THE Johor elections, which will be held on March 12, will see 748,955 new voters, most of whom are in the urban areas.

The top 10 seats with the highest number of new voters were won by Pakatan Harapan (PH) in the 14th general election, and these constituencies now have 30%-60% more voters.

Overall, it is a 41% increase from the 2018 electoral roll in Johor to 2.56 million voters.

This increase comes after the government implemented the Undi18 legislation, as ordered by the court. The lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18 is now in force along with the automatic voter registration.

Electoral roll data with the new voters included, provided to The Malaysian Insight by DAP, shows that most of the increases are in the urban areas under the Greater Johor Baru parliamentary constituencies of Tebrau, Pasir Gudang, Johor Baru, Pulai and Iskandar Puteri.

This area, which has seen much development, is also where most manufacturing activities are centred.

Within the five Greater Johor Baru parliamentary constituencies are the top five state seats that have the highest number of new voters.

They are Puteri Wangsa (46,358 new voters), Tiram (41,326), Kota Iskandar (44,132) Perling (37,136) and Permas (36,534).

Puteri Wangsa and Tiram are under the Tebrau parliamentary constituency while Kota Iskandar is under Iskandar Puteri. Perling is under Pulai and Permas comes under Pasir Gudang.

These five state seats will now have more than 100,000 voters each (see graphic). Kota Iskandar leads with 111,503 voters, followed by Puteri Wangsa (108,705), Skudai (103,206), Tiram (102,012) and Perling (100,031).

Permas (99,627 voters) and Johor Jaya (90,422) are just a whisker away from the 100,000-voter mark.

In contrast, the less developed parts of Johor have fewer new voters with the lowest number in the Bukit Naning state seat (4,608 new voters). This is followed by Tenang (4,645), Paloh (4,953), Rengit (5,183) and Semarang (5,695).

PH has typically fared well in urban areas and enjoyed high majorities in some of the seats, which now have a massive influx of new voters.

This makes the Johor polls an unpredictable challenge for the opposition pact, which wrested the state from Barisan Nasional for the first time in 2018. – February 10, 2022.