BARISAN Nasional (BN) has won more than a slim majority in the Malacca elections, the Election Commission (EC) said tonight.

On the EC’s election results dashboard, BN was marked as having won 20 out of 28 seats.

At a press conference in Malacca earlier tonight, EC chairman Abdul Ghani Salleh announced that the coalition had won 15 seats, the simple majority required to form the state government.

“BN has won 15 out of the 28 seats,” said Abdul Ghani, adding that the pact’s majority was confirmed at around 9.40pm.

The elections chief, however, did not provide more details about the results of other parties or on voter turnout.

Earlier, at around 9.30pm, Umno secretary-general Ahmad Maslan told UmnoOnline that his party had won 19 out of 28 seats. 

The state elections were held after four assemblymen withdrew their support for chief minister Sulaiman Md Ali last month, leading to the dissolution of the legislative assembly.

The state has 476,037 voters. Voter turnout at 4pm was 61% according to the EC.

It has been said by political observers that a low turnout could benefit BN. In GE14 in 2018, when PH won the state, voter turnout was 84.7%.

There were a total of 217 polling stations and 1,109 voting streams in the 28 state seats.

The polls saw a total of 112 candidates from BN, PH and PN, Parti Bumiputera Perkasa Malaysia (Putra), Parti Perikatan India Muslim Nasional (Iman) as well as independents. – November 20, 2021.