Loss of Johor will have profound effect on Umno
JOHOR BAHRU: Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) success in capturing several states, including Johor, which is considered to be Umno’s birthplace, will have a profound effect on Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN) in the future.
Early yesterday morning, PH toppled the BN government in Johor by winning 36 state seats whereas BN, which previously held 38 state seats, won only 18 seats while PAS won one seat.
PH, led by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, also witnessed the fall of the ship’s captain, Johor BN chief Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin who lost both the Pasir Gudang parliamentary seat and Permas state seat.
In addition, several BN strongholds like Johor Bahru, which was held by Tan Sri Shahrir Abdul Samad for several terms, was also lost to PKR’s Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir.
MIC president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam also lost his Segamat parliamentary seat, held by him since 2004, to PKR candidate Datuk Seri R. Santhara Kumar with a majority of 5,476 votes.
Following the former health minister, five more deputy ministers also followed suit when they lost their respective parliamentary seats, namely Datuk Seri Razali Ibrahim (Muar), Datuk Chua Tee Yong (Labis), Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed (Pulai), Datuk Ir Hamim Samuri (Ledang) and Datuk Abd Aziz Kaprawi (Sri Gading).
However, three former ministers, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein (Sembrong), Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said (Pengerang) and Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong (Ayer Hitam) managed to retain their seats. Two former deputy ministers Datuk Halimah Mohamed Sadique won the Kota Tinggi parliamentary seat and Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan retained his Pontian seat.
Besides the five parliamentary seats, BN also won three more parliamentary seats, namely Mersing, Parit Sulong and Tenggara.
PAS also suffered severe losses in the state when 14 of their candidates contesting the parliamentary seats and 36 state seats lost their respective deposits. Five Independent candidates contesting the parliamentary and state seats also lost their deposits.
It is important for Johor BN to carry out a post-mortem on where the coalition went wrong in its strategy for the GE14 in order to redeem the honour of the party after losing its stronghold.