KUALA LUMPUR — Two of Malaysia’s wealthiest states are heading to early elections that have set the partners in Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim‘s unity government against one another and handed him the first serious electoral test of his premiership since 2022.
Johor, on the southern tip of the peninsula and governed by Barisan Nasional, dissolved its state assembly on June 1. Negeri Sembilan, held by Anwar’s own Pakatan Harapan, followed on June 4, with its vote set for August 1. Under Malaysian law, polls must be held within 60 days of a dissolution.
The two coalitions are uneasy allies. Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional, bitter rivals for decades, joined forces only after the 2022 general election produced a hung parliament and left no other route to a government. In Johor and Negeri Sembilan they are now expected to campaign against each other.
Anwar made no secret of his irritation at the timing. He did not want early elections, he told a party gathering, calling the rush to the polls wayang kulit, the shadow-puppet theatre of the Malay stage, and a piece of maneuvering he blamed on his partners rather than on any public demand.
Be patient for a while, then have the elections, but there is no patience here, he said, singling out the United Malays National Organisation, the dominant party in Barisan Nasional, whose restiveness he said had left the government little choice.
The friction in Negeri Sembilan was acute. Fourteen UMNO assembly members withdrew their support for the Pakatan menteri besar, Aminuddin Harun, before reversing course, an episode that left the state government on uncertain ground and, by Anwar’s account, made an early dissolution unavoidable.
Barisan Nasional has signaled it intends to contest Johor on its own, without Pakatan’s backing, while Pakatan has said it will field candidates in all 36 Negeri Sembilan seats, of which it won 17 at the last vote. The arrangement leaves the two governing partners fighting over many of the same urban and mixed constituencies.
Beneath the procedural quarrel sits a deeper strain. Progressive parties inside Pakatan have grown frustrated with the slow pace of the reforms Anwar promised, while UMNO has pressed him over a royal pardon for Najib Razak, the former prime minister jailed in 2022 over the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal.
Anwar has said he will sit down with Barisan Nasional’s president, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, to seek a more coordinated approach before polling day, an acknowledgment that an open contest between government partners carries risks for both.
The stakes run beyond the two states. Heavy losses would weaken Anwar’s hand at a general election that must be held by early 2028, and he has said he would consider calling a national vote sooner if the divisions inside his coalition continued to widen. Malacca and Sarawak are due to hold their own state elections in the months ahead.
The leader who a year ago helped broker a ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia now faces a harder negotiation at home. Anwar is left defending a government against the very partners who keep it in power, in two states he can ill afford to lose, and the campaigns that open this summer will measure how much of the goodwill that carried him to office in 2022 survives nearly four years of an alliance built on necessity rather than trust.
