Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has cautioned the coalition against becoming complacent following its victories in the Johor and Negeri Sembilan state elections, stressing that the results may not necessarily be repeated in the next general election.
Zahid, who is also Umno president, said Malaysian voters were increasingly willing to make different choices depending on the type of election and circumstances at the time.
He said voters could base their decisions on factors such as candidates, government performance, local concerns, economic conditions and whether political parties were able to offer meaningful solutions to their everyday problems.
“This is the new reality. Political parties can no longer assume that voters will remain loyal to them,” he said during a BN forum titled “Post-Johor and Negeri Sembilan: A New Dynamic In Malaysian Politics?” this evening.
Zahid said the shift was particularly noticeable among younger voters, who had previously been regarded as less supportive of BN.
“Previously, it was said that young people were not backing us. But now, we have seen in many polling stations where young voters have returned to BN.
“However, the youth vote can no longer be considered a fixed deposit for any political party. We cannot simply ask young people to understand the history of our struggle. We must give them a reason to believe in the future we want to build,” he said.
He also urged BN not to assume that Malay voters had completely returned to Umno or the coalition based on recent election results.
“I do not want to be too quick to say that they have fully returned to Umno or BN. Perhaps they are giving us another chance, and that trust can be withdrawn if we fail, become complacent or take things for granted,” he said.
Zahid said the same caution applied to Chinese and Indian voters, warning BN against prematurely concluding that these communities had abandoned Pakatan Harapan and returned to the coalition in significant numbers.
He said BN’s priority following its victories in Johor and Negeri Sembilan should therefore be more than simply maintaining its momentum.
Instead, the coalition needed to understand the reasons behind the results and learn from them to avoid repeating past mistakes when the next general election arrives.
BN won 48 of the 56 seats in Johor, while its electoral pact with Perikatan Nasional secured 25 of the 36 seats in Negeri Sembilan.
Previously, think tank Ilham Centre said the so-called “blue wave” could potentially deliver up to 122 parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia to the BN-PN bloc in the next general election.
