A lot of non-Malays tend to believe that if they don't back PH, then PN will win, and if the PAS-dominated PN wins, not only will rave parties and beers in supermarket be banned, vernacular schools will be closed down and temples also demolished, but this view lacks insight.
In reality, the Malays might just be strongly supporting PN because the non-Malays are strongly supporting PH. If the non-Malays abandon PH, then what will likely happen is that the Malays will abandon PN too.
Rather than a zero-sum relationship, PH and PN more likely have a Rajni-Kamal relationship.
For clarification, the "Rajni-Kamal effect" is a case where two seemingly bitter rivals are actually supporting each other's existence. This case was clearly explained by the Tamil cinema actor Kamal Haasan, who once said that when his greatest rival in Tamil cinema, Rajinikanth, professed to him that he wished to quit Tamil cinema, instead of feeling overjoyed at the prospect of ruling Tamil cinema unchallenged, he became petrified. Rather than wishing Rajinikanth good luck and goodbye, he begged Rajinikanth to stay, by saying: "Rajni, you cannot leave. If you leave, I will be ruined. The Tamil movie audience will only support me for as long as I am competing with you. If you leave, they are going to forget me as soon as they forget you."
In other words, the relationship between PH and PN is not antagonistic - it is not zero sum - it is not a case where a loss for PH will translate into a win for PN or vice versa.
Rather, their relationship is actually supportive of each other, although they appear as bitter rivals at first glance, because PH is only relevant for as long as PN is relevant, and vice versa. The Malays are not supporting PN because they see any intrinsic worth in PN - they are just supporting PN to balance out the non-Malay support for PH. If the non-Malays abandon PH, the Malays will also no longer feel that they need to stand behind PN to balance out the effect of PH.
In other words, in the same way that Tamil movie audience will forget Kamal as soon as Rajni is gone, PN supporters will forget PN as soon as PH is gone too.
Currently, PH is losing massive support from its supporters.
Its losses are expected to be so massive that, according to DAP insiders, even Penang, the bastion of Pakatan Harapan, is expected to lose its supermajority in the state assembly. PH currently holds 29 of the 40 state seats in Penang. In the next state polls, it is expected that it will only be able to retain 23 seats..
Not only Penang, A few days ago, Petaling Jaya MP Lee Chean Chung also admitted that Petaling Jaya, hitherto classified as a “Tier 1” safe seat for PH, might no longer be secure due to voter dissatisfaction and changing expectations.
Even PKR bigwig Ramanan, who is the PKR vice-president and Human Resources Minister, is likely to face an uphill task in maintaining his Sungai Buloh constituency, which has long served as a Pakatan Harapan stronghold.
According to a recent internal PKR analysis, 66 parliamentary seats were separated into four categories, with only seven listed as Tier 1 or safe seats. Thirteen were classified as Tier 2A, 17 as Tier 2B (marginal), and 29 seats were placed in Tier 3, described as vulnerable or requiring significant recovery efforts.
Ramanan's Sungai Buloh was placed in Tier 3.
If news of PH supporters abandoning PH continues to spread, I predict that PN supporters too will follow suit and start abandoning PN.
If PN supporters do not abandon PN in time for GE16, then once PN wins GE16, then the Malays who supported PN will turn on PN and its policies post election. In other words, rather than continuing their support for PN for its efforts to do such things as ban water music festivals or the sale of beer in supermarkets, Malay voters will become more sensitive to PN's shortcomings, and start condemning it more for what it has not done for them, rather than support it for it does to put the non-Malays in their place.
But say the Malays abandon PN and the non-Malays abandon PH, where will the ex-supporters of PH and PN go to?
Well, I think for now there are two likely candidates.
The first is that it might go to BN, provided that Zahid Hamidi is toppled. I truly think that the only thing that stands in the way of a significant number of Malays and non-Malay to return to BN, the party that they have supported for decades and generations until the 2018 election, is the immense unpopularity of Umno president Zahid Hamidi, and his seemingly iron clad control of BN and Umno.
The second is that it will go to a Rafizi-led new party that might include Muda as a partner. Recently, Muda deputy president Zaidel Baharuddin extended an invitation to Rafizi, saying that Muda is open to working together with him in some way. If a Rafizi-Muda partnership happens, I foresee that the Rafizi-Muda alliance will be a major beneficiary of PH and PN's decline.
We must understand that PH and PN are led by very old politicians like Anwar, Muhyiddin and Hadi, whose continued relevance is only propped up by their rivalry.
Take away their rivalry, and all voters will see are a couple of political parties that are led by a bunch of very old and bewildered leaders, who are living in a world that no longer exists, in a time that has long passed.
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