KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 26 — Umno and PAS are unlikely to form an alliance for the next general election as both parties would be battling for the support of the same Malay-Muslim electorate, an analyst has said.

Dr Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said the Malay ruling party and the Islamist opposition party would be at loggerheads not because of differing political agendas, but mainly over dividing constituencies.

“I think a pre-GE-14 electoral pact between Umno and PAS is extremely unlikely,” Oh told Malay Mail Online recently.

“This is not so much due to their perceived ideological differences, which have never been an obstacle in Malaysia’s very pragmatic and materialistic politics.

“Rather, it is because of very practical reasons, namely the respective Umno and PAS warlords would fight tooth and nail to protect their individual turfs, such as their coveted and since-long assiduously nurtured candidacies in their respective parliamentary or state constituencies,” he added.

Oh, however, seemed optimistic about the possibility of a post-election pact between the two parties.

“A post-election alliance or coalition is possible, since any party with substantial number of seats, including even DAP which is likely to win even more seats than PAS, will have a seat at the negotiating table for forming the next government,” he said.

Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan said it was still too early to predict the future for any collaboration between PAS and Umno.

“Well I think it’s too early to decide whether or not this is a positive or negative step, but we can expect that the call for partnership between the two parties was made because Umno feels it’s losing the non-Malay ground, so the only way for them to survive politically is by going to the core voters, that is ethnic Malays.

“I think the statement by Najib indicates that Umno cannot expand in the Malay market anymore to the extent that they have to work with an existing party to enlarge their supporters’ base,” Wan Saiful told Malay Mail Online, referring to Prime Minister and Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

At the recent Umno general assembly, Najib extended an open invitation to PAS to collaborate with the Malay party.

PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang responded by saying that PAS was open to working with any political party for the sake of unity based on Islamic principles, even as he reiterated the Islamist party was currently in partnership with PKR in the opposition bench.

Najib and Hadi also shared the same stage Thursday at the Multaqa Serantau Alumni Al-Azhar Malaysia 2015 here, a Muslim unity forum.