Mission accomplished. Everything is now under control.

For the first time in history, all 17 public universities nationwide fell under the 'pro-establishment' students after the campus polls, marred by boycotts and complaints of irregularities , ended last night.

In Universiti Malaya (UM) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), which were not affected by the boycott, their rivals 'the anti-establishment' faction were trounced.

In UM, the 'pro-establishment' faction - widely considered to be backed by the university authorities - swept 39 seats, leaving their rivals with only two from the Islamic studies faculty.

On nomination day itself, the victorious faction took 15 seats uncontested.

The results were only announced at 3am today, after a 10-hour marathon vote counting process.

There were also widespread SMS (short messaging service) messages claiming that a 'commotion' had taken place during the vote count, but no untoward incidents were reported.

UM fell under the control of pro-government students for the first time last year after anti-establishment students, who complaint about unfair election rules, boycotted the polls.

Landslide victory

It was also a landslide victory for the 'pro-establishment' students in UKM despite the faction having split into two separate camps.

One of the camps, known as Tindakan Siswa Bersatu, took 28 out of the 33 seats up for grabs.

The remaining five were won by the 'anti-establishment' faction. Islamic faculty (two), dentistry and information science and technology (one each) and one won uncontested after nominations on Monday.

In the other campuses, the polls turned out to be a tame affair. Other campuses, such as Universiti Islam Antarabangsa, Universiti Sains Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia where anti-establishment students were once dominant fell to their rivals, mostly due to the poll boycotts.

Over the years, the government and campus authorities have overtly backed the pro-establishment student factions to stamp out anti-government forces in campuses nationwide.

The pro-government forces, with the help from the authorities, have progressively knocked out anti-establishment students from the student representatives councils.

Contacted later, a 'pro-establishment' student leader said the challenge now is working on how to regain students' confidence on the legitimacy of the faction to head the student representative council as most of them had won uncontested.