The ghost of 2022: Will voter apathy again haunt Johor’s July 11 election?

KUALA LUMPUR, June 26 — As Johor prepares to head to the polls on July 11, political parties are bracing for a challenge far greater than their opponents: the ghost of voter apathy.

With nomination day set for June 27 and early voting on July 7, the central question remains whether the state can persuade its massive electorate to actually show up.

When Johor last voted in March 2022, it witnessed a dismal turnout of just 54.92 per cent.

It was a historic low for modern Malaysian elections, occurring despite the state having more registered voters than ever before.

Out of nearly 2.6 million eligible voters, only 1,426,573 ballots were cast.

The contrast is jarring. In 2018, turnout stood at a robust 84.51 per cent with over 1.5 million votes.

By 2022, Johor had gained hundreds of thousands of new names on its rolls through Undi18 and automatic registration, yet it ended up with 109,000 fewer ballots in the boxes.

The anatomy of a turnout crisis

The 2022 slump was born from a perfect storm of unusual circumstances.

The election was held under the cloud of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the Omicron variant triggering a fresh wave of anxiety.

For Johoreans working or studying in other states or across the Causeway, the logistical hurdles and travel costs of returning home proved a significant deterrent.

However, the deeper issue was political fatigue.

The polls followed years of instability that saw Johor cycle through multiple administrations after Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) historic 2018 breakthrough.

That victory had famously ended Barisan Nasional’s (BN) uninterrupted grip on the state since 1955.

The PH government lasted less than two years, however.

The 2020 political crisis saw Bersatu exit the coalition to join forces with PAS and Gerakan under Perikatan Nasional, alongside BN.

This realignment collapsed the state government, leading to a new administration under Datuk Hasni Mohammad.

Following the death of former Menteri Besar Datuk Osman Sapian in late 2021, the ruling coalition’s majority thinned, prompting Hasni to seek a fresh mandate through a snap election.

Where the silence was loudest

The decline in participation hit hardest in Johor’s urban and suburban belts.

Notably, eight of the ten constituencies with the lowest turnout in 2022 were won by PH or its then-ally Muda, suggesting that the coalition’s base was the most affected by the stay-at-home trend.

Perling, won by PH’s Liew Chin Tong, saw turnout crater to just 42.2 per cent, nearly half of the 83 per cent recorded in 2018.

In Skudai, a safe seat for PH’s Marina Ibrahim, participation plunged from 85.2 per cent to 43.8 per cent.

Even in Puteri Wangsa, where Muda’s Amira Aisya secured a landmark win, turnout was a mere 46.9 per cent compared to the 86.9 per cent seen four years prior.

Similar patterns emerged in Stulang, Bentayan, Penggaram, and Senai, where turnout struggled to cross the 50 per cent mark.

Only three of the bottom ten seats, Bekok, Kempas, and Kota Iskandar, were won by BN, though they too suffered participation drops of over 30 percentage points.

Following the 2022 results, Johor PH chairman Aminolhuda Hassan pointed to this low turnout and opposition vote-splitting as the primary reasons for the coalition’s weakened performance.

A regional outlier

Johor’s 54.92 per cent figure remains an anomaly in recent Malaysian political history.

While other states have seen fluctuations, Johor remains at the bottom of the participation ladder.

For context:

• Sarawak state election (2021): 60.67 per cent
• Sabah state election (2025): 64.35 per cent
• Melaka state election (2021): 65.85 per cent
• Negeri Sembilan state election (2023): 68.35 per cent
• Selangor state election (2023): 71.98 per cent
• Penang state election (2023): 72.67 per cent
• Kedah state election (2023): 73.86 per cent
• Terengganu state election (2023): 74.79 per cent
• 15th General Election (2022): 74.70 per cent

Whether the numbers rebound this time will likely decide the fate of the next government.

With 2,725,559 registered voters now on the rolls, parties across the divide are desperate to ensure that this time, the people of Johor choose to be heard.