KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 13 — Kedah Perikatan Nasional (PN) chief Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor has credited the Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Barisan Nasional (BN) alliance for his coalition’s success in retaining the state in yesterday’s election.

He said the PH-BN’s "overkill attack” against his past administration boomeranged, New Sunday Times reported today.

"It is obvious that the overkill attack by PH and BN against us has backfired. Even PH and BN leaders in Kedah were blinded to our achievements as the state government, which were noticed by the people.

"They didn’t see that, everything was just negative to their eyes and at the end the people showed them the exit,” he was quoted as telling a press conference at the Kedah PAS Complex in Alor Setar after midnight.

According to Sanusi, the alliance’s attack pushed voters to reject the "unity government’s” candidates.

PN won 33 out of 36 state seats. The remaining three seats went to PH, with PKR taking Sidam and Bakar Arang while DAP won Kota Darul Aman. BN lost all the seats it contested in.

On the other hand, Sanusi said the seats that PN won in the three PH-controlled states — Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, and Penang — were significant because it lacked the resources of the federal PH-BN alliance government.

In Election 2018, PH had 10 seats in the state while BN had two.

"Even if PH-BN lost one seat, it is an achievement since they have mobilised federal government agencies to pile pressure on the state government.

"Hence, the defeat in seats held by them showed that people have rejected them,” he was quoted as saying.

When asked if the six state election results could foreshadow the possibility of the federal government changing hands, Sanus expressed his hope for such an outcome.

However, he said federal ministers would still be welcome in Kedah.

"If everybody does our respective duties and if they think that the overkill (during the campaign) is not that shameful, they are welcome to Kedah, I don’t have a problem in facing them,” he was quoted as saying.