KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 17 — Barisan Nasional’s Mohd Azmawi Fikri Abdul Ghani secured a morale-boosting for his coalition today, convincingly winning the by-election for the Nenggiri state seat in the PAS bastion of Kelantan.

According to the Election Commission, Mohd Azmawi won the seat with a majority of 3,352 votes over his rival, Perikatan Nasional (PN) candidate Mohd Rizwadi Ismail from PAS, and flipping the seat with a margin of victory over four times what PN managed in the state election last year.

The result will be an additional blow to PN, which triggered the by-election by stripping former Bersatu lawmaker Mohd Azizi Abu Naim of the seat after he declared support for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

PN has a virtual stranglehold over the Kelantan state assembly, where PAS and Bersatu control 42 out of its 45 seats.

Umno supreme council member Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan was among party leaders already claiming the victory online.

"Congratulations to the party machinery. Congratulations to Awie. Thank you, Malaysians and Nenggiri voters. Praise be to God,” he said in a post on Twitter, using the nickname of Mohd Azmawi Fikri.

At the final count, Mohd Azmawi secured 9,091 votes compared to the 5,739 his rival polled.

Last year, Mohd Azizi won Nenggiri with a majority of just 810 votes over the BN candidate at the time.