SEPTEMBER 24 — The Melaka election is a go. Questions abound if polling day, predicted for late October, witnesses the death-knell of progressive politics in the federation.

After two state elections where the relentless race-baiters won without breaking a sweat, Melaka is the most serious test before the general election.

Subterfuge Central till filing day

What happens between now and nomination day? A lot of talking, which means a lot of catering.

Interspersed with random percentage numbers issued by participants to sum up hours of the days spent discussing how to while munching karipap. “We are 70 per cent closer to an agreement, after eight days of ups and downs of 5 per cent.”

This time — thank the heavens! — the permutations are vastly reduced.

In one corner, Barisan Nasional (BN) and Perikatan Nasional (PN) attempt to grow the partnership.

From the indirect friendship in Johor (July 11), which thereafter elevated itself into a formal no-contest pact at Negeri Sembilan (August 1), the next stage demands advances if Muafakat 2.0 is to be realised.

Hardly straightforward.

If PAS-led PN naively believed BN after two easy elections due to religious votes would concede more seats to them, in order to guarantee another sure win in Melaka, they have since been disabused of the notion.

BN Melaka has complete autonomy according to party president Zahid Hamidi to agree on terms with all suitors. Chief Minister Ab Rauf Yusoh can play hardball and he will.

For the party, Pahang, Melaka and Johor are strongholds relative to their other outposts, and will not risk losing them or destabilising the state leadership.

And key to that is to prioritise Umno Melaka over any other obligations regardless of states won.

Ab Rauf is adamant to contest all 21 seats BN won in 2021. While Anwar Ibrahim was able to strongarm Pakatan partners in 2023 to release held seats in Penang, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan to Umno, to maintain Madani unity, the Umno president is both reluctant and incapable to force Umno warlords to accommodate the “bigger picture”.

Umno’s reticence causes friction in PN. PAS together with its soulmate Parti Wawasan Negara, under Umno’s terms, contest only in seven seats. Add the reality that four of those are DAP held, they’d rather let Gerakan lose not too badly in them. Three seats for PAS and Wawasan to share belittles them both.

Yet, PAS have said Malay unity trumps seat share. But after doing their bit in Johor and Negeri Sembilan, they’d expect Umno to do more giving than just taking.

Can Akmal Saleh, Umno Youth chief, state exco and PAS fan, sway his party?

In the unlikely scenario the seat negotiations hit a wall, the fallout turns into an avalanche.

In the other corner, Pakatan Harapan is trying hard to prove the adage “In politics, there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies—only permanent interests.”

Six years after the calamitous breakup which ended Pakatan’s first federal government and ushered in Bersatu-led PN, Muhyiddin Yassin’s boys are sitting down with Anwar’s boys.

There is a simple reason why both – battered in the last few months – are willing to set aside the past.

Politics does not reward losers and Pakatan feels a win, however it arrives, can turn a corner with an expected general election in 2027. Bersatu is desperate for any uplift.

Media scrutiny is immense after Muhyiddin had four charges against him in his corruption trial downgraded into DNAA (discharge not amounting to an acquittal) on September 15.

The only faction which may hold back a Pakatan-Bersatu reunion is DAP. The Machiavellian stratagem risks estranging its base supporters.

Any slip-up by Pakatan, Bersama aims to benefit from on voting day. Eyes are on their 15 announced races.

But all the preps to nomination day will be coloured by developments next door in Negeri Sembilan.  Which asks what is Muafakat 2.0 in terms of our realpolitik?

It’s a national proposition played out in state contests. If Negeri Sembilan is so quickly plagued by a series of indecisions and its government associated with that national proposition — Malay unity as raison d’être and the precursor of stability — then it casts doubt on its viability.

The switch could be from identity politics to the safer choice despite its contradictions — which is Pakatan Harapan.

Funnily, BN used to be the safer choice, in the minds of the people.

The campaign

The pacts determine the campaign and even more the outcomes.

If BN-PN walk side by side, victory is probable.

Pakatan does not want that. A three- or four-way state election is far more palatable.

Understanding that how people gang up in the two to three weeks based on short-term arrangements made in meeting rooms decide the election, rather than how the various parties and coalitions campaign should ring alarm bells.

The parties are talking their way to put voters in a spot, in a first-past-the-post system.

A BN-PN compact only means two very distinct groups share their votes despite antithetical views on government and policy-making.

Again, the trend where ideas, spending and organisation take a backseat to plain stacking among majoritarian parties is a threat to our democratic health.

However, Pakatan makes its own bed.

The hard choices are on the table and if it chooses expediency over principles time and time again, it ends up looking like its opponents.

Bersatu is not the way forward. But fear can force those in decline, even if that decline is not terminal, to abandon reason.

Melaka 2026, where the party negotiators determine the outcome rather than the voters.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.