OCTOBER 29 — As anything goes is the current ethos of Malaysian politics, mayhem post-GE16 — ostensibly before the end of 2027 — is inevitable.
A political vacuum precedes before a fragile minority government forms.
We, as a nation, are at the precipice of the great unknown.
Endless possibilities
Just in case you’ve been in a cave the last five months, all kinds have occurred.
In Johor, Barisan Nasional (BN) squared off with Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional (PN) — with Bersatu in its lines.
Yet, towards the end of the campaign, PAS president Hadi Awang gathers his 11 candidates and announces the Islamists primary goal is Pakatan’s defeat and not their own victory.
In the name of greater Malay unity. It literally rerouted PAS votes to Umno or forced their voters to stay home on July 11, election day.
BN mauled all pretenders and won 48 of the 56 contests. Pakatan retained eight and PN lost everything, humiliating Bersatu president and former Johor MB Muhyiddin Yassin.
By Negeri Sembilan’s nomination day on July 18, PN reconstituted itself. Bersatu, rudely uninvited, was forced to compete solo.
Bersatu’s splinters Wawasan Negara and Pejuang danced into the warm embrace of PN. BN set aside 11 seats for PN in a strategic partnership for polling on August 1.
The BN-PN coalition, with 18 and seven wins respectively, hold a supermajority. Its excos currently do not administer the state, but that’s a completely different bizarre story.
Now for Melaka, BN and PN are in agreement, despite PN rendered the junior member allowed to contest only seven seats opposed to BN’s 21. Pakatan faces an uphill task.
Why, Batman, why is Gotham in mayhem?
Regardless of Melaka’s outcome, there are three reasons for grave uncertainties after the votes are cast at GE16.
Many forget that by the time Ismail Sabri Yaakob took over from Muhyiddin in 2021, the country was truly in a flux.
By early 2022, despite being in the federal government together, PN and BN had already battled in Melaka (November 2021) and Johor (March 2022).
Mahathir Mohamad was still the Langkawi MP. Anwar the Port Dickson MP with his motley crew pressing a government unsure of itself. Ismail Sabri signed a MOU with Pakatan to guarantee the passage of the Budget.
Historians will tag that era as the first instance of parliamentary uncertainty inside the house — the prior 2020 transfer of prime minister post was conducted via a series of interviews in the palace, not in Parliament.
The last will obviously be the Madani experiment advised by the palace following the hung Dewan Rakyat after GE15 in late 2022. The relative calm of the first two years has been followed by the chaotic relationship BN and Pakatan navigate in the present.
Wait for greater volatility after GE16.
Definitely maybe
The last six months have been a bunch of maybes from both PN and BN in their pursuit of unity.
They did not manage to coalesce for Johor, and for Negeri and Melaka it is about PN accepting a minor role — 11 seats and 7 seats (or 35 per cent and 28 per cent of the available races) respectively to contest.
Far more worrying is that the negotiations swallow up an inordinate amount of time.
After Negeri, BN and PN had almost three months to shape an electorate pact for Melaka.
The obvious explanation is that all sides play a game of chicken and wait till the hourglass almost runs out. See who flinches first.
In the last two state elections, PN gave in and ended up with the poor man’s share of the spoils. The strain inside PN — more so in dominant PAS — will be visible if on November 14, they get pittance from the state election.
As such, when it comes to the general election, with PN and BN firmly set on sustaining their brands and opting for an electoral pact, the wheeling and dealing will ebb and flow till nomination day. With the usual characters to strut till the string breaks and party elders firefight.
PN has all parliamentary seats in Perlis, Kedah, Terengganu and Kelantan minus one, 39 seats.
Using the “recontest what you have” principle that Umno assiduously drew in Negeri and Melaka, there will be only a single Umno candidate in those four states, which is Sungai Petani.
The focus here is not the final electoral pact formula they’ll commit to, but that they will do so grudgingly, which then lends itself thereafter to a series of internal protests and sabotages.
Sulking is synonymous with our politicians. The situation won’t please neither PN nor BN.
There is no visible solution to this.
BN leaves PN as a junior member in the peninsula’s west and PN shuts out Umno in the conservative belt.
There’ll be complaints all across Semenanjung. Setting the tone for future betrayals.
KK prefers KL, not Newcastle
Second, the Borneo inclination
If BN emerges stronger than PN, it may cast aside PN if it has enough seats to form a government with Borneo parties and their 57 seats.
If BN secures 60 seats from the 165 in Semenanjung, the temptation to bolt grows.
Equally, PN can abandon BN. What is clearer, between the two, is Borneo’s multiculturalists prefer BN. PAS-controlled PN is an existentialist threat to the way of life in East Malaysia.
It is an electoral pact, it bears reminding. BN and PN MPs owe their allegiance to their chairmen, not to the pact.
There is a romantic flavour to BN and East Malaysia tying the knot, reviving the old BN — in name, even if not in function — which East Malaysia has decades of experience with.
If Borneo had to choose, it would be in this order: Renew partnership with Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan if he has the numbers, settle for the BN-only universe, and third, grudgingly get into bed with PN-BN with the belief BN can offset PAS’ overzealousness.
As you like it
Pakatan forming an electoral pact with Bersatu six years after the former both decimated its government and PKR’s leadership in 2020, means nothing is off the table in Malaysian politics. These strange days.
The message is crystal clear. Pakatan understands reforms are a priority but without power, reform is impossible in its estimation.
Granted, the theory is full of holes, that’s the approach they’ve picked, the lesser of all evils — cynics point out that Pakatan is full of itself if it anoints itself as the objective good in this political play of hypocrisy.
And its credentials are thin, super thin, after it took back turncoats Kamaruddin Jaffar, Edmund Santhara and Steve Choong into PKR.
Politicians can run out of parties and coalitions for the most absurd of reasons, usually cover for their personal unabashed self-interest, and within a reasonable time shift allegiance without the risk of censure or punishment.
The sticky reality all sides in Malaysian politics refuse to admit is that opportunism is the shared dogma across the aisle.
Outcomes and only outcomes matter. Narratives, the messaging team can work on and the social media team pour out the graphics and videos, damn the lawsuits. Everything is after the fact to power.
After election day
Which points to a free for all, immaterial of what type of electoral pacts are formed prior.
States can meander without administrations for lengthy durations, or change relationships as the 2021 supermajority BN Melaka government absorbed Pakatan two years after both became bosom buddies at the federal level. They parted company acrimoniously this year.
In an overly federalised country, the real power is in Putrajaya. The general election is a be all for our politics.
State governments are malleable to whatever is the federal situation. And since all moves, even the diabolical ones, are kosher, nothing is done and dusted till a prime minister is sworn in.
Expect absolute pandemonium as election results stream out and hypocrisy is the guiding light.
The great unknown is ahead.
