BN denied 2/3rd majority, lost five states, M'kini blocked

Mar 9, 08 3:36pm

What a night it was.

The ruling Barisan Nasional was dealt its worst ever electoral result, losing its crucial two-thirds majority and an unprecedented five states - Penang, Kedah, Perak, Selangor and Kelantan.

Here's a quick recap of the seismic change in Malaysia's political landscape.

Malaysiakini spotted the massive swing - both among Malay and non-Malay voters - early in the night as the ballots were being counted. We were first to report BN losses, one after another, as the night progressed.

At 7.50pm, we reported that PAS had successfully retained Kelantan. Twenty minutes later, Penang fell into opposition’s hands. At 9.30pm, PAS conceded defeat in Terengganu. One of the biggest news of the night was at 9.43pm when we announced that MIC chief S Samy Vellu had been defeated.

Soon there were even more surprises - at 11pm, we reported that the opposition had taken Kedah. Minutes after, as a result of a tremendous spike in traffic - possibly due to a denial-of-service attack - the Malaysiakini site crashed. We were able to slowly get it back up again and continue reporting.

At 12.25am, we broke the news that the opposition had taken Selangor and 90 minutes later the combined DAP-PKR-PAS claimed victory in Perak. By 2.42am, the opposition has denied the government its much-cherished two-thirds majority by winning 82 seats against BN's 131.

We finally wrapped up our non-stop seven-hour live coverage at 4.12am with the BN chief, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, saying: “We’ve lost, we’ve lost”.