THE opposition would have triumphed in the recently held Johor polls if they had been united and contested under a single banner.

Official election results showed that Barisan Nasional (BN) would have lost 17 seats if not for the split in opposition votes caused by opposition parties and Perikatan Nasional (PN) contesting against each other.

Opposition parties that contested in Johor polls were Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) PKR, DAP and Amanah, Pejuang, Warisan, Parti Bangsa Malaysia, Parti Sosialis Malaysia and Muda.

Within PH, only DAP and Amanah contested under the pact’s banner while PKR stood on its own logo.

In the final outcome, BN won 40 of the 56 seats with PH winning 12, PN three and Muda one.

Things could have turned out differently if the opposition’s “big tent” concept had been achieved.

The opposition would have ended up with 32 seats, including the 16 won yesterday.

However due to cross fights, BN managed to win an extra 17 seats by small margins, including five which saw tough contests.

In the Bukit Pasir seat, Mohamad Fazli Mohamad Salleh of BN won with a mere 196 majority over PN’s Iqbal Razak.

Iqbal had garnered 5,850 votes while PH’s Elia Nadira had 4,676 votes.

These two combined would have brought the total votes to 10,526, meaning BN would have lost the seat by 4,478 votes.

Elsewhere, there was a close contest in the Parit Yaani seat, where BN’s Najib Samuri edged PH’s Aminolhuda Hassan, who is also Amanah’s Johor chief, by a 294-vote majority.

Najib received 9,070 votes, while Aminolhuda came second with 8,776 votes and PN’s Ahmad Nawfal Mahfocz was third with 5,435 votes.

If the votes for PH and PN are added here, it would give a total 14,211 votes, where this would have toppled BN’s win by 5,141 votes.

In the Serom seat, BN’s Khairin-Nisa defeated the opposition and won by a majority of 699 votes.

He had a total of 8,507 votes, PN’s Ustaz Tok Rahmat was second obtaining 7,808 votes while PH’s Asim Abdullah was third with 5,509 votes.

The votes between the two opposition parties tallied to 13,317, meaning BN would have lost this seat if the opposition bloc had united and contested as one.

In Tenggaroh, BN’s Raven Kumar Krishnasamy did not win by a huge margin. BN secured the seat with a 1,356 majority.

PN’s Roslan Nikmat obtained 9,172 votes here while PKR’s Zulinah Johari got a very low vote of 1,529.

However, adding both PN and PKR votes would bring the total to 10,701, meaning the opposition would have won the Tenggaroh assembly by a tissue-thin majority of 173 votes.

In Bukit Naning, BN’s Mohd Fuad secured a 1,535 majority win over PN’s Mahadzir Abu Said.

Fuad received a total of 5,437 votes, while Mahadzir got 3,902 votes. PKR’s Ysahrudin Kusni obtained 3,317 votes.

Merging PN’s and PKR’s votes would have given a combined total of 7,219 votes, meaning BN would have been defeated by 1,782 majority votes.

Besides these five seats, the other 12 seats where the opposition could have been victorious if the number of votes were combined are Kemelah, Tenang, Gambir, Sungai Balang, Semerah, Senggarang, Rengit, Mahkota, Larkin, Kempas, Kota Iskandar and Bukit Permai.

In these seats, another opposition party Pejuang, led by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, fared the worst, losing their deposit in almost all of the seats contested.

Muda, making their debut in the Johor polls, managed to secure victory in one of seven seats contested, the same number of seats opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s PKR won.

From the 20 seats contested, PKR’s abysmal election performance continued as they only managed to win one seat, in Bukit Batu.

Overall, it was a whopping victory for BN, who swept aside the opposition to win 40 out of 56 seats contested. – March 14, 2022.