is significant since Chinese MPs representing MCA or DAP have always won the seat, despite ethnic Malays constituting 60% of Bemban’s electorate.
However, the main wildcard event is Undi18, which set the minimum voting age to 18 instead of 21 with the Johor state elections being the first to experience this huge voting bloc.
Youth being youth, the majority of them would either exhibit an anti-establishment stance or an apathetic stance – both a minus point to a landslide victory for UMNO.
Former chief justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad has painted a scenario of the return of a Pakatan state government in Johor, if UMNO fails to shed the taint of corruption linked to Najib and Zahid, since words like “corruption”, “abuse of power” and “integrity” will influence young voters.
This would entail a black swan scenario because Pakatan is not expected to win. The situation is getting traction when a Parti Amanah Negara prominent member Mazlan Aliman has urged Pakatan to widen its scope of cooperation for the Johor election by including Perikatan in its list of allies.
He warned if Pakatan decided to go to the polls in its current shape, it would again face defeat similar to the recent Melaka election, apart from the danger UMNO’s victory in Johor could see the return of “kleptocrats” that would pave its way for GE15 and its goal of winning a two-thirds majority in Parliament in order to realise its agenda.
Let’s Talk! has conducted a simple random survey ala Gallup poll in which out of 60 Johoreans that were asked via a phone call with just a simple question of which party/coalition they want to see winning the election, 47 people responded.
The finding is in line with the idea of UMNO having the edge in GE15, and the surprises that are in store for the party during the Johor state election. – Feb 01, 2022
| POLITICAL PARTIES | RESPONDENTS (%) |
| UMNO/BN | 17.1% |
| Pakatan Harapan | 14.8% |
| Bersatu/Perikatan Nasional | 6.4% |
| Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (MUDA) | 2.1% |
| Spoilt votes | 8.5% |
| Don’t want to vote | 21.3% |
| Who gives more monies | 4.3% |
| Don’t want to talk about election | 25.5% |
Jamari Mohtar is the Editor of Let’s Talk!, a newsletter on current affairs.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
