Johor BN is determined to defend its 26 parliamentary seats in the state and be a source of strength for BN to maintain its services to the people.

Its chairman, Abdul Ghani Othman, said they have started moving resources at the grassroots level, combining component parties' machinery at 922 district polling centres and stationed more than 160,000 party members under various portfolios at these centres.    

"The pulse of every ballot box is already being felt. Almost half of the 1.5 million voters in this state are BN members. This is the fundamental source of our strength.  

"Johor BN is highly confident of strong support from BN members in all the parliamentary seats and this is further strengthened by the solid Malay unity in every nook of the state," he said during a speech at the opening of the combined Johor divisions delegates meeting by Prime Minister Najib Razak, at the Persada International Convention Centre, here today.    

Abdul Ghani, who is also Johor menteri besar, said the state BN was confident the people were intelligent enough not to hand over their future to the false coalition and that they were not willing to gamble it away to a coalition which was not united.      

Only lost twice ever

According to him, the people of Johor have supported BN steadily since 1959, with 232 out of 234 parliamentary seats being won.

He said the record proved that Johor was BN's solid front, which was gained through unity, programmes for the people throughout the years, hard work during general elections and effective service to the people.  

"We (Johor BN) have faced 12 general elections since independence. Only twice have we lost a parliamentary seat, which was Kluang in 1978 and Bakri, 2008. In the state assembly constituencies, we won 459 out of 576 seats which were contested throughout that period," he pointed out.

- Bernama