The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition has won a major victory in the 11th general elections, wresting control of the only two states held by opposition Islamic PAS, according to unofficial results.

The states of Terengganu and Kelantan fell to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's BN, the malaysiakini online newspaper reported, quoting officials on the ground in both states.

A state official in Kelantan told AFP : "According to our sources, it's confirmed that PAS has lost Kelantan and Terengganu. It is shocking, and totally unexpected."

The vice-president of PAS, Mustapha Ali, told AFP in the Terengganu state capital Kuala Terengganu: "It looks like we lost the state."

Win beyond Pak Lah's expectation

The turnaraound indicates that Abdullah, who took over from veteran leader Mahathir Mohamad when he retired last October after 22 years in power, was headed for a landslide win nationally.

Terengganu fell to PAS in the last elections in 1999, while Kelantan has been held by PAS since 1990.

Meanwhile, two key leaders of opposition DAP have made a resounding comeback.

Party chairman Lim Kit Siang and deputy chairman Karpal Singh, who have lost in the last elections, scored victory in their seats to return to Parliament.

On the other hand, Keadilan risked being wiped out.

The opposition party may not be able to win a single state or parliamentary seat. All its key leaders have been defeated in the seats they contested, including party president Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

With ethnic Chinese and Indian voters afraid of PAS's Islamic policies holding the balance of power, Abdullah was always assured of victory nationally, but the extent of his win, if confirmed, beats even his own expectations.

Sympathetic hearing

Abdullah, himself an Islamic scholar, campaigned hard in the rural Muslim heartland in the north, desperate to woo voters away from the fundamentalist opposition to what he calls "modern and progressive" Islamic rule.

Malaysia was transformed over the past two decades under former premier Mahathir Mohamad from a rubber and tin exporter to one of the world's top 20 trading nations with a high-tech manufacturing base.

But the divide between the urban rich and the rural poor is sharp, and it had been feared that the farmers and fishermen of the north would stay with PAS not only out of ideological solidarity but because of their anger over government corruption.

But it appears that Abdullah's pledge to crack down on graft - backed up by the arrest of a cabinet minister and a tycoon - received a sympathetic hearing.

Abdullah also had on his side the fact that anger over one of the major issues in the last election - the sacking and jailing of popular former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim - had faded.

In the 1999 poll, the government's share of the Muslim vote slipped from 63 percent to 49 percent, with some of the support going to the new Keadilan led by Anwar's wife Wan Azizah, which took five parliamentary seats in an alliance with PAS. - AFP