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As Malaysia’s Negeri Sembilan state geared up for a snap election on August 1, posts shared two fabricated news graphics: one claiming a competing coalition was splitting apart and the other purporting to show early vote counts. The first graphic features a supposed quote from Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Hamidi, which his office told AFP was “fake”. Malaysia’s Election Commission said the second graphic is similarly false, pointing out that early ballots are not counted until voting has finished on election day.<\/p>\n
“This is what a true Malay Muslim president looks like,” says the Malay-language caption of a purported news graphic shared on Facebook<\/a> on July 28, 2026.<\/p>\n The graphic, which bears the logo of the Utusan Malaysia newspaper, features a photo of Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Hamidi that is superimposed with Malay-language text reading: “(In response to) Sanusi’s statement: UMNO ready to end cooperation, urges members to ‘not vote for Perikatan Nasional’.”<\/p>\n Zahid is the president of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which is a principal member of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition competing in the Negeri Sembilan state polls. BN — which Zahid also chairs — has an electoral agreement<\/a> with Perikatan Nasional (PN), another political alliance, in which they will not directly compete for seats in the election ( archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n The statement that Zahid was supposedly responding to is a remark<\/a> by PN’s election director Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor, who described Malaysia as the sole Malay homeland and suggested that other ethnic communities had ancestral roots outside the country\u00a0( archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n Another infographic about the Negeri Sembilan polls was also posted on Facebook<\/a> on July 29.<\/p>\n It appears to show the PN coalition leading in early vote counts, and its Malay-language caption reads: “Praise be to God, the early voting results of the military and police in the Negeri Sembilan state election are very encouraging.”<\/p>\n The graphics circulated days before the snap polls in Negeri Sembilan.<\/p>\n The state election was triggered by a\u00a0 leadership crisis<\/a> in April, when all 14 UMNO assembly members withdrew their support for Chief Minister Aminuddin Harun ( archived link<\/a>). They cited dissatisfaction with his handling of a dispute involving the state monarchy.<\/p>\n