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Barisan Nasional (BN) Chairman and Umno party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has said that the coalition "accepts and respects the people's decision" regarding the 2022 General Election.

BN had garnered far fewer seats than it did in the 2018 General Election, left behind by their rival Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional coalitions.

Big Signal

In a statement released in Malay, Zahid, speaking on behalf of the coalition, said that the result of GE15 was a "big signal" to BN by the people.

This comes as both the opposition Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional coalitions cut a swath through BN's ministerial ranks, felling the likes of finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz, and health minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

At the time of writing, BN has 29 confirmed seats, falling far behind PH and PN who had about 70 seats each.

The coalition is doing so badly, it attained a comparable number of seats as Gabungan Parti Sarawak in East Malaysia.

They have, however, stopped short of conceding total defeat.

While counting is far from complete, BN clearly has seen the writing on the wall and is now looking to manoeuvre to be part of an eventual governing coalition, likely predicting that neither PH or PN will be able to form an outright majority on their own.

Committed to establishing a stable government

The statement continues by saying that BN is committed to establishing a "stable government", and it is "ready to set aside [its] previous difference in sentiment".

It also plays up its connections to East Malaysian parties, saying it is ready to "be a bridge" between Sabah and Sarawak.

This statement is a remarkable admission of failure on the part of BN and Zahid, who has largely been seen as the one pushing for an early general election in the first place.

Instead, at the time of writing, Zahid has apparently survived by a razor thin margin, according to unofficial results, coming within a hair's breadth of becoming the first party president to lose his seat in parliament.

Horse trading

BN has been the dominant coalition of Malaysia since independence, with it or its predecessor The Alliance forming the government until the seminal 2018 election.

Since losing power, it has been plagued by corruption trials aimed at its leaders, with former Prime Minister Najib Razak convicted of multiple counts of corruption and jailed.

Zahid is also facing corruption charges. While he was recently acquitted of some of those charges, he still has to contend with others.

Zahid was arguably unable to shake off the image of BN as a compromised party, one of the few things that PH and PN agree on.

But as both coalitions seek to scrape together a working majority, BN's seats, while much reduced, will begin to look very enticing.

UNOFFICIAL

BN's Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has won the Bagan Datuk parliamentary seat with a 348-vote majority. #GE15https://t.co/Kop64XWsRM pic.twitter.com/Gh2nt7Y4Ei

— malaysiakini.com (@malaysiakini) November 19, 2022

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Top image by Zahid Hamidi/Facebook