Johor state election 2022
The Johor state election of 12 March 2022 was the first Malaysian election fought on an electorate expanded by Undi18 and automatic voter registration.
What happened
The Johor state assembly was dissolved on 22 January 2022, about two years before it had to be. The stated trigger was arithmetic: the death of the Kempas assemblyman had left Barisan Nasional governing with 28 of 56 seats against an opposition holding 27, and Menteri Besar Hasni Mohammad asked the Sultan to dissolve the house so that voters could produce a clearer majority. Nomination day was 26 February and polling day 12 March, in the middle of an Omicron wave that led the Election Commission to restrict campaign gatherings.
What made this election unusual was who could vote in it. The Constitution (Amendment) Act 2019, which lowered the voting age to 18 and made registration automatic, came into force on 15 December 2021. Johor was the first state election fought under it: 173,177 voters aged 18 to 20 were on the roll, and the electorate as a whole grew from roughly 1.8 million to roughly 2.6 million, an increase of about 44 per cent.
The widely quoted figure of more than 700,000 is a count of everyone newly added to the roll by the lower voting age and automatic registration together, most of whom were older than 20, so it should not be read as the size of the 18-to-20 cohort. Hutchinson and Zhang of ISEAS argued before polling that this cut both ways, helping the opposition if turnout was high and helping Barisan Nasional if it was not.
Turnout was 54.92 per cent, with about 1.43 million ballots cast. The seats went as follows:
- Barisan Nasional
- 40 of 56 seats, past the two-thirds threshold, with UMNO taking 33 of them
- Pakatan Harapan
- 12 seats
- Perikatan Nasional
- 3 seats
- MUDA
- its first ever seat, Puteri Wangsa, in its debut election
Pakatan Harapan conceded the following day. Onn Hafiz Ghazi, not the outgoing Menteri Besar, was appointed to lead the new state government on 15 March 2022.
Why the margin was that large is disputed, and the analysts who have looked at it disagree about mechanism rather than about the numbers.
- Sophie Lemière of CSIS
- points to a fragmented opposition and lost Malay support for DAP and PKR, arguing Barisan Nasional needed only to turn out its own base.
- Bridget Welsh's generational analysis
- puts the weight on older voters, and estimates that the Undi18 cohort split three ways: roughly 38 per cent to UMNO and BN, 33 per cent to Harapan and MUDA, 26 per cent to Perikatan Nasional, rather than voting as a bloc.
Because ballots are secret, all such breakdowns are estimates.
The federal consequence is the reason this state election is remembered. Lemière wrote that UMNO, emboldened by the result, pressed Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob to go to the country early; Ismail Sabri denied that the party had set conditions, saying the timing was decided by consensus.
Parliament was dissolved on 10 October 2022, ahead of the 2023 deadline. Whether Johor caused that or simply strengthened an argument already being made inside UMNO is a question on which the sources here do not agree.
What the sources say
How the election came about
The Johor State Legislative Assembly was dissolved on 22 January 2022 at the request of Menteri Besar Hasni Mohammad, with the consent of the Sultan of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar
The dissolution followed the death of Kempas assemblyman Osman Sapian, which reduced the Barisan Nasional state government to 28 of 56 seats against 27 held by the opposition, a working majority of one
Hasni Mohammad publicly justified the early election as a way to obtain a convincing majority and restore stable government
Nomination day was 26 February 2022 for all 56 state seats, early voting was held on 8 March and polling day was 12 March 2022
The Undi18 electorate
The Constitution (Amendment) Act 2019, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 and introduced automatic voter registration, came into operation on 15 December 2021 by order of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong gazetted on 1 December 2021
Johor 2022 was the first state election in which Malaysians aged 18 to 20 could vote. Bernama reported that 173,177 voters in that age band were eligible, attributing the figure to electoral rolls issued by the Election Commission on 21 January 2022; the underlying age-breakdown dataset was not retrieved.
The larger figure of more than 700,000 that is often attached to Undi18 in Johor counts all voters newly added to the Johor roll under the combined effect of the lower voting age and automatic registration, not only those aged 18 to 20; BERNAMA reported a total electorate of 2,597,742 for the election
Automatic registration and the lower voting age enlarged the Johor electorate from roughly 1.8 million to roughly 2.6 million voters, an increase of about 44 per cent
The result
Barisan Nasional won 40 of the 56 seats, above the 38 needed for a two-thirds majority and well above the 29 needed for a simple majority
Within BN, UMNO took 33 seats, MCA 4 and MIC 3
Pakatan Harapan won 12 seats, Perikatan Nasional 3 and MUDA 1; no other party won a seat
Turnout was 54.92 per cent, with 1,426,573 of about 2.6 million registered voters casting ballots
No Election Commission age-disaggregated turnout dataset for voters aged 18 to 20 has been located. The often-quoted 54 per cent figure is an estimate attributed to Bridget Welsh, while the official overall turnout was 54.92 per cent.
A transparent aggregation of constituency results gives BN 599,753 votes (43.1 per cent), PH 367,525 (26.4 per cent), PN 334,457 (24.0 per cent), MUDA 48,072 (3.5 per cent), Pejuang 18,692 (1.3 per cent), independents 10,007 (0.7 per cent), Warisan 6,532 (0.5 per cent), PBM 4,880 (0.4 per cent), PSM 997 (0.1 per cent), and Putra 247. A contemporaneous Bernama report grouped PKR separately from PH, producing PH 20.48 per cent plus PKR 5.93 per cent.
The Election Commission opened 1,021 polling centres and reported turnout of about 29 per cent at noon on polling day
MUDA contested its first election in Johor and won the Puteri Wangsa seat through Amira Aisya Abd Aziz
Pakatan Harapan conceded defeat the day after polling and said it would conduct a post-mortem
What followed
15 March 2022
Onn Hafiz Ghazi, the assemblyman for Machap, was appointed the 19th Menteri Besar of Johor on 15 March 2022 rather than the outgoing Menteri Besar Hasni Mohammad, taking his oath before the Regent at Istana Bukit Serene
No primary public record has been located that establishes the decisive reason Onn Hafiz Ghazi was chosen over Hasni Mohammad or the content of palace deliberations.
10 October 2022
Parliament was dissolved on 10 October 2022 by Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, bringing the general election forward from the constitutional deadline of 2023
The election was held during an Omicron wave, and the Election Commission imposed campaign restrictions including a cap on indoor ceramah attendance
11 July 2026
Johor held its next state election on 11 July 2026. BN won 48 of 56 seats and PH won the other eight; PN and MUDA won none. Onn Hafiz Ghazi was sworn in for a second term as Menteri Besar on 12 July 2026.
Where accounts differ
Whether the election was called for reasons of governing stability or to build momentum for early national polls is disputed. Hasni Mohammad said it was to secure a workable majority; Hutchinson and Zhang of ISEAS wrote that analysts suspected the underlying motive was momentum for early national elections, noting UMNO deputy president Mohamad Hasan had already pressed for them
Explanations for the size of BN's win differ. Sophie Lemière of CSIS attributes it to a fragmented opposition, loss of Malay support for DAP and PKR, and BN needing only to turn out its existing base. Bridget Welsh attributes it primarily to older voters, writing that "without this high support of the elderly, Umno/BN would not have won the high number of seats," and estimating BN took over 45 per cent of voters aged 60 and above. Hutchinson and Zhang, writing before polling, pointed instead to BN's grassroots organisation and a seat map favourable to Malay-majority constituencies
How the newly enfranchised young actually voted is estimated, not measured, because ballots are secret. Bridget Welsh's generational analysis estimates that about 54 per cent of Undi18 voters aged 18 to 20 turned out, similar to those aged 20 to 25, and splits their vote roughly 38 per cent UMNO/BN, 33 per cent Harapan and MUDA, and 26 per cent PN — a three-way division rather than a youth bloc
Welsh also finds that turnout fell across every age cohort compared with GE14, most sharply among those aged 26 to 40, and that voters in their 20s and 30s moved away from Pakatan Harapan largely towards Perikatan Nasional. These are her estimates from constituency-level modelling, not official age-disaggregated results
Whether Undi18 would help or hurt the incumbent was openly argued before polling. Hutchinson and Zhang wrote that a high-turnout election would favour the opposition while apathy or pandemic fear would favour BN, and questioned the assumption that previously unregistered Malaysians were latent opposition voters, suggesting many were "consciously a-political, anti-establishment, or have been discouraged from enrolling"
The Election Commission's even-handedness during the campaign was disputed. The EC's published SOP limited ceramah and physical campaigning to party offices and operations rooms with up to 100 participants. DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng alleged double standards by comparing that limit with a larger Perikatan Nasional event in Kota Tinggi before nomination day. No EC response to that specific allegation was located in the sources reviewed
Reported seat tallies differ slightly in how the Pakatan Harapan total is presented. ElectionData.MY records 12 seats for Pakatan Harapan, while some day-after reporting listed 11 for Pakatan Harapan with one PKR seat counted separately
Whether the Johor result caused the early dissolution of Parliament, or merely coincided with pressure that already existed, is a matter of interpretation. Lemière wrote that UMNO, emboldened by the result, urged Ismail Sabri Yaakob to call an early general election; Ismail Sabri himself denied that UMNO had set conditions on the date, saying the decision was by consensus
Common questions
Why was the Johor state election held early in 2022?
It was held after the Johor State Legislative Assembly was dissolved on 22 January 2022. The death of Kempas assemblyman Osman Sapian had left the Barisan Nasional government with 28 of 56 seats, against 27 held by the opposition. Menteri Besar Hasni Mohammad said an early election was needed to secure a convincing majority and restore stable government.
Could 18-year-olds vote in the Johor election?
Yes. Johor 2022 was the first state election in which Malaysians aged 18 to 20 could vote, after the law lowering the voting age to 18 and introducing automatic voter registration took effect on 15 December 2021. Bernama reported that 173,177 voters aged 18 to 20 were eligible, based on electoral rolls issued by the Election Commission on 21 January 2022.
Why do people say Undi18 added more than 700,000 Johor voters?
That figure counts everyone newly added to the Johor roll through both the lower voting age and automatic registration, not only voters aged 18 to 20. The total electorate for the election was 2,597,742, and the roll grew from roughly 1.8 million to roughly 2.6 million.
Who won the Johor state election in 2022?
Barisan Nasional won 40 of the 56 seats. That was above the 29 seats needed for a simple majority and the 38 needed for a two-thirds majority. Pakatan Harapan won 12 seats, Perikatan Nasional won three and MUDA won one.
Who became Johor Menteri Besar after the election?
Onn Hafiz Ghazi became Johor Menteri Besar after the election. The Machap assemblyman was appointed the state's 19th Menteri Besar on 15 March 2022 and took his oath before the Regent at Istana Bukit Serene, rather than the outgoing Menteri Besar Hasni Mohammad.
How many people voted in the Johor election?
Turnout was 54.92 per cent. About 1,426,573 of roughly 2.6 million registered voters cast ballots in the election. There is no Election Commission age-disaggregated turnout dataset for voters aged 18 to 20 in the material here, so the overall turnout should not be treated as a turnout figure for young voters alone.
Still open
- What publicly accessible Election Commission age-breakdown dataset underlies the reported 173,177 eligible voters aged 18 to 20 in Johor 2022?
- Whether the specific choice of a March 2022 polling date was influenced by federal-level considerations, as distinct from state ones, could not be established from documentary evidence.