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THE Democratic Action Party (DAP) has blamed Parti Bersama Malaysia (Bersama) for splitting opposition votes in the Johor State Election, claiming the party’s entry into several constituencies contributed to Pakatan Harapan (PH) losing seats it could have retained.
DAP Disciplinary Committee chairman Tony Pua described Bersama as a “vote spoiler”, arguing that the party’s participation divided support among opposition voters and gave Barisan Nasional (BN) an advantage in key contests.
“Bersama only became a vote spoiler. We lost Perling by about 1,800 votes, while Bersama obtained nearly 3,000 votes,” he said in a Facebook post on Sunday.
He said Bersama’s involvement also nearly cost DAP its victory in Stulang, where the party secured the seat with a majority of only about 600 votes.
The Johor election ended with BN retaining control of the state government after securing a landslide victory, winning 48 of the 56 State Legislative Assembly (DUN) seats contested. PH won the remaining eight seats.
Tony, a former Damansara Member of Parliament, said PKR’s defeat in Bukit Batu was also partly due to what he described as vote disruption caused by Bersama.
He claimed that support for Bersama effectively increased BN’s chances of winning more seats.
Reflecting on the election outcome, Tony acknowledged that DAP had expected a difficult battle as Johor remained a key stronghold for UMNO.
“There is a reason why BN insisted on holding the state election earlier on its own in Johor. It cannot be denied that Johor is UMNO’s strongest state.
“The directive by PAS for its members to support BN in seats that the party deliberately did not contest made an already difficult challenge even tougher,” he said.
Tony said DAP had initially expected to retain seven of the 10 seats it contested.
However, the party managed to defend only six seats after narrowly losing two constituencies.
“It was not an outstanding result, but it is still something we can defend. We survived, but only just. We need to do better,” he said.
He added that DAP would now shift its focus towards the upcoming Negeri Sembilan State Election, which he described as having a different political landscape from Johor. - July 12, 2026
