Protest votes, broken promises: Decisive defeat for Malaysia’s ruling coalition in Johor’s Tanjung Piai by-election
- Malaysia’s ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition loses closely watched by-election
- Malaysian Chinese Association candidate Wee Jeck Seng wins by a 15,000-vote majority
A decisive by-election victory by an opposition party in Malaysia’s southernmost Johor state should serve as a warning shot to the country’s ruling Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, analysts say.
Wee Jeck Seng, a member of the Malaysian Chinese Association – a component party of the now-ousted Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition which had ruled Malaysia for over six uninterrupted decades – received 25,466 out of 52,471 votes, capping a decisive victory.
The party beat PH’s candidate by a 15,000 majority, thanks in part to the support of the opposition race-and-religion based United Malays National Organisation (Umno) – Malaysia’s former ruling party – and the Islamic Party of Malaysia.
MCA party president Wee Ka Siong said the results would prove to be “a new game changer for MCA”, which had failed to secure the seat in 2018 national polls.
“We won in all Chinese-majority district polling centres this time, compared to [the last election] when we lost in all eight. People of all races came together and sent out a strong message to the government that they are sick with its frequent U-turns, flip-flops and bad performance,” Wee was reported as saying by local media.