Congrats Anwar & Loke – Continue Your Denial, Delusion, Arrogance To Lose More Elections
July 13th, 2026 by financetwitter
You know a government is increasingly authoritarian, corrupt, and arrogant when it starts cracking down on freedom of expression by censoring and blocking independent news portals, blogs, and social media platforms critical of the government. And you know such a dictatorship would lose power soon. It had happened to the Najib government, and it is about to happen to Anwar’s Madani.
In the Sabah state election (November 2025), Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim successfully led Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition – comprising PKR, DAP and Amanah – to a disastrous annihilation. However, the Premier and his loyal sidekick, DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke Siew Fook, arrogantly downplay the wipe-out as an isolated case and believed the Chinese tsunami would not reach Peninsular Malaysia.
On Saturday (July 11, 2026), Mr Anwar and Mr Loke paid the price again. This time, the humiliating election defeat is in Johor. While not entirely wiped out like in the Borneo state, the mighty PH captured only 8 out of 56 seats (down from 12). Still in denial, the arrogant Loke said the Johor results won’t affect the coming Negeri Sembilan state polls on August 1.
Pakatan Harapan’s component Democratic Action Party (DAP), which was contesting 17 seats, won just six – down from 10 in 2022. Its ally Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) also lost one seat to rival Barisan Nasional (BN). The consolation – Anwar’s party PKR won Puteri Wangsa from Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (MUDA), who previously contested as a PH partner in 2022.
Losing 40% of the seats is a huge warning for both DAP and PH. Why? Because despite a higher voter turnout – 67.44% compared to 53.13% recorded in 2022 – the coalition had lost more seats when it should be the other way round. Silly Tony had hoped voter turnout in Johor would exceed 70% for PH to snatch the state from BN. But even with 67.44%, DAP had done worse.
BN has retained not only Johor after its state election, but also winning 48 out of the 56 contested seats – more than the 40 it did in 2022. Such a resounding victory could be used to pressure the weakling big talker Anwar to dissolve the Parliament for a snap national polls. Crucially, the result is a referendum for Johor caretaker Chief Minister Onn Hafiz Ghazi against PM Anwar.
As usual, PH has never failed in cooking excuses for its defeats. PH argued after the Sabah election last year that its annihilation was due to Sabah-specific issues and would not influence voter sentiment in the Peninsular. Now, PH election director Amirudin Shari attributed the defeat in Johor to a transfer of votes by opposition Perikatan Nasional (PN) supporters to BN candidates, which is not entirely true.
Either way, there’s one denominator in both Sabah and Johor elections – the Chinese votes are no longer “fixed deposit” of DAP, let alone PKR or Amanah. The ethnic Chinese voted en bloc against DAP in Sabah, causing the party to collapse completely in ethnic Chinese-majority seats. The same Chinese have now punished DAP in Johor, though not in full force, causing to the loss of 40% of its seats.
If the Chinese, who stood solidly behind DAP and contributed 95% of their votes for the party in the November 2022 general election, still trusted Loke leadership, DAP would not have lost Tangkak on Saturday. Tangkak was won by DAP’s Ee Chin Li in 2013, 2018 and 2022 elections, making it one of the party’s fortresses in Johor. This time, the seat swung back to BN’s component party MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association).
Likewise, in Johor Jaya, another DAP stronghold for three consecutive state elections since 2013, MCA’s Chan San San defeated DAP’s Lee Wern Yiing by 7,268 votes. It was a sweet revenge as Chan lost by 1,922 votes in the previous 2022 Johor state election. Crucially, the ethnic breakdown of Johor Jaya’s electorate is Chinese (46%), Malay (39%), and Indian (8%).
Another Chinese-majority seat under PH since 2013 that had also fallen is Jementah. This is a seat with 50.8% Chinese community, Malay (40.2%), and Indian (8.3%). Exactly how could DAP, supposedly the fierce defender of Chinese interests, lost Tangkak, Johor Jaya and Jementah – three Chinese-majority strongholds – to bitter enemy MCA demonized as Chinese eunuch and traitor subservient to UMNO?
It was already bad that PH-DAP lost Tangkak, Johor Jaya, and Jementah to MCA due to disgruntled and angry Chinese voters punishing them. It becomes worse when even Perling was lost to MIC (Malaysian Indian Congress), a dinosaur party often mocked and ridiculed as a pariah component party of BN which has long past its expiry date.
Yes, the writing is all over the wall about PH and DAP’s arrogance when even the Indian community decided to teach Loke and Anwar a lesson in Perling, a seat under PH’s control since the state constituency first contested in 2018. Ethnic breakdown of Perling’s electorate is Chinese (46%), Malay (38%), and Indian (13%). Even if all the Malay voters voted for BN, DAP would have won, but it didn’t.
Not even big guns like DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang, mobilized during the PH campaign event in Perling, could appease the disgruntled Chinese and angry Indian communities. Clearly, the power-crazy PM Anwar and spineless Loke had done an excellent job poking Chinese and Indian voters till they became sufficiently frustrated with PH that they are now willing to back MCA and MIC.
It certainly didn’t help that pro-Anwar bloggers, propagandists, cyber troopers, YouTubers, and TikTokers – the same arrogant and clueless social media influencers who kept insisting the Sabah tsunami would not reach Johor – have similarly convinced PH blind supporters who can’t read the pulse on the ground that the “unique” Chinese and Indian Johoreans would not vote for MCA in a million years.
The excessive attacks on MCA, while deliberately and shamelessly ignoring Anwar and Loke’s cowardice, hypocrisy, double standards, flip-flopping, racism, arrogance, extremism, cronyism and incompetence, have backfired. Thanks to the “overkilled” attacks, MCA has secured eight seats in the Johor state assembly, surpassing DAP’s six-seat tally in a significant breakthrough.
The first thing MCA president Wee Ka Siong did was to gather all the eight newly elected assemblymen for an emergency meeting on July 12 midnight soon after the results were announced – telling them that they must remain humble. “Arrogance is absolutely not acceptable,” – said Wee. It doesn’t matter whether Wee and MCA are still being despised by the majority of the Chinese community.
What matters is Wee recognized that MCA must remain humble whilst Loke is in denial that DAP lost due to arrogance. Like it or not, what had happened in Sabah appears to have spread to Peninsular Malaysia. MCA’s eight seats in Johor compared with DAP’s six is a symbolic reversal in a state where DAP has steadily expanded its influence since 2008 under the stewardship of veteran leader Lim Kit Siang.
Despite PH top leadership’s denial that they have lost touch with the ground and become arrogant, leading to many fence sitters choosing not to return home to vote, or choosing to vote for BN as part of a protest vote, the facts don’t lie. PKR and DAP and their hardcore supporters can continue to be in denial. But it’s a fact that turnout averaged about 65.7% in BN-held seats, compared with only 60% in PH-held seats.
The lowest participation was concentrated largely in constituencies previously held by PH component party DAP – including Perling, Bentayan, Penggaram, Stulang and Skudai. In Penggaram and Bentayan, DAP had won with overwhelming majorities of 9,956 and 7,476 votes respectively in 2022. This round, the majorities dropped to 4,137 and 6,112 votes – two seats with 60.3% and 70.8% Chinese voters respectively.
From the beginning, PH had no clear strategy. Anwar Ibrahim and Anthony Loke were still dreaming about working with UMNO-led BN in the next 16th General Election. YouTubers dressed themselves in red as they joined “syok sendiri” (self-absorbed) large-scale ceramahs campaign, which attracted outstation “political tourists” to the tune of thousands rather than actual local voters.
To make the events looked impressive, “converted” hardcore supporters were transported to attend the ceramahs to listen to popular leaders and snap selfies, with “durian feast” and concert thrown in. They were more interested in delusional campaign than to counter the questions of “unfulfilled promises” along with scandals like corporate mafia and corruption, as well as bread and butter issues.
Selangor Chief Minister and PKR vice-president Amirudin lied through his teeth when he said Malays, Chinese, and Indians were equal citizens during his campaign in Johor. He thought the minorities were stupid and would trust him after his crackdown on temples and pig farming. Sending him to Johor was obviously a strategic and tactical mistake, but PH leaders were too big-headed and ignorant to realize it.
1MDB (1Malaysia Development Berhad) still has RM8.9 billion remaining debts, Deputy Finance Minister Liew Chin Tong complained on July 9, conveniently forgetting how his boss Anwar had facilitated a royal pardon for Najib Razak. In the same breath, Housing and Local Government Minister Nga Kor Ming pledged to resign from his Cabinet post if crooked Najib is released from prison.
Fake reformist Anwar, unable to scream “Reformasi” as it has become “Reformati”, tried to hoodwink voters with anti-corruption slogan. The drama queen cried and claimed that political rivals are joining forces against him because his government’s strict anti-corruption policies have upset them. He thought voters had forgotten how he protected Azam Baki, the ex-MACC chief plagued with corruption and corporate mafia.
The forked-tongue Prime Minister also pretended like Gandhi or Buddha, calling all citizens to stop extreme racism and the politics of hatred, even though he was the champion in the field of racism and hatred politics. The Indian community, despite being a minority race, remembered what Anwar did last summer, and rewarded PH with a stunning defeat in Perling.
The Hindus remembered extremely well how Anwar – playing race and religion cards in desperation for Malay votes – had purposely and provocatively declared “Victory” after bulldozing the construction of “Madani Mosque” in Kuala Lumpur? To make way for the mosque, the 130-year-old Dewi Sri Pathrakaliamman temple was forced to be relocated some 50-metre away.
Heck, the Premier had even openly admitted his racism and discrimination when he mocked and ridiculed the Indian community – don’t be “angry or jealous” about programmes his Madani launched specifically for the Bumiputeras. Amusingly, despite the marginalization of Indians in favour of Malays, Anwar’s pathetic PKR lost all but one of the 20 seats it contested in Johor. The moron lost Indian votes and failed to win Malay votes at the same time.
When he was in the opposition wilderness for 24 years, he danced from tree to tree and sang like Shah Rukh Khan – “Indians and Ibans were marginalized, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”. But the moment he got power, he danced from country to country and sang – “Palestinians and Hamas were marginalized, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”. Yet, not a single Palestinian vote entered PKR candidates’ ballot box.
Anwar’s RM200 million for Hamas had caused more Indian votes to abandon PH than Malay votes could offset. The Indians had had enough of this snake oil salesman. It was also too little too late when the Madani scrambled at the eleventh hour trying to scam the Chinese business community with a promise to “review” the e-invoice system and Employees Provident Fund (EPF) contributions involving foreign workers.
PH top leadership like Anwar and Loke thought they could fool all the people all the time. But not all Chinese and Indians could be scammed. Even the Malays flocked to BN in droves. The scale of Malay votes’ migration to UMNO, MCA and MIC was so jaw-dropping that even Malay nationalist Bersatu and Islamist party PAS were effectively wiped out in Johor. But the biggest loser is DAP, not Bersatu or PAS.
Anwar’s biggest mistake in Johor was his bragging that he will remain as the Prime Minister regardless of whether PH wins or loses. Anthony Loke’s biggest mistake was taking Chinese voters for granted – believing that the Chinese have no other options but to blindly vote for DAP and Anwar. The fear-mongering that UMNO-PAS alliance would take over Johor is exactly like the previous’ threat – if the Chinese do not vote for MCA, the May 13 bloody racial riots would happen.
Playing an obsolete 1980s game in 2026 no longer works. Gen-Z and fence sitters refused to be held hostage by DAP spin doctors. They chose to either stay at home or vote for UMNO, MCA and MIC to show their middle finger to PH’s despicable threat. Beyond Anwar, there are 30 million Malaysians who can take over, including leaders from Sabah and Sarawak who do not treat Chinese and Indian as third-class citizens. So, spare the childish “if not Anwar, who else” threat.
A view of a billboard depicting US president Donald Trump in Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
William Christou
