DAP remained Pakatan Harapan’s strongest performer in Negeri Sembilan, winning nine of the 11 seats it contested. But its narrow defeats in Chennah and Repah, and fading enthusiasm among some non-Malay voters have left the party confronting a harder question: whether remaining in the federal administration is costing it support among the constituency that built its electoral strength.
By TENGKU NOOR SHAMSIAH TENGKU ABDULLAH
SEREMBAN, Aug 5 – DAP emerged from Pakatan Harapan’s defeat in Negeri Sembilan as the coalition’s strongest-performing component.
It won nine of the 11 constituencies it contested. PKR secured only two of 16, while Amanah lost all nine of its contests.
Yet the two seats DAP lost may say more about its political predicament than the nine it retained.
In Chennah, turnout reached 75.7 per cent, among the highest in the state but DAP secretary-general and Transport Minister Anthony Loke lost to MCA’s Siow Kong Choon by 688 votes.
MCA also captured Repah from DAP by 444 votes, the narrowest result of the election.
For prominent political analyst Dr Oh Ei Sun, the outcome points to weakening enthusiasm among sections of DAP’s traditional non-Malay base, particularly in competitive constituencies where every vote matters.
“Gone are the days where 95 per cent of non-Malay voters enthusiastically voted for DAP,” Oh told TNS News.
“Enough of them either stayed home or switched to support BN in seats where every vote counts.”
Oh is a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and principal adviser to the Pacific Research Center of Malaysia.
His assessment should not be interpreted as evidence that DAP’s entire base has deserted it. The party’s nine victories demonstrate that it retains substantial support, particularly in urban and Chinese-majority constituencies.
The warning lies instead in its defeats in mixed and marginal seats that DAP can no longer assume are secure.
For Oh, the question is no longer whether DAP has a problem. It is whether the party can rebuild confidence among its supporters while continuing to share responsibility for decisions made by the federal government.
What happened on 1 August
Negeri Sembilan was not due to hold another state election until late 2028.
The early poll followed a period of instability involving the state’s royal and customary institutions and tensions within the PH-BN administration.
On 27 April, all 14 UMNO assembly members withdrew their support for then Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Aminuddin Harun over his handling of the crisis. UMNO’s national leadership subsequently reaffirmed cooperation with the state administration, but the relationship remained strained.
The state assembly was dissolved on 5 June, more than two years before the end of its term.
The election produced an unusual political contest.
PH and BN, partners in the federal government, competed against each other at the state level. PH fielded candidates in all 36 constituencies, while BN contested 25.
BN and the PAS-led Perikatan Nasional divided the constituencies between them and avoided direct contests. PN fielded candidates in the remaining 11 seats, with the two sides campaigning in support of one another.
Bersatu, despite technically remaining part of PN, contested separately under its own identity in 24 constituencies.
The official result gave BN 18 seats, PH 11 and PN seven. BN and PN therefore secured a combined 25-seat supermajority in the 36-member assembly.
| Coalition | Seats won | Votes | Vote share | Contested |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BN | 18 | 227,067 | 35.57% | 25 |
| PH | 11 | 256,386 | 40.16% | 36 |
| PN | 7 | 130,407 | 20.43% | 11 |
PH obtained more votes than either BN or PN individually. That comparison, however, requires an important qualification: PH contested all 36 constituencies, while BN and PN divided the electoral map between them.
The more meaningful comparison is therefore between PH and the coordinated BN-PN arrangement. Together, BN and PN received almost 56 per cent of the valid vote and captured 25 seats.
Bersatu’s 24 candidates received 15,644 votes, or approximately 2.45 per cent, and failed to win a seat.
Turnout stood at 72.6 per cent. Aminuddin, who left his long-held Sikamat constituency to contest Linggi, lost to BN’s Mohd Faizal Ramli by 2,976 votes.
UMNO won all 16 seats it contested.
The vote that did not come home
Oh’s starting point is that DAP’s electoral dominance within PH is not new.
“DAP or more precisely, the non-Malay voters and PH supporters—has almost always carried PH,” he said, adding that PKR and Amanah had attracted only a small share of Malay support.
Yet DAP’s electoral strength has not necessarily translated into the policy influence expected by many of its supporters.
According to Oh, many non-Malay voters supported DAP in the expectation that it would advance greater equality across Malaysia’s social and political institutions.
He argues that they have become increasingly frustrated by what they regard as limited progress and a more conservative political environment.
Oh attributed DAP’s difficulty to what he described as structural constraints within Malaysian politics, including deeply embedded attitudes towards Malay political primacy.
The result, in his assessment, is a growing sense of helplessness, disappointment and regret among some long-standing supporters.
The latest development goes beyond frustration alone.
“The main concern for DAP’s elite and grassroots leaders alike is the seemingly rapid decimation of precisely those non-Malay voters and supporters away from DAP, or at least staying apathetic or unenthusiastic,” Oh said.
He said these voters believe that the PH-led federal and former state governments, of which DAP was an integral part, had not sufficiently advanced their interests.
Instead, he said, they perceive the administrations as having adopted increasingly conservative positions shaped by racial and religious considerations.
That is Oh’s interpretation and is likely to be contested. Constituency results alone cannot conclusively establish why individual voters made their choices.
The turnout data, however, point to different patterns across different types of seats.
The five constituencies with the lowest turnout namely Bahau, Lobak, Lukut, Mambau and Bukit Kepayang were all retained by PH. In those strongholds, lower participation reduced PH’s margins but did not cost it victory.
The more serious warning emerged in marginal constituencies.
Chennah recorded comparatively high turnout, yet Loke lost. In Repah, DAP was defeated by only 444 votes.
Those outcomes suggest that abstention alone cannot explain DAP’s two defeats. Some voters may also have transferred their support to BN, as Oh argues, although detailed polling-district analysis would be required to establish the scale and composition of any movement.
Stay in government or rebuild the base?
Oh believes DAP’s period of internal reflection has reached its conclusion.
“The soul-searching period for DAP is actually over, as its non-Malay voters and supporters have done that for them through the ballot boxes of Sabah, Johor and Negeri Sembilan,” he said.
His reference to the three state contests is intended to identify a developing pattern rather than suggest that their electoral circumstances were identical. Local conditions, candidate choices and coalition arrangements differed across the three states.
Nevertheless, Oh argues that DAP now faces a difficult political calculation: remain in the federal administration and accept collective responsibility for decisions that may alienate parts of its base, or withdraw from government positions and attempt to rebuild its credibility among those voters.
The party must decide, he said, whether “to continue in the federal cabinet and shoulder the collective responsibility for the many decisions that are likely to continue to irk its non-Malay voters and supporters”, or leave the Cabinet and try to salvage what remains of that support.
That choice is no longer theoretical.
Around 4,000 delegates attending DAP’s national congress on 16 August will vote by secret ballot on whether the party’s leaders should continue holding federal government positions for the remainder of the parliamentary term.
Loke has said the outcome will not affect DAP’s membership of PH or its support for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Even so, the vote will measure how deeply the Negeri Sembilan result and PH’s earlier setbacks have unsettled the party.
Oh is more pessimistic about PKR’s ability to regain dissatisfied non-Malay voters.
“I think it is very difficult for PKR to win back these non-Malay supporters, as the party is undeniably Malay-dominated,” he said.
PKR, in his assessment, is caught between competing electoral pressures. Moving more decisively to meet the expectations of non-Malay supporters could further weaken it among Malay voters, where its support is already limited.
DAP, by contrast, retains the option of distancing itself from government positions or policies that its supporters perceive as excessively Malay-centric.
Whether that would restore confidence is another matter. Leaving the Cabinet could reinforce DAP’s oppositional identity, but it would also sacrifice its direct influence over federal policy.
Why Malay support consolidated
Asked what proved decisive, the discipline of the BN-PN no-clash arrangement, PH’s organisational weaknesses or the loss of BN vote transfers, Oh pointed to a larger political development.
“I think it was mainly because many, if not most, Malay voters realised that the PAS-UMNO arrangement, with Wawasan as a sidekick, is real and more than makeshift,” he said.
In Oh’s reading, the partnership appealed to voters seeking a more clearly Malay-Muslim political arrangement, with PAS supplying religious legitimacy and UMNO offering a record associated with administration, development and economic management.
He described it as moving towards the fulfilment of what he sees as some Malay voters’ preference for a predominantly Malay political order.
“So they voted enthusiastically for this renewed alliance, while their non-Malay counterparts did not exude the same degree of political enthusiasm anymore,” he said.
The arrangement was electorally effective because it offered complementary appeals to much of the same electorate without dividing votes between UMNO and PAS-backed candidates.
The turnout figures are broadly consistent with an enthusiasm gap, although they cannot establish voters’ motivations on their own.
The three constituencies with the highest turnout Kota, Chembong and Lenggeng were won by BN. Meanwhile, the five lowest-turnout constituencies were retained by PH.
More significant was the BN-PN alliance’s ability to convert its combined vote into victories across Malay-majority, semi-rural and competitive mixed constituencies.
Zahid’s awkward triumph
A supermajority might be expected to strengthen UMNO president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. Oh believes the result could also create new internal pressures.
“Zahid would look at the outstanding results in Negeri Sembilan with mixed feelings, just as he did with the equally impressive Johor results,” he said.
“On the one hand, he could claim vicarious credit at the helm of the undisputed winning party. On the other hand, however, they also strengthened the hands of his potential intra-party challengers, such as Tok Mat and Hisham.
“So paradoxically, these spectacular wins may usher in another round of power struggle within UMNO.”
Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan, widely known as Tok Mat, retained Rantau with a majority of 12,018 votes.
The new Menteri Besar, Datuk Ismail Lasim, served for more than a decade in the Negeri Sembilan executive council under Mohamad when the latter led the state government.
Former UMNO vice-president Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and former Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin were readmitted to the party in April under its Gagasan Rumah Bangsa initiative, alongside more than 6,000 former members.
Their return has widened the field of influential figures around whom competing factions could organise, although no formal leadership challenge has been announced.
Oh expects Zahid to manage the competing centres of influence through internal political balancing.
On whether UMNO’s machinery has genuinely been rebuilt or merely benefited from PAS staying out of the 16 constituencies allocated to it, Oh rejected the either-or proposition.
UMNO, he said, “does still possess very sizeable electoral mobilisation machinery, which was reinforced by that of PAS, which was equally, if not more, powerful”.
The clean sweep therefore demonstrated the combined effectiveness of UMNO’s established organisation and the BN-PN no-clash agreement.
It did not prove that UMNO had defeated PAS in a direct contest.
No rush towards GE16
The Negeri Sembilan result has fuelled speculation about whether UMNO might eventually leave the federal unity government.
Oh sees no immediate reason for it to do so.
“There is nothing much that PH could do to reverse its dismal electoral prospect, so there is no rush for UMNO to force a general election,” he said.
“It might as well build up further momentum with another anticipated spectacular win in Melaka, and nurture its renewed alliance with PAS in the meantime.”
His conclusion is a political forecast, not a settled outcome. PH still has time to adjust its organisation and messaging, while Melaka has its own electoral dynamics.
Malaysia’s next general election is due by early 2028, although it may be called earlier.
Remaining in the federal administration allows UMNO to retain ministerial influence while strengthening its machinery and exploring electoral cooperation with PAS at state level.
Leaving prematurely would sacrifice those advantages without guaranteeing a better parliamentary outcome.
Who gives way at GE16?
The BN-PN arrangement has yet to confront its most difficult test.
At a state election, UMNO and PAS can divide the constituencies between them. At a general election, several state seats are grouped within one parliamentary constituency, and both parties may claim the same electoral territory.
Asked which side would give way, Oh predicted that PAS would be more likely to compromise.
“Likely PAS will blink, as they did in Johor and Negeri Sembilan,” he said.
“This is because PAS’ main political goal in these states at the moment is to gain and consolidate its significant footholds, with an eye towards expanding in the future.
“PAS has always played a long political hand, and its strategic patience has paid off handsomely in the form of the still-surging Green Wave, for example.”
That prediction presents PAS’ willingness to concede seats not as weakness, but as part of a longer strategy.
The party could accept fewer parliamentary candidacies in the immediate term in exchange for strengthening Malay-Muslim political cooperation, expanding its influence and preserving the possibility of future growth.
Whether PAS members and supporters would accept such an arrangement—and whether UMNO would offer sufficient concessions in return—remains uncertain.
For now, BN and PN have demonstrated that they can cooperate effectively enough to win a state. They have not yet shown that they can divide parliamentary constituencies without reopening the rivalry between UMNO and PAS.
DAP faces the opposite problem.
It retained most of its seats, but the defeats in Chennah and Repah suggest that electoral loyalty among parts of its traditional base can no longer be assumed.
Its voters have sent a warning. On 16 August, DAP must decide how to answer it.
Dr Oh Ei Sun is a prominent Malaysian political analyst, senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and principal adviser to the Pacific Research Center of Malaysia. His comments were provided in written responses to TNS News.
Election results, turnout and constituency majorities were checked against Bernama’s official results. The 16 August DAP congress vote was confirmed by Anthony Loke and reported by Reuters.
- TNS NEWS