KUALA LUMPUR: There is a particular cruelty in watching your deputy prime minister celebrate your misery. On Saturday night (Aug 1), as the results from the Negeri Sembilan state assembly elections rolled in, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition leaders Hamzah Zainudin and Takiyuddin Hassan – men his own federal government officially opposes – to claim a supermajority victory over Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition that governed the state for eight years. The Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, which is led by Mr Zahid’s United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), and PN had won 25 out of 36 state assembly seats. PH fell from 17 seats to 11.