On nomination day itself, the Barisan Nasional won two Parliamentary seats in east Malaysia unopposed. However, before the polling even got started, the leaders were shocked with the loss of a state government. The unusual turn of events came about when one of the partners in the ruling coalition, the Parti Bersatu Sabah, which was in control of Sabah state, crossed over to the opposition. Since Sabah's state election had already been held a few months earlier, the loss could not even be rectified at the polls on 20–21 November. This was the first time in its electoral history that the ruling coalition started on a wrong footing. However, when the results of the elections were announced in the early hours of the morning, the Barisan found that it had beaten off the challenge of the opposition, in particular, Semangat '46. Once again it was returned to power at the national Parliament with more than a two-third majority (70.6 per cent), winning 127 out of the 180 seats contested. In terms of the popular vote, the victory was not as decisive. It secured only 51.95 per cent of the total votes cast compared to 57.4 per cent in the 1986 elections – a decline of 5.45 per cent. It would seem that there has been a steady decline in the popular votes cast for the Barisan, which received 61 per cent in 1982.

Table 1 shows the number of parliamentary seats that were won by the various parties in the present and the past two elections in 1982 and 1986. In 1982, the Barisan made a clean sweep of all the parliamentary seats in seven states. In 1990, it achieved a 100 per cent success in five states, the same as it did in 1986. In 5 other states, the ruling coalition held the same ground as it did in 1986, winning a large majority of the seats. In the peninsula, the drastic change was in the state of Kelantan, the stronghold of Parti Islam and Tengku Razaleigh. There the results must have come as a shock to the Barisan.