At the recent opening of the general assemblies of Umno Youth, Wanita Umno and Puteri Umno, UMNO’s Deputy President told all those present that any Malay political cooperation must be spearheaded serving as the foundation and cornerstone, by UMNO.
PAS currently has 43 Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Dewan Rakyat, making it the single largest party in Parliament.
The party also holds 104 state assembly seats across the country and govern 4 states namely, Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah and Perlis.
Meanwhile, UMNO currently has 26 Members of Parliament (MPs) while the coalition it led, BN has 30 seats.
UMNO's number of state assembly seats (ADUN) varies across different state legislatures rather than being tracked as a single national total, holding major concentrations in states like Johor (where it holds 36 state seats) alongside smaller representations in states like Selangor (2 seats), Melaka, and Negeri Sembilan.
Looking at the current numbers, PAS obviously should lead in any Malay unity efforts.
But everything will depend on how the seats would be potentially divided as whoever wins the most seats would get into the driver’s seat in Putrajaya, and claim the right to the prime minister post.
An analysis by a financial daily projected that PAS will remain the largest party in the Dewan Rakyat under this arrangement where each party keeps the seats they won in GE15 and for seats not won in GE15, the party with the higher votes gets the right to contest.
Bersatu won 28 parliamentary seats in the peninsula in GE15.
As PAS has voiced out that they are no longer working with Bersatu, UMNO and PAS will divvy up the 28 Parliamentary seats amongst themselves with Parti Wawasan.
Of these, 17 are held by MPs who have expressed support for former deputy president Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin, who now leads Wawasan.
Assuming Hamzah’s bloc of at least 18 MPs, including himself, retains their seats, the other 10 Bersatu seats would be for PAS, Umno and Wawasan to negotiate.
Eight have traditionally been held or contested by Umno before Bersatu came into the picture.
Of the remaining two, PAS has a strong presence in Bukit Gantang (P059), while MCA has traditionally contested Padang Serai (P017).
Those 8 seats would lift Umno to 44 in Peninsular Malaysia, behind PAS’ 48.
BN would have 56 seats overall, against PN’s 66.
In the 15th GE, Umno won 6 parliamentary seats in Sabah.
Counting those would raise its total to 50, potentially making Umno the single biggest party. BN would have 62 seats which is still lesser against PN’s – which is PAS and Parti Wawasan - 66.
PN will be the largest coalition in the Dewan Rakyat.
As the anchor party in the largest coalition, is PAS prepared to surrender that leverage to Umno?
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