Some political analysts are saying that Muhyiddin’s decision to resign before U-turning on his decision is a gimmick to test his level of support in Bersatu, but I beg to differ.
I think his offer to resign was genuine.
I had already predicted that Muhyiddin would resign after the August 12 elections on numerous articles.
The fact of the matter is that Muhyiddin is not a wartime leader. He is a peacetime leader. If PN was already reigning in Putrajaya, then Muhyiddin is the leader who it can count on to maintain its reign, but to wrest Putrajaya from PH, Muhyiddin is the wrong leader.
PN needs a leader who can punch its way up to Putrajaya, but Muhyiddin can’t be the leader that PN needs it to be. Muhyiddin simply doesn’t have the killer instinct. He is not gangster enough and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
Anwar has so many weaknesses and shortcomings that makes him vulnerable, but Muhyiddin just doesn’t seem to be able to exploit it.
By my reckoning, political writers, columnists and analysts in Malaysia are pressuring and exposing Anwar’s weaknesses at three times the rate that Muhyiddin is doing it, when by right, Muhyiddin should be exposing and pressuring Anwar three times the rate that we are doing it.
Anwar is so weak that even without Muhyiddin doing anything, his approval rating has dipped from 68 percent to 50 percent in less than a year. Had Muhyiddin led PN to do more, who knows, Anwar might be biting the dust right now.
From the day that Muhyiddin lost Putrajaya to Anwar after GE 15, although Muhyiddin was the first leader who managed to secure the majority of MPs to his side, Muhyiddin has been consistently losing the initiative and momentum against Anwar time after time.
I am sure that there are many people in PN who are disappointed with Muhyiddin’s leadership, because Muhyiddin’s leadership since GE15 has indeed been disappointing.
It is precisely because they are disappointed with Muhyiddin’s leadership, that there is a move to bring Mahathir back into the picture.
Muhyiddin probably knows that he is disappointing many people in PN and as a gentleman that I feel he is, he likely has been looking for a honorable way to step down for a long time.
Rather than be humiliated by having a 100-year-old Mahathir replace him as the effective head of PN, while he is to resign himself to the role of a figurehead, to announce that he will not seek re-election as the President of Bersatu at the Bersatu general assembly is definitely the more honorable way to bow out of the political scene.
That being the case, then why did Muhyiddin make a U-turn?
I think that Muhyiddin U-turned because none of the second in command in Bersatu are ready to replace him.
I think as a condition for him to stay, all of Bersatu's second in command have agreed that they will oppose the move to bring Mahathir back into the picture and that they themselves will launch an offensive against Anwar without requiring Muhyiddin to do anything more than what he is doing now.
Muhyiddin too is probably staying on because in his heart, he is hoping that PN will be able to capture Putrajaya soon, and while he knows that he is not a leader that is effective in capturing Putrajaya, once it is captured, he is confident that he will be able to secure it.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.
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