Malaysian state polls loom as Negeri Sembilan snap vote tests Anwar’s alliance

Malaysia is heading into a run of state elections, including two triggered by early assembly dissolutions, after Negeri Sembilan became the latest state to call a snap poll amid fraying ties inside Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s ruling alliance.While the polls will not directly affect Anwar’s parliamentary majority, they will test whether his federal partners can keep their coalition functioning at the state level or whether local disputes will deepen the fractures between them.On Friday, Negeri Sembilan dissolved its 36-seat assembly after a political crisis in which 14 assemblymen from Umno, the dominant party in the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, withdrew support for Chief Minister Aminuddin Harun, claiming he had mishandled a dispute involving the state palace.The state must now hold an election within 60 days. It follows a similar move in the southern state of Johor, which dissolved its assembly on Monday.The two states sit on opposite sides of Anwar’s federal power-sharing arrangement: Negeri Sembilan is led by his Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, while Johor is controlled by BN, the former rival now governing with him in Putrajaya.Aminuddin called reporters to his official residence late on Thursday, barely half an hour before midnight, to announce that Tuanku Muhriz Tuanku Munawir, whom the state government recognises as Negeri Sembilan’s ruler, had consented to dissolve the assembly.