1978 Malaysian general election

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 further five 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 and keeping administration by BN for 12 years until 1990. 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 24 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.

By state

Johore

Source:

Kedah

Source:

Kelantan

Source:

Kuala Lumpur

Malacca

Source:

Negeri Sembilan

Source:

Pahang

Source:

Penang

Source:

Perak

Source:

Perlis

Source:

Sabah

Source:

Sarawak

Source:

Selangor

Source:

Trengganu

Source:

Notes

References

References

1. [[Dieter Nohlen]], Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) ''Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume II'', p152 {{ISBN. 0-19-924959-8
2. "HISTORICAL-ELECTION-RESULTS/1978-ELECTION-RESULTS/MALAYSIA_1978_PARLIAMENT_RESULTS.csv at main · TindakMalaysia/HISTORICAL-ELECTION-RESULTS".