By Nur Ashikin Louis
KUCHING, Nov 20: Pakatan Harapan (PH) is leading the 15th General Election (GE15) with 76 seats, followed by Perikatan Nasional (PN) with 51 seats and Barisan Nasional (BN) with 30 seats.
The other parties are Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) with 22 seats, Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) with 22 seats, Gabungan Rakyat Sabah — six seats, Democratic Action Party (DAP) — five seats, Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan) — three seats, Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) — one seat, Parti Bangsa Malaysia (PBM) — one seat, and Independent — two seats.
These were the official results of 219 out of 222 seats contested on polling day (Nov 19) as of 4.30am this morning.
Election Commission (EC) chairman Tan Sri Abdul Ghani Salleh said the remaining three parliamentary seats could not be announced, namely P017 Padang Serai due to the death of one of its candidates, P168 Kota Marudu due to weather issues, and P220 Baram due to floods.
“According to these results, no single coalition has managed to secure a majority of more than 50 per cent of the total seats contested.
“The voting percentage for the Dewan Rakyat was 73.89 per cent without taking into account the three parliamentary seats I mentioned earlier,” he told a press conference at the EC headquarters broadcast by Astro Awani on Facebook today.
Looking back at the chart, the GE15 has resulted in a hung parliament scenario, meaning no political party has enough seats to secure a majority to form a federal government.
PH coalition alongside Muda and DAP had won 82 seats — falling short of the 112 seats needed to gain a simple majority to form the federal government.
PN coalition — PN and PAS — on the other hand, won 73 seats.
If the two coalitions work together, they can form a two-thirds majority to form a federal government.
However, PN chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, in a press conference today, said it is open to working with other political parties, especially in Sabah and Sarawak, to form a federal government except for PH.
It is expected that the two coalitions would start negotiating with other parties for extra points in securing enough majority to form the next federal government.
If PH is out of the picture, the only way for PN to be able to form the federal government is to gain simple majority by joining hands with BN, GPS and GRS with a calculated total of 131 seats. — DayakDaily
