Malaysian general election, 1978

Malaysia

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General elections were held in Malaysia on 8 July 1978.^[1] 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

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. Out of 154 seats in the Dewan Rakyat, Despite the victory, BN actually lost four seats to the opposition, attributed to PAS' decision to opt out of UMNO; UMNO was and still is one of the major component parties within BN.

Berjasa had previous controlled the state of Kelantan. Its separation out of UMNO cost it the control of Kelantan to its former ally. 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.

Results

Party	Votes	%	Seats	+/-
Barisan Nasional	1,987,907	57.2	131	-4
Democratic Action Party	664,433	19.1	16	+5
Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party	537,720	15.5	5	New
Sarawak People's Organisation	10,151	0.3	1	New
Other parties	112,850	3.2	0	-
Independents	160,370	4.6	1	+1
Invalid/blank votes	123,302	-	-	-
Total	3,596,732	100	154	0
Source: Nohlen et al

References

1. ^ Nohlen, D, Grotz, F & Hartmann, C (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume II, p152 ISBN 0199249598