Unofficial results showed that the coalition has so far won 19 of the 28 seats in the state assembly, giving it a two-third majority.

The Election Commission announced that the coalition had secured a simple majority of 15 seats at 9.42pm.

BN’s Sulaiman Md Ali is set to return as the new Melaka chief minister. The elections had been triggered when four assemblymen declared last month that they had lost confidence in his leadership of the state government.

Shouts of “Hidup BN”, “Hidup Bossku” (a reference to former prime minister Najib Razak) and “Satu Malaysia” rang out among the crowd waiting outside the BN command centre in Ayer Keroh.

A former federal minister credited the Barisan Nasional’s slogan, “Stability For Prosperity”, as the reason for the coalition’s victory.

Abdul Rahman Dahlan said the slogan made sense to Melaka voters as “a moderate, progressive and pragmatic agenda”.

Rahman, a former minister for local government and housing, posted a photograph of a BN “speech team” preparing a speech for coalition chairman Ahmad Zahid Hamidi after results showed that the coalition was poised to win by a “landslide” in the state election.

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