JOHOR BARU, March 12 ― The promise of a sound administration and a stable political atmosphere with economic progress was what brought Barisan Nasional (BN) a landslide victory in the Johor state election tonight.

The message hit a chord with Johor voters and saw BN’s resounding victory in securing more than the required two-thirds majority and paved the way for it to form the next state government.

Unofficial results from the BN election war room revealed that the coalition has so far won 41 out of the 56 seats in the state assembly, giving it more than the two-thirds majority required.

BN’s results will also put to rest any doubts of political instability in Johor.

According to the unofficial results, BN’s closest rival is Pakatan Harapan (PH) with its component DAP securing nine out of the 14 seats it contested.

The other components, Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah), PKR and PH ally Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda), secured a seat each.

Perikatan Nasional (PN) managed only three seats out of a field of 56 that it had contested in.

With that, BN’s Datuk Hasni Mohammad is set to return as the Johor mentri besar.

The 63-year-old Johor Umno chief had earlier secured a comfortable majority of 5,859 out of 10,896 voters in a four-cornered contest in the Benut state seat.

Hasni had maintained that the Johor state election was an important precondition to enable the southern state to progress as it needs a stable and strong government to allow rapid economic development and investments to continue.

He was reported as saying that the Covid-19 pandemic had affected a major contributor to Johor's economic vitality, namely the close relationship between Johor and Singapore, when the border was closed, apart from the tourism and industrial sectors.

With tonight’s win, Johor’s economic development efforts would be immediately implemented by Hasni and his new administration.

The Johor state election was triggered in January after Hasni sought the dissolution of the state assembly despite still holding a one-seat majority, following the death of former mentri besar Datuk Osman Sapian who was the Parti Peinumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) assemblyman for Kempas.

Earlier, BN was seen leading in more than 40 state seats since 8pm in a closely fought contest with their closest rivals Perikatan Nasional (PN) and Pakatan Harapan (PH).

Shouts of Hidup BN rang out among the crowd waiting outside the BN command centre in Jalan Yahya Awal here.

Hasni is credited for BN’s win in Johor after he sought for a fresh mandate through the polls.

A majority of the seats won by BN were those it was defending from the 14th General Election (GE14), while several were wrested from PH and PN.

The Election Commission (EC) opened a total of 1,021 polling centres with 4,638 voting streams for the polling process today.

Johor has some 2.54 million eligible voters, with 36,729 postal voters.