UMNO also managed to significantly slash the majorities it held in the seats it was defending. Even popular Kubang Pasu MP, Mahathir Mohamad, successfully slashed his majority from 17,000 to slightly over 10,000. “Due to the hard work and commitment of our candidates, we have managed make major cuts in these embarrassingly large margins,” said Education Minister Najib Tun Razak, who was still wiping the pee stains from his trousers when he narrowly held his seat by a wafer-thin majority of 241 votes – about a third of the number of spoilt votes in his constituency.

On the other hand, UMNO parliamentary candidate and former deputy minister in charge of legal affairs Ibrahim Ali thanked the people for allowing him to be soundly trounced in the Pasir Mas contest. “The good folks at Pasir Mas obviously recognise the valuable service I am doing for them in the UMNO Anti-Defamation Committee and don’t want me to waste my time with trivial matters such as being their member of Parliament,” Ibrahim observed. However, he still hopes to be an MP some day and said that he is contemplating hopping over to the MCA soon in order to give himself a better chance of getting elected next time.

UMNO candidate for Peringat, former Rural Development Minister Annuar Musa, who lost his seat to Keadilan, attributed his defeat to having a name that sounds like the name of two former deputy Prime Ministers. “Those two names spell bad karma, man, especially when you’re in UMNO” he noted.

Former Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Megat Junid attributed his loss in Parit to rising seafood prices, due to the current arsenic scare. Former Second Finance Minister Mustapha Mohamed blamed his shock defeat on mistaken identity. “Voters probably mistook me for the First Finance Minister,” he said.

The lone successful UMNO MP for Kelantan, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, was asked to comment on the future of his much-publicised ‘Rampas Kelantan!’ (‘Capture Kelantan!’) campaign. ‘It has as much future as my chances of being deputy PM now, I suppose,’ he remarked philosophically.

In the neighbouring state of Terengganu, Opposition parties were still reeling from the crushing death blows it received from UMNO. “It was a disaster,” said new Terengganu Chief Minister Hj Abdul Hadi Awang of PAS. “UMNO’s victorious onslaught left us with every single one of the eight Parliamentary seats and 28 of the 32 state seats. UMNO skillfully outflanked us and we suddenly find ourselves stuck with leading a State Government and burdened with half a billion ringgit in annual oil revenues. Those guys were good.”

In a related development, Barisan Nasional’s Seputeh candidate Sua Chong Keh gracefully accepted his defeat by DAP’s Teresa Kok. Sua caused some controversy during the run-up to the polls when he remarked that he was standing as a candidate while his opponent, being a woman, was squatting. “I accept the verdict of the people,” Sua declared in a press conference in a public lavatory in Taman Seputeh. “I promise that I shall now squat when I urinate.”

Meanwhile, Internet satirist Sabri Zain warmly welcomed the Barisan Nasional’s victory in the general elections. “The people have spoken,” he declared. “And they want me to poke fun at the Barisan Nasional for another five years. I shall not disappoint them.”