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By P Gunasegaram
So soon after Pakatan Harapan and Umno traded barbs, including a sharp, shrill warning by the PM over allocation of seats, for what could have been snap elections for parliament in Malaysia and for all Peninsular Malaysian states, the Madani government said two days ago parties have given their commitment to go to full term.
On Sunday, as former PKR ministers and now also ex-MPs Rafizi Ramli and Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad announced and launched their new party, Bersama, Anwar Ibrahim in a desperate address at a Pakatan Harapan meet at the same time was warning that if Umno competed against Harapan seats, it would be no holds barred.
But barely two days later, calm seems to have magically reappeared with government spokesman Fahmi Fadzil saying that coalitions within the Madani government have reaffirmed their commitment to working together until the end of the parliamentary term.
That’s a rather quick turn around but if I were you I would not consider that written in concrete and set but rather on sand which may quickly be blown away by a mere gust of a wind.
Decoys
It’s after all, the age of decoys - Rafizi did say on Sunday he sent in applications to register a party so that officialdom will not suspect that he would be acquiring - or rather be given free of charge - a ready-made party in the form of Bersama.
If conditions are favourable, you can safely bet your bottom dollar, sorry ringgit, that this reaffirmed commitment, on the rocks just a few days ago, will be cavalierly abandoned to gain unfair advantage. That’s politics for you.
What amazes me, and I am sure many of you too, is how quickly the reaffirmation has been made, although no one is telling us who precisely made these and how, moving from conflagration to calm in a trice - how convenient.
Perhaps Rafizi was right when he said that the Madani coalition was made of “dark lovers” who fought vigorously in public for the benefit of their constituents and to show their courage and conviction, but in the dark kissed and schemed to stay in power to public detriment.
Cloak and dagger
This is cloak and dagger stuff. Even if they made out in the dark, that does not mean a long union - a marriage of convenience whose bonds will be broken anytime anyone sees an opportunity. And then the knives will be out.
Umno politics is not just complicated, its reach is extensive, especially for a party in decline. Mahathir Mohamad, an Umno PM exiting in 2013, somehow gained confidence in round two to become Harapan’s PM in 2018. But he refused to hand over power to Anwar as promised.
He did not last however but was gotten rid of by a former Umno DPM (under Najib Razak) Muhyiddin Yassin via the notorious Sheraton move triggered by a defection of PKR MPs led by Azmin Ali - betrayal after betrayal.
Muhyiddin in typical Umno fashion declared an emergency to stay in power but Umno was not to be outdone, eventually gaining power through Ismail Sabri Yaakob in August 2021 when Muhyiddin resigned after an Umno faction withdrew support for him.
Well, the rakyat must have gotten tired of this betrayal after betrayal and gave Umno only 26 seats in the November 2022, general election. Anwar got to form the government because the Harapan that he headed had the most number of Parliamentary seats.
He wasted no time in partnering Umno, bringing his old friend Ahmad Zahid Hamidi as first deputy prime minister, sidelining his own deputy Rafizi in the process, who worked tirelessly for PKR. Even PKR was sidelined with Umno getting plum appointments in the cabinet.
Somehow or other, all charges against Ahmad Zahid were dropped with the infamous discharge not amounting to acquittal (DNAA) and even for those there is a move to get an unconditional acquittal.
Anwar seems closer to Umno than to PKR, and the schism within PKR widened, leading to Rafizi and Nik Nazmi striking out on their own, with some estimating a support of eight other MPs to make a total of 10 dissenters.
The new threat
The fact that they have a political party is a major threat, not only to PKR but to the entire Madani coalition, making them a true third force who could stir and even shake-up things further in this weird cocktail of happenings.
Perhaps that could be the real reason for postponing elections, in addition to the really volatile international environment in terms of the Iran war, rising oil prices and inflation, and a host of imponderables from a mad man called Trump.
So, by tying himself to the Umno boat, Anwar has chosen a rather leaky vessel, which the public has soundly rejected in the last two rounds - from 88 seats to 54 in 2018 to 26 in 2022 - for an unprecedentedly bad record.
Umno needs Anwar and Harapan more than they need Umno but beware, the moment they don’t need them or think they don’t need them, Harapan will be dropped like a hot stone - no alliance with Umno will last for long.
Change is in the air
The schism between the two will start soon. General elections (see table) have to be held by end-February 2028 but the state elections are due by February next year for Melaka and June next year for Johor.
It looks like it might be easier to just have the two state elections separately and move on to reduce the inevitable conflict. Also, that will give an opportunity to gauge how much support Madani will have and whether its tenuous links with Umno will still hold.
We have a rocky ride ahead, folks, with a wild card called Bersama which threatens to pull all of us together. It may be a bit too early for that, but who knows, stranger things have been known to happen. Who thought Harapan had a hope in 2018?
We can describe our political situation going forward in three words - uncertainty, uncertainty and uncertainty.
(P Gunasegaram says change is uncertainty too.)
P Gunasegaram (t.p.guna@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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