COMMENT | The recent Sungai Bakap by-election result was not surprising. It follows the trend of by-election results after the 15th general election (GE15) where the incumbent party retained the seat.

At the same time, the results were also surprising in that the margin of victory for the incumbent, Perikatan Nasional/PAS, in this case, was larger than expected.

The increase in the support for PN was driven by a small increase in its overall support and more importantly, a significant decline in the non-Malay turnout.

The many missteps in the Pakatan Harapan-BN campaign exacerbated the already challenging political and economic landscape for the Madani government at the national level.

If the key parties within the Madani government do not heed these warning signals, these trends will likely worsen, and the point of no return may be crossed well before the next general election.

Table 1 below compares...