AUGUST 14 — The growing tensions involving PAS, Bersatu and Wawasan should not be regarded merely as another episode of coalition disagreement.

They expose a potentially deeper weakness in Malaysian democracy: the possibility that political competition under a First-Past-the-Post electoral system can increasingly be displaced by lawfare.

Lawfare, properly understood, is not simply litigation. Political parties and their members have every right to seek judicial remedies when constitutions, agreements or laws are allegedly violated. Courts remain indispensable guardians of legality.

The problem begins when legal action becomes an extension of political competition itself.

This is precisely why the increasingly complicated relationship between a Hadi-led PAS, Bersatu and Wawasan deserves careful scrutiny.

The immediate difficulty is structural. Perikatan Nasional was created as a coalition, not as an instrument belonging exclusively to one component party.

Yet disagreements over Bersatu’s status, leadership authority, coalition membership and participation in electoral negotiations demonstrate how quickly political disagreements can become disputes over rules, constitutions and legal standing.

Once this happens, political competition moves from one arena into several simultaneously.

There is the electoral battlefield. There is the coalition battlefield. Then there is potentially the legal battlefield.

For Bersatu, the stakes are existential. If its position within PN can be questioned politically or procedurally, it must determine whether to accept the political interpretation advanced by PAS or challenge that interpretation through the coalition’s constitutional mechanisms, the Registrar of Societies or ultimately the courts.

PAS faces the opposite dilemma. If it seeks greater authority over electoral negotiations while simultaneously maintaining PN as a functioning coalition, it cannot assume that every interpretation of coalition rules advanced by its leadership will automatically be accepted by its partners.

Wawasan complicates matters further.

Wawasan has emerged as a potentially important intermediary in the increasingly fluid relationship connecting PAS, Bersatu and elements seeking wider cooperation with Barisan Nasional.

But an intermediary can survive only when the political arrangements it brokers are understood and respected by all parties.

Otherwise Wawasan risks becoming trapped between competing interpretations of who possesses the authority to negotiate with whom.

This is where lawfare becomes politically explosive.

Malaysia uses First-Past-the-Post. There are no prizes for finishing second in a constituency.

A candidate can win without obtaining an absolute majority provided that candidate receives more votes than every competitor.

Consequently, alliances matter enormously.

A disagreement between PAS and Bersatu over even a relatively small number of constituencies could split overlapping electoral constituencies and transform victory into defeat.

Conversely, an arrangement involving PAS, Wawasan and BN that excludes or marginalises Bersatu could fundamentally alter the electoral mathematics of PN.

Therefore disputes over coalition membership are not administrative technicalities.

They concern political survival.

Consider what happens when PAS claims the authority to negotiate particular seats while Bersatu insists that such negotiations violate PN’s constitution.

The disagreement immediately creates several questions: who represents PN, who can allocate seats, who can negotiate with outside parties, and whether decisions made without one component party are politically or constitutionally valid.

These questions can eventually become legal questions.

That is the danger. A coalition originally designed to win elections can gradually transform into an ecosystem of competing constitutional interpretations.

PAS could invoke one understanding of PN.

Bersatu could advance another.

Wawasan could attempt to construct a third political pathway between competing blocs.

The Registrar of Societies could then become increasingly important. Lawyers could become indispensable. Courts could eventually be asked to determine matters that political leaders themselves failed to settle.

Malaysia would then witness something considerably more serious than coalition instability.

It would be witnessing the judicialisation of coalition politics.

This has particularly serious consequences under FPTP because electoral cooperation depends upon clarity before nominations occur.

Parties must know which candidates are standing, under whose symbols, with whose machinery and according to what electoral understanding.

Ambiguity is expensive.

Litigation is even more expensive politically.

PAS therefore has to understand that political predominance cannot simply be converted into constitutional predominance inside every coalition arrangement.

Being electorally powerful does not automatically give one component party the right to redefine the status of another.

Bersatu, meanwhile, faces an equally difficult strategic decision. It cannot rely indefinitely upon legal and procedural arguments if its underlying electoral strength continues to depend upon cooperation with PAS.

Winning an argument over PN’s constitution would not necessarily solve Bersatu’s political problem.

One can win in court and still lose constituencies.

Wawasan consequently occupies perhaps the most precarious position of all.

If it becomes a bridge between political blocs, it must avoid becoming a bridge over which competing parties march towards litigation.

Its usefulness depends upon its ability to facilitate political accommodation rather than manufacture another layer of institutional ambiguity.

The experience of Negeri Sembilan should make this especially important.

When relatively small numbers of seats can determine whether a party possesses a majority, becomes dependent upon partners or loses power altogether, every electoral understanding assumes disproportionate importance.

What begins as an argument over several constituencies can therefore become an argument over government formation.

This is where Malaysia must take heed.

The danger of lawfare between PAS and Bersatu is not merely that one party might sue another.

The greater danger is the creation of a political culture in which coalition agreements are repeatedly tested through legal mechanisms rather than sustained through political trust.

Once that precedent becomes normal, retaliation becomes almost inevitable.

PAS can challenge Bersatu.

Bersatu can challenge PAS.

Different factions can challenge coalition decisions.

Electoral candidates can challenge selections.

Disputes can reach the Registrar of Societies and subsequently the courts.

Meanwhile Wawasan could find itself attempting to mediate relationships whose basic constitutional foundations remain contested.

Such a political architecture would be extraordinarily unstable.

The irony is considerable. Malay-Muslim political unity is frequently presented as the justification for greater cooperation among Malay-based political parties.

Yet if the institutional foundations of that cooperation remain contested, the pursuit of unity could generate precisely the opposite outcome: fragmentation accompanied by litigation.

Malay-Muslim unity cannot be manufactured through ambiguous constitutional arrangements.

Neither can electoral cooperation.

Malaysia’s FPTP system makes political clarity especially important because the consequences of fragmentation are immediate.

Three competing candidates drawing support from substantially overlapping voter pools can deliver victory to a fourth candidate without that candidate ever securing majority support.

This is why PAS, Bersatu and Wawasan cannot treat their institutional disagreements casually.

They are playing with the architecture of electoral power itself.

Courts should remain available whenever genuine questions of legality arise.

The Registrar of Societies must perform its statutory responsibilities independently. No political organisation should be denied legitimate legal remedies.

But Malaysian political leaders should understand that litigation cannot manufacture political trust.

Nor can lawfare manufacture a durable coalition.

A functioning coalition requires agreed leadership, accepted procedures, transparent seat negotiations and mutual recognition of every component party’s political standing.

Without these foundations, PAS, Bersatu and Wawasan may discover that their greatest opponent is eventually not Pakatan Harapan or Barisan Nasional.

It could be one another.

And in Malaysia’s unforgiving First-Past-the-Post system, political allies that spend too much time fighting one another through constitutions, regulators and courts may eventually discover the simplest electoral law of all: while they are fighting over who owns the coalition, somebody else wins the seat.

* Phar Kim Beng is a professor of Asean Studies and a director at the Institute of International and Asean Studies, International Islamic University Malaysia.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.