Malaysia's government stumbled to a second by-election loss in its heartland on Saturday, raising questions as to whether it can reconnect with voters at a time of rising economic and political stress.
The defeat of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in a key by-election in Kuala Terengganu in Malaysia's northeast follows the party's loss to opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in another Malay-majority seat late last year.
The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), one of three partners in Anwar's opposition alliance, won the seat by 2,631 votes, much bigger than expected.
Cheering PAS supporters took to the streets of Kuala Terengganu, a state capital of almost 300,000 people in rural north-eastern Malaysia, in cars and on mopeds, honking horns and waving green and white party flags.
UMNO is the anchor in the ruling multi-racial National Front coalition, which is still regrouping following the coalition's worst-ever electoral loss in national polls last year. "There will be increasing concerns in UMNO about whether it will still be in power if it was, indeed, a Malay swing in Kuala Terengganu that led to the opposition's victory there, and if that Malay swing is part of a nation-wide trend that is happening," said political commentator Wan Hamidi Hamid.
Kuala Terengganu is 88 percent Malay, compared with around 60 percent nationally. UMNO was set up in 1946 with the aims of defending Malay rights and winning independence from Britain.
It was the Malay base that remained loyal to UMNO and the coalition that it leads, saving it in the face of mass defections by ethnic Chinese and Indian voters in the 2008 general election.
Both campaigns were run by Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, who will take the top job in March after his predecessor was forced to quit early due to the run of poor election results.
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