1. The Jakarta Post
Malaysia's governing coalition extended its unchallenged success in the national elections ever since our neighbouring country's independence from Britain in 1957. … However, despite its recurrent victories, the ruling coalition suffered another blow in this year's elections as it failed to achieve a stronger five-year mandate … The Malaysian Chinese Association, the second-biggest party in the ruling coalition, saw many of its candidates defeated as Malaysia's ethnic Chinese minority community continued to abandon the National Front … The first thing that the prime minister needs to do is to fulfil all his campaign promises - and pay heed to all the criticism and concerns from the opposition. Jakarta
2. Star
The People's Verdict is in. And the people have delivered their mandate to the National Front to run the federal government for another five years … From the people's perspective, it would not be wrong to say that the results, democratically expressed through the ballot box, are a fair representation of the people's will. The battle to win hearts and minds will continue, but we must not once again slip into the post-2008 scenario where heavy and divisive politicking was the order of the day … To be sure, there are still some issues where the racial and religious divides are difficult to resolve. But we must have hope that in our very own diversity lie our fundamental strengths. Kuala Lumpur