Correct me if I am wrong. Local councils are government appointed. It is not appointed by the MP of that area or are they ? Also allocation of development funds are also controlled by the government.
Local councils used to be elected by the members of the community but this was changed years ago due to some emergency which was never repealed. There was an issue raised by DAP years ago in regards to whether Malaysia was still technically in a state of emergency.
Anyway if the above is true. Pretty easy for the ruling govenment of the day to marginalised some communities for voting in the opposition.