KUALA LUMPUR, June 2 — Umno may start down the path towards more blatant racial politics and possibly explore stronger cooperation with PAS in a bid to regain its lost power, an academic told a forum today.

William Case, a professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia campus, presented this as one of three possible negative outcomes that may not yet be apparent with the euphoria of Pakatan Harapan successfully forming the new government.

"Most dangerously, Umno does not grow more reformist, but instead becomes much more aggressively nativist, and starts now to try to energise new support through new and much louder and much more aggressive appeals to the Malay community,” he told the forum today when touching on the hypothetical scenario.

Case said the Malay-based Umno could even partner Islamist party PAS to tap on right wing populism to win back power.

There are already signs of this. One Umno leader expressing intent to contest for the party’s presidency has proposed unification with the Islamist party with the professed aim of "saving Islam”.

"It may even team up with PAS and it could start to embark on a programme of right wing populism. There’s nothing strange about that in today’s world because it’s happening everywhere.

"I can imagine in my darker moods that Umno together with PAS reverting to something like that, a kind of right wing populism strategy, that who knows can bring it back to power whether through the ballot box or through other means,” he added.

Earlier in the forum, Case noted that the Umno-led Barisan Nasional coalition had in the 14th general elections used its "standard” approach of consolidating support from rural voters — who typically include their Malay base.

"Forget the Chinese, forget the secular Malay middle class, forget the urban voters,” he said of the coalition’s approach, noting that BN was confident that its strategy together with its "electoral manipulation” would help it win power again.

The two other possible scenarios he outlined were a possible backlash from the country’s "elites” if Pakatan Harapan was to be too eager by carrying out reforms "too far, too fast”, as well as a situation where PH falls apart due to infighting and fails to deliver on its promises of relieving Malaysians’ economic burden.

During his presentation, Case also said Umno's acceptance of its defeat in the 14th general election and new role as the Opposition could be due to the party's belief it can regain power in the future.

"It's still the biggest party in Parliament, it's got 54 seats. I think probably its calculations is that 'we can recover from this, we will contest elections in future and who knows we may win',” he said.

Case indicated that Umno's return cannot be ruled out, as it still has much of its machinery in place and some of its resources available.

"It's got a compelling story to tell ― Umno is the party of independence, it is the party of economic development and industrialisation in 1980s, 1990s.

"It's still the protector of the Malays and it guarantees social peace,” he said of the possible image that Umno could rely on to rebuild support.

When responding later to a question on whether Umno could maintain its image as the Malays' protector or if it was "disintegrating” and needed reform, Case said the 2013 general election results indicate that the party could possibly fall back on race-based politics.

"The stronger the Chinese solidarity became and the more strongly they swung towards the opposition, the more intimidated the Malay community became and there was some detectable swing back again towards Umno,” he said of the 2013 elections.

"That didn't happen in this election, but it could happen in future elections,” he said.

Saying that most Malay voters backed Umno and PAS in GE14, Case said he believed there was still substantial reservation and worry among the Malay community that could see Umno using a race-based approach in future polls.

"So don't count it out yet.”

Case was part of a panel discussion titled "Malaysia’s Democratic Wave: Expecting the Unexpected” which was held at Universiti Malaya.

The other panelists were International Islamic University Malaysia’s (IIUM) associate professor Khairil Izamin Ahmad and human rights lawyer Fadiah Nadwa Fikri.

The discussion was part of the "Post-GE14 Conference: Making Democracy Deliver” organised by alternative history project Imagined Malaysia, along with organising partners Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) and Universiti Malaya’s Centre for Democracy and Elections (UMcedel).

GE14 saw BN lose federal power for the first time in history, which both analysts and PH have credited to a "Malaysian tsunami” or a multiracial rejection of BN.