JOHOR BARU: Pakatan Harapan has made a strong comeback in the 15th General Election (GE15) by winning at least 15 out of the 26 parliamentary seats in Johor.
Barisan Nasional, which won big during the state elections in March, only managed to pick up nine seats while Perikatan Nasional won two seats.
At least 20 out of the 96 candidates are expected to lose their deposits.
Most of them are from Pejuang which contested 11 seats, all five independent candidates, one each from Parti Warisan and Party Rakyat Malaysia.
At least two Pakatan candidates are expected to lose their deposits, too. Both are from Parti Amanah Negara.
In GE14, Pakatan won 18 seats while Barisan managed to win eight seats. However, Bersatu had since left Pakatan to form Perikatan with other partners.
Among the top guns who won yesterday were MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong in Ayer Hitam, Perikatan chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who won in Pagoh for a record eighth term, and Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) president Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman in Muar.
Other top leaders who are victors are Umno vice-president Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin in Kota Tinggi, Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan in Pontian and Umno Wanita chief Datuk Seri Noraini Ahmad in Parit Sulong.Pakatan’s Dr Maszlee Malik lost to former Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Hasni Mohammad at the Simpang Renggam parliamentary constituency.
This is the only seat that Barisan managed to snatch back from Pakatan after the previous elections.MIC’s lone candidate in the state, Tan Sri M. Ramasamy, 58, who is also the party’s treasurer general, lost to Pakatan’s R. Yuneswaran, 35, from PKR.
The state’s biggest majority was scored in Iskandar Puteri when Pakatan’s Liew Chin Tong won with a majority of more than 60,000 votes while Syed Saddiq won with a majority of 1,345 votes.
Political observers said the bad weather in most parts of the state during the morning did not dampen the spirit of 1.88 million voters who turned up to cast their ballots in the 26 parliamentary constituencies.
Overall, it represented a 72.66% voter turnout of the 2.59 million registered voters in the state.
In terms of percentage, the highest voter turnout was in the rural Parit Sulong parliamentary constituency while the urban seat of Johor Baru registered a voter turnout of 67.34%.
In GE14, voter turnout was 74.5% with 1.33 million casting their votes.
Most of the state’s 26 parliamentary seats saw between three and four-cornered fights.
The Ledang constituency had a six-cornered fight.
