Views of political analysts and politicians

SANI HAMID, DIRECTOR OF SOVEREIGN RATINGS, STANDARD AND POOR'S 'In my point of view there is no immediate effect on the sovereign rating, but the focus will actually be on two fronts, one is a decision-making process, i.e. what is the impact from the loss of the two-thirds majority on parliament?

'If that is going to lead a more difficult push to pass legislation, especially those measures that relate to the economy, one can imagine that if the government wants to raise oil prices, the other parties could create some opposition and the process would be more protracted.'

'Secondly, the opposition states, Kedah and Penang, are key states in the northern corridor story, so how this is going to impact those states with regard to investment and public funds will have to be seen as well.'

TIM CONDON, HEAD OF ASIA RESEARCH, ING: 'This is probably not good news for the equity market or the ringgit. I think the consensus was that the BN coalition would soldier on and have a sufficient majority to push through their spending programmes and the development of their corridors (economic development zones) ... but this puts in doubt that they will even be able to implement their spending programmes.

There really was no feel-good factor before (the election) and this really reduces the likelihood that there will be one in the near future.'

BRIDGET WELSH, POLITICAL ANALYST, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: 'It was a phenomenal shift. They lost up to potentially four state governments. I think the PM will potentially have to resign. This is unprecedented. The only other time this happened was in 1969 and that's why everybody is very nervous now because of the uncertainty.'