Malaysian general election, 1978

Malaysian general election, 1978

8 July 1978

All 154 seats to the Dewan Rakyat 78 seats needed for a majority Registered 5,059,689 Turnout 3,596,732 (75.3%)   First party Second party Third party   PAS Leader Hussein Onn Lim Kit Siang Asri Muda Party Barisan Nasional DAP PAS Leader since 14 January 1976 October 1969 1969 Leader's seat Sri Gading Petaling No seat Last election 135 seats, 60.7% 9 seats, 18.3% 13 seats (part of Barisan Nasional) Seats won 130 16 5 Seat change 5 7 8 Popular vote 1,987,907 664,433 537,720 Percentage 57.2% 19.1% 15.5% Swing 3.5% 0.8%

Prime Minister before election Hussein Onn Barisan Nasional Prime Minister-designate Hussein Onn Barisan Nasional

A general election was held on Thursday, 8 July 1978 for members of the 5th Parliament of Malaysia.^[1] Voting took place in all 154 parliamentary constituencies of Malaysia, each electing one Member of Parliament to the Dewan Rakyat, the dominant house of Parliament. State elections also took place in 276 state constituencies in 10 (out of 13, except Kelantan, Sabah and Sarawak) states of Malaysia on the same day.

It was Hussein Onn's first election since he became the country's third Prime Minister. His Barisan Nasional Party emerged victorious with 131 of the 154 seats in Parliament. Voter turnout was 75.3%.

Results

Parliamentary results

As expected, Barisan Nasional comfortably maintained its majority in the Malaysian Parliament and thus, gave the Prime Minister the power to form a government with a free hand. Despite the victory, BN actually lost four seats out of 154 seats to the opposition.

The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) withdrew from BN in the midst of the 1977 Kelantan Emergency over disagreements with UMNO over the running of the state government of Kelantan, which PAS had controlled since the first post-independence general election in 1959. With the support of UMNO, detractors within PAS split with the party and formed the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Front (BERJASA). In the election, PAS lost the control of the state for the first time to the UMNO-BERJASA alliance within BN. Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has been credited for UMNO's victory in Kelantan.

The opposition garnered 42.8% of total votes. In spite of that, the opposition as one won only 23 seats. Democratic Action Party won the largest slice of the pie among the opposition parties and hence, its leader Lim Kit Siang retained his position as the leader of the opposition that he had obtained four years earlier.

Candidates were returned unopposed in nine constituencies. The registered electors from these constituencies therefore did not cast ballots.

Political Party				Votes	% of vote	Seats	% of seats	+/–
	National Front		BN	1,987,907	57.2	130	84.4	–5
		United Malays National Organisation	UMNO			69	44.8	+7
		Malaysian Chinese Association	MCA			17	11.0	-2
		Malaysian People's Movement Party	Gerakan			4	2.6	–1
		Malaysian Indian Congress	MIC			3	1.9	-1
		People's Progressive Party	PPP			0	0.0	–1
		Sabah People's United Front	BERJAYA			10
		Sarawak National Party	SNAP			9
		Sarawak United People's Party	SUPP			6
		United Traditional Bumiputera Party	PBB			8
		United Sabah National Organisation	USNO			5
	Democratic Action Party		DAP	664,433	19.1	16	10.4	+7
	Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party		PAS	537,720	15.5	5	3.2	–8
	Sarawak People's Organisation		SAPO	10,150	0.3	1	0.6	New
	Other parties			112,850	3.2	0	0.0	0
	Independents		IND	160,370	4.6	2	1.3	+1
Valid votes				3,473,430
Invalid/blank votes				123,302
Total (turnout: 75.3%)				3,596,732	100.0	154	100.0	0
Did not vote				1,462,957
Registered voters				5,059,689
Voting age population (aged 21 years and above)				6,067,230
Malaysian population				12,303,000
Source: Nohlen et al. , Candidates were returned unopposed in nine constituencies. The registered electors from these constituencies therefore did not cast ballots.

References

1. Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume II, p152 ISBN 0-19-924959-8