Did Johor really vote for BN?

So, what did the political parties learn from the Johor state election yesterday?

From an observer’s point of view, it’s very simple. Barisan Nasional (BN) did not win over the majority of Johor voters and certainly has nothing to shout about.

The fact here is that the opposition messed things up among themselves.

Had the opposition remained as one front, they would have made a clean sweep.

The rationale is simple. There were 2,599,797 registered voters in Johor, of which only 1,426,573 came out to vote.

From this, a total of 599,753 (43.11%) supported BN while 826,820 (56.89%) rejected BN.

The best part: a whopping 1,173,224 voters did not come out to cast their votes.

Therefore, it is baseless to say that BN won the election. All they won was a majority of split votes.

Back to the drawing board. Firstly, Anwar Ibrahim has to hand over the leadership to someone else, next all of the other parties need to be a united front.

This includes new players like Parti Bangsa Malaysia and Muda.

There are credible leaders here who cannot shine unless they become part of one strong force.

It is ridiculous to say the Chinese have returned to MCA and the Indians to MIC. As an Indian, this is utter nonsense.

No credible, honest Indian would ever support MIC. They just rode on BN’s waves and won.

There is still hope for a better Malaysia, but what needs to be done now is for all the other parties to get together.

Bersatu, PKR, Pakatan Harapan, Warisan, PBM, Muda, etc must all become one strong formidable force.

Put all differences aside, sit down and reach common ground, right from the start.

If Pejuang is part of the equation, it must be without Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Otherwise, the voters are going to reject the opposition again.

Time for those like Mahathir and Anwar to take a back seat. If young, credible leaders step up and the opposition gets together, BN can easily be booted out again.

And from the start, decide on a prime ministerial candidate, which could well even be a woman.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of MalaysiaNow.