BN's Worst Ever Performance...

This is one massive wake-up call to Barisan Nasional and I think, in particular, Umno.

And someone should be made accountable.

"But it will not be me," said BN chief and Umno president Abdullah Ahmad Badawi whose own state of Penang was lost to the opposition.
Well, not in those words but he told a media conference that he will not be resigning.

The coalition, despite its mighty and powerful election machinery, also lost Kedah, Selangor and Perak, and its siege on Kelantan, failed to retain the State.

And for the first time in history, it lost its two-thirds majority.
(It attained a simple majority, winning 137 of 222 parliamentary seats. The Opposition won an unprecedented 82 seats)

Abdullah who gave a brief Press conference with his wife, Jean and Najib by his side
at 2.20am, said that he was not resigning. He was asked whether he would step down as Prime Minister after the BN's defeat in four states and its failure to wrest Kelantan from Pas.

"I don't know who is being pressured to (step down). I'm not resigning", he said.

He also said this did not show that the people had lost confidence in his leadership.

"This is the people's stand not to give us a two-thirds majority", he remarked.

Abdullah assumed the premiership when Dr Mahathir Mohamed stepped down in 2003 after 22 years as Prime Minister.

When asked about BN's defeat in the five states, Abdullah replied: "We've lost, we've lost."
("Dah kalah, kalah.")

He had throughout the 2008 general election campaign expressed confidence of the BN's sweeping victory.

I think many people expected the BN to "lose some seats" but did not quite expect this "political tsunami", as someone was quoted to have said.

This will change the course of Malaysian politics.

The Malays are angry, the Chinese are angry, and of course, the Indians are angry. Malaysians are angry.

We see some of BN's big wigs being trounced -- MIC's Samy Vellu in Sungai Siput, PPP's Kayveas in Taiping, Gerakan's Koh Tsu Koon in Batu Kawan and Wanita Umno deputy chief Shahrizat Abdul Jalil who failed to defend Lembah Pantai against Parti Keadilan Rakyat's Nurul Izzah Anwar.
Zainuddin Maidin lost to a PKR candidate in Sungai Siput.

Except for Koh, the others were Cabinet ministers.

Wanita Umno chief Rafidah Aziz won, but with a very reduced majority. Other BN top guns won, but badly.

All component parties took a beating.

Abdullah himself retained his Kepala Batas seat with a reduced majority.

But his deputy, Najib Abdul Razak, defended his Pekan seat with a huge margin. And Pahang did well. So did Johor, Sabah and Sarawak.

Well, wasn't it really Najib's day?

And, we will see a mother-daughter team of PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Ismail (who defended Permatang Pauh with a bigger majority) and Nurul Izzah in the Dewan Rakyat.

PKR advisor and former Deputy PM Anwar Ibrahim was at the fore of the Opposition's election campaign.
Now who said Anwar and PKR no longer had relevance in Malaysian politics?

There are not very many ways of reading the BN's dismal performance. I think many good BN leaders were made to suffer and had to take the fall just to give that very strong message that the people had had about enough with the BN and its arrogance, excesses, abuses, the father-in-law/son-in-law way of running the country.

I think it was a strong vote against Abdullah and his coterie of cronies.

According to Bernama, Abdullah would seek an audience with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin tomorrow (Monday) to form the new fedderal government.
But according to NST, he'd be doing that later today.

Today at 11am, Dr Mahathir will be holding a Press conference at his residence in The Mines.