TELUK INTAN, May 31 — Datuk Mah Siew Keong regained Teluk Intan for Barisan Nasional (BN) today, defeating rookie Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud from DAP in a closely-fought by-election.

Mah won by a razor 238 ballots, compared to the 7,313-vote majority when DAP’s late Seah Leong Peng defeated him in the general election last year.

The official count gave Mah 20,157 votes to Dyana’s 19,919.

Datuk Mah Siew Keong is hoisted up as fellow Barisan Nasional members celebrate his win in Teluk Intan, on May 31, 2014. — Picture by Saw Siow Feng

In a press conference after his win was announced, Mah thanked BN’s component parties, wings, and allies for helping out with his campaign.

“This is something I am proud of … Because of them, we have got a good victory,” Mah said.

“For me this is a turning point for me, for Gerakan.”

His victory will likely to be attributed to a lower than expected turnout of 66.7 per cent or 40,236 voters at the end of polling, which his rival previously said would be to BN’s advantage.

With the win, Mah will be appointed to the Cabinet, following a pledge by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak just days before the polls.

Najib, who is in Beijing, confirmed that Mah will be made minister.

“This is a very meaningful win. We lost by more than 7,000 votes in the 2013 general election and we have turned this around,” said Najib after attending the Malaysia-China Friendship dinner in conjunction with the 40th two countries establishing economic ties.

Mah had previously served as Teluk Intan MP for two terms before losing to DAP’s M. Manogaran in 2008.

Even before the official result was announced, DAP already took aim at its victorious rivals.

“The big victor here is not Mah Siew Keong; it’s Umno and its race and ‘samseng’ politics,” DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said.

The party has accused BN and Umno of running an underhanded campaign for the by-election, which included an online smear, among others.

Speaking to supporters and the press outside the DAP camp, Dyana Sofya said the defeat today was not the end of her fledgling political career.

“This is not the end of Dyana Sofya,” she said.