KUALA LUMPUR, June 25 ― Barisan Nasional (BN) will hold a “political laboratory” next month to explore avenues to revamp itself, casting its nets outside the coalition in search of ideas to halt the decline of its popularity.

Speaking to reporters after the BN supreme council meeting yesterday, coalition chairman Datuk Seri Najib Razak also said the possibility of turning the coalition into a single party was not yet discarded as it discusses whether reforms are needed for its structure, branding and policies.

“Everything. We will consider all options, we’ll put on the table all options,” Najib (picture) replied when asked whether the lab will be open to the single-party suggestion.

“They’ll decide the best way forward, and they’ll determine whether the modalities would be acceptable to every member of the component parties.”

BN deputy chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin explained that the laboratory will include at least three members from each component party, and will even include views from beyond the coalition.

“Other members from outside, NGOs, distinguished personalities who have got ideas from the private sector side, from the youths ... these are the members that we add to the component parties’ members,” said Muhyiddin, but refusing to divulge any names.

A management committee comprising members of coalition parties and the office of BN’s secretary-general will be in charge of the laboratory, Muhyiddin added.

Late last month, Najib announced that Umno will set up a laboratory to study the proposal to turn BN into a single party, but said it needed to gather feedback from its members before making any decision.

“Umno is a party that is close to the members’ hearts... so any changes must be studied in minute detail to avoid the issue of non-acceptance,” he told reporters after chairing a meeting of Umno’s supreme council then.

Following BN’s result in the May 5 general election, Gerakan acting president Datuk Chang Ko Youn was the first to propose turning BN into single party.

According to Chang, making BN a single party was essential as Election 2013 showed that urban and young voters no longer voted along racial lines.

BN leaders such as former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan, however, discounted the idea, saying Malaysians were not prepared to look beyond the racial silos that were the political parties of BN. Others such as former New Straits Times (NST) group editor-in-chief Datuk A. Kadir Jasin also called the suggestion “impractical”.

But the disastrous outing for BN component parties aside from Umno may leave the coalition little choice but to explore the proposal more closely. In the recent general election, the MCA, MIC and Gerakan fared worse than they did in 2008, further straining the power-sharing formula at the heart of the coalition.

A study of data from Election 2013 showed a major swing among the multiracial urban and middle-class electorate away from BN, independent pollster Merdeka Center said recently, disagreeing with attempts to depict the result as a Chinese-versus-Malay contest.

The 13th general election was BN’s poorest electoral performance ever, with the coalition winning just 133 seats against PR’s 89 and losing the popular vote for the first time since 1969, when it has last contested as the Alliance Party.