Who will be the next Prime Minister of Malaysia?
That will be most important issue on everyone's minds.
Politicians and the ordinary rakyat.
Not the date of the next GE.
What the Pasir Mas MP wrote in his FB that the PH administration is on the brink of collapse, calling on BN and PN to lock in their electoral alliance to sweep the next general election.
Government is nothing new.
Not surprise if a poll is held now with many Malaysians sharing his view considering that PH has lost in the last 3 elections held in Sabah, Johor and Negeri Sembilan.
In fact this has led to a lot of speculation that the next GE will be called probably within this year or early next year.
Bouyed by their informal collaborative success in Johor and Negeri Sembilan where they not only rolled back PH’s gains in both states in the March 2022 state election in Johor and Nov 2022 GE, speculation is rife that BN / UMNO and PAS will strike since the iron is hot now, to orchestrate and force PMX to dissolve Parliament and call for a GE, the 16th.
As PAS is not part of the ruling coalition, the scenario probably will be for BN /UMNO to initiate or orchestrate the move whereby their MPs will tender their resignation from the government or instigations made to `force’ PH to demand for their resignation from the Cabinet.
A scenario that is not far off and `piloted’ in the Johor elections recently.
In the campaign and run up to the elections in Johor, PMX states that ministers, deputy ministers, and federal agency heads must resign or step down if they use their official government positions to attack fellow unity government partners during the election campaigns.
Tested and baited PMX into responding.
Otherwise, no reason for PMX to suddenly issue the warning publicly.
PMX must have `received news’ that some or several of the politicians in the Madani government was doing that thus necessitating him to issue the warning.
Or for GPS to start the ball rolling with them announcing their departure from the madani government citing the slow or lack of progress on the MA63 issues, which explains why the Premier of Sarawak went to Johor and met with the YDP Agong recently.
Despite his optimism where he repeatedly expressed strong confidence that the madani Government will maintain its majority and last its full five-year term until the next general election due by 2027/2028, clearly the decision on when to call for the next GE has now move beyond his control, just like the decision by those who initiated and then collaborated to form a new government on the night of 20 Feb 2020.
It also appeared that it is also beyond the control of the President of UMNO and Chairman of BN on whether to withdraw support for the Madani government now or in the near future or continue to stay until the end.
Forces inside UMNO will continue to pressure the President to force his hand.
Just like how those 14 State assemblymen from UMNO who tried to force the hands of the coalition that was governing Negeri Sembilan by announcing that they are withdrawing support for the MB, a move that was apparently, made without prior consultation with the President of UMNO.
The President scrambled and eventually come out with a statement defending the actions of the 14 assemblymen and the statement sounded so lame that if one is to read between the lines, it was clear the President was not consulted.
Let’s say a GE is then called and the collaboration between BN /UMNO and PAS, combined, won the most seats but not a simple majority to enable them to govern the country.
Let’s do the maths.
Presently, BN has 30 seats of which 30 are from UMNO, PAS has 43 seats and Bersatu has 20 seats, a combined 93 seats.
What is the likelihood that Bersatu will lose all their existing seats like what happened in johor and Negeri Sembilan with BN and PAS the benefactor?
Even if this were to happen, which is highly unlikely, a combined BN and PAS will have a combined 93 seats only, still short of the magic number of 121 seats.
PH has 77 seats with 40 MP from DAP, 29 from PKR and 8 from AMANAH.
Is it possible and what is the likelihood that PH will experience the same fate as what happened to them in Sabah, Johor and Negeri Sembilan?
If the anger shown by their supporters at the 3 states are carried over to the next GE, PKR and Amanah might lose all their seats while DAP will lose some but not a substantial number as like in the double digits.
The highly unlikely scenario will be PKR and Amanah lose all its 29 and 8 seats respectively while DAP lose 10 seats leaving them with 30 seats.
If this happened, BN and PAS could probably benefit with another 47 seats, giving them a total of 140 seats, just 8 short for a two-thirds majority in the Parliament of Malaysia i.e having at least 148 out of the 222 votes in the Dewan Rakyat.
Be that as it may, a more realistic scenario will be BN and PAS have a combined 90 seats post the 16th GE.
Thus, both needs to `build a’ consensus with the next, the 3rd largest grouping outside PH which is GPS from Sarawak, who has 23 MPs in the present term which, combined, will give a BN and PAS collaboration a total of 116 MPs (93+23), again still shy of the magic number of 121.
This is where GRS and Warisan from Sabah steps in.
Under the present term, GRS has 6 seats while Warisan holds 3 seats giving the combined group 9 seats.
Relations between Parti Warisan and Pakatan Harapan (PH) leaders and DAP have been strained and competitive, marked by past disagreements over general elections and competing political turf in Sabah, though Warisan has occasionally stated tactical support for the federal unity government.
Thus, it is no surprise for Warisan to pledge their 3 seats together with GRS in support to the BN, PAS and GPS collaboration, a new government is formed.
If this scenario happens, the leaders from BN, PAS and GPS will vie and stake their claim on who should be the Prime Minister in waiting.
Caveat – the above is made on the assumption, again unlikely, that Bersatu, PKR and Amanah will lose all the seats they are contesting and DAP losing 10 seats while parties like MUDA, Bersama, PSM, PBM, KDM failing to make any inroads and BN, PAS, GPS, GRS and Warisan retain or increase their total number of seats in the next GE.
…….to be continued…..
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