COMMENT | The results of the Malacca polls are in – Umno/BN won handily, securing a two-thirds majority of 21 out of 28 seats.

Umno is back in the driving seat in government at the state level, positioning itself for a return to national power in the coming GE15 federal elections.

Pakatan Harapan was soundly defeated – not just by BN/Umno but also by Perikatan Nasional (PN), the coalition that took the government from them in the Sheraton Move in February 2020. What happened and why?

Drawing from fieldwork in Malacca, and earlier pieces that drew attention to why PN gained ground especially in the last few days of the campaign, this piece offers a preliminary analysis of...