He said BN candidate Syed Hussien Syed Abdullah secured 27,995 votes, nearly matching the combined 28,056 votes received by PH and BN in the previous state election when they were rivals.

“What it means is that, after very intense campaigning and persuasion, PH’s voter base is ‘transferable’ to BN.

“The results augur well for further cooperation among the parties that form the unity government,” Liew said in a Facebook post today.

Liew’s remarks, however, come despite a party source saying that the voter turnout rate during the Mahkota poll remained low among Chinese (32%) and Indian voters (34%), while the highest turnout rate (63%) was among Malay voters.

Syed Hussien was elected the new assemblyman for Mahkota by a majority four times larger than BN obtained in 2022.

He received 27,995 votes while Perikatan Nasional’s Haizan Jaafar obtained 7,347 votes.

Liew, who is DAP deputy secretary-general, also said BN’s victory in Mahkota showed that the collaboration between PH and BN is the “winning formula” for the next general election (GE16).

“With much stronger cooperation, effective governance and inspirational policies, the unity government will be able to convince those occupying the middle ground, especially the ones who did not vote yesterday,” Liew said.