S'WAK POLLS Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak said that the opposition has paid a "heavy price" for their Anti-Najib campaign which had led to their dismal performance in the recently concluded Sarawak state polls.

"Let this be a lesson to the opposition that hate politics can sometimes be very counterproductive. The voters no longer want to vote against any party based on hate. The voters want to see more tangible reasons such as development, harmony, peace, security, and so on.

"Barisan Nasional brought all these issues to the voters, while the opposition merely played up the hate factor. And for that reason the opposition paid a heavy price," he chastised the opposition in a blog entry he wrote tonight.

He noted that the launching of the anti-Najib campaign against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak by those aligned to former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and Pakatan Harapan backfired badly on the opposition, as was expected.

Salleh argued that the opposition had ignored this very important point at their own peril, that elections are never about one person or factor but about a combination of factors.

And while Salleh said that a more comprehensive post-mortem needs to be done regarding the Sarawak state election, it is obvious that several clear factors have contributed to the sweeping BN victory.

"First and foremost we cannot deny that the caretaker chief minister Adenan Satem's popularity played a critical role in swinging the voters. One could even probably interpret the Sarawak state election as a vote of confidence for him.

"Najib was personally down on the ground and was well received by many voters in the places he visited. In a way this proved the prime minister’s critics wrong regarding his popularity," he argued.

In today’s state polls, the BN won 72 out of the 82 contested and maintained its two-thirds majority rule yet once again.

DAP lost five of the seats it previously won, holding on to only seven, while PKR increased its seats from two to three.

Part of the campaign tactics adopted by the opposition parties was to attack Najib's leadership, linking him to several national scandals like the 1Malaysia Development Berhad massive debts, the Goods and Services Tax, and the RM2.6 billion donation deposited into the PM's accounts.

In contrast, the state BN under Adenan had opted to focus on local-centric issues.