General elections were held in

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

between Saturday, 8 July and Saturday, 22 July 1978.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...

, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) ''Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume II'', p152 Voting took place in all 154 parliamentary constituencies, each electing one Member of Parliament to the Dewan Rakyat, the dominant house of Parliament. State elections also took place in 276 state constituencies (except

Kelantan Kelantan (; Kelantan-Pattani Malay, Kelantanese Malay: ''Klate''; ) is a state in Malaysia. The capital, Kota Bharu, includes the royal seat of Kubang Kerian. The honorific, honorific name of the state is ''Darul Naim'' ("The Blissful Abode"). ...

Sabah Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and Indonesia's North Kalima ...

and

Sarawak Sarawak ( , ) is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia. It is the largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia. Sarawak is located in East Malaysia in northwest Borneo, and is ...

) on the same day. It was

Hussein Onn Hussein bin Onn (; 12 February 1922 – 29 May 1990) was a Malaysian lawyer and politician who served as the third Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1976 to 1981. Early life, family and education Hussein Onn was born on 12 February 1922 in Jo ...

's first election after becoming the country's third

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

in 1976. His

Barisan Nasional Barisan Nasional (BN; ) is a political coalition of Malaysia that was founded in 1974 as a coalition of centre-right and right-wing political parties to succeed the Alliance Party. It is the third largest political coalition with 30 seats in ...

alliance emerged victorious with 130 of the 154 seats. Voter turnout was 75%.

Results

As expected, Barisan Nasional comfortably maintained its majority in the

Malaysian Parliament The Parliament of Malaysia (; Jawi script, Jawi: ) is the national legislature of Malaysia, based on the Westminster system. The bicameral parliament consists of the Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives, Literal translation, lit. "People's As ...

and thus, gave the Prime Minister the power to form a government with a free hand. Despite the victory, BN actually lost four seats out of 154 seats to the opposition. The

Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party The Malaysian Islamic Party, also known as the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party ( Malay: ''Parti Islam Se-Malaysia''; abbrev: PAS), is an Islamist political party in Malaysia. Ideologically focused on Islamic fundamentalism and Malay dominanc ...

(PAS) withdrew from BN in the midst of the 1977 Kelantan Emergency over disagreements with UMNO over the running of the state government of

, which PAS had controlled since the first post-independence general election in

1959 Events January * January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the ...

. 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 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah Tengku Razaleigh bin Tengku Mohd Hamzah (Jawi alphabet, Jawi: تڠکو غزالي بن تڠکو محمد حمزة; born 13 April 1937) is a Malaysian people, Malaysian politician who served as the Dewan Rakyat, Member of Parliament (MP) for Gu ...

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 23 seats.

Democratic Action Party The Democratic Action Party (DAP; ) is a social democracy, social democratic and Secularism, secular political party in Malaysia, sitting on the Centre-left politics, centre-left of the political spectrum. As one of four component parties of ...

won the largest slice of the pie among the opposition parties and hence, its leader

Lim Kit Siang Lim Kit Siang (; born 20 February 1941) is a retired Malaysian politician. Having held the position for a total of 29 years on three separate occasions, he is the longest-serving leader of the opposition, as well the second longest-serving m ...

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

Kedah

Kelantan

Kuala Lumpur

Malacca

Negri Sembilan

Pahang

Penang

Perak

Perlis

Sabah

Sarawak

Selangor

Trengganu

Notes

References

{{Malaysian elections General elections in Malaysia

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...