Dr M: Spin Doctor

First we heard Dr M's media czar Kadir Jasin saying the reason Dr M quit as PM and chairman of Harapan is that he didn't want to renege on his promise to let Anwar take over as PM.

Wow. Dr M was so committed to the transition that he was willing to resign over it. Sounds too good to be true. Turns out, it was too good to be true.

What Dr M really objected to was working with UMNO, not the fact that he had to renege on his pledge to pass the baton to Anwar.

You can't blame Kadir for trying to spin the story to make his boss look good. After all, that's what communication czars are paid to do. But it's the height of irony that Dr M is now trying to paint himself as not only the good guy but the victim in all this.

Let's look at the facts and see if he really is the good guy and whether he is the victim.

The Sheraton Move was not a spur-of-the-moment thing that came out of thin air. It's the culmination of months and months of scheming by Azmin and Muhyiddin. Although it's not clear whether Dr M was directly involved in cooking up this plan, what is clear is he certainly knew about it and condoned it.

Dr M is the type of guy who likes to keep people on their toes. He achieved that with Anwar by openly grooming his rival Azmin. That kept Anwar on the edge. He also achieved this with Pakatan Harapan in general by way of his mysterious meetings with Opposition leaders, the substance of which apparently none of the other component party leaders were privy to. That kept them all on the edge.

Although each component party is critical to maintaining the majority in Parliament, Dr M was the only one seen as potentially using the nuclear option to blow everything up if he does not get things his way. This had everyone in PH walking on eggshells.

But a nuclear option is only effective in keeping people in check if you don't use it. If you blow everything up, people have got nothing to lose already. Dr M fully understood that, so there was never any intention of using the nuclear option. He just liked having it as a threat to get everyone to toe the line.

Unfortunately for Dr M, Muhyiddin and Azmin jumped the gun and proceeded with the Sheraton Move right after Dr M got all the concessions he wanted from PH. Not only would there not be a transition date set, PH would leave it to Dr M to decide when he should leave.

Muhyiddin and Azmin were obviously looking for an excuse to do the Sheraton Move and when that excuse was not forthcoming, they decided to proceed with the plan anyway.

Dr M made a deft, unexpected move of his own by resigning as PM. This killed of the Sheraton Move. The aftermath of that was he had everybody supporting him to remain as the PM. It was stunning how universal that position was. Not only did all of PH plus Warisan want him to stay on as PM, so did the opposition. Yes, UMNO, PAS and GPS wanted him to be PM as well. At one point, he basically had the whole Parliament supporting him.

Dr. M could have used his considerable clout to help PH get back into power. But he didn't. Instead, he offered up a Unity Government concept that would give him the power to choose whomever he wanted for his cabinet. It would be a system where he was accountable to no one but everyone would be beholden to him.

What happened next took him completely by surprise. Not only did UMNO, PAS and gang withdrew their support, PH withdrew their support as well. Suddenly from having practically everybody's support, now he had practically none (save for his tiny faction in Bersatu and Warisan).

This is where Dr M plays the victim and says that PH suddenly had a change of heart and didn't want to support him any more. Actually, the one who had a change of heart was Dr M. What he had done was the exact opposite of what Kadir Jasin had claimed.

He didn't resign because he didn't want to renege on his promise to hand over the PM-ship to Anwar. He resigned precisely because he wanted to renege on that promise.

Once the PH government fell, he was free from the shackles of PH. Under his proposed Unity Government concept, there is no longer any commitment to hand things over to Anwar. That's exactly what he wanted. To be free of that promise but avoid looking like the bad guy.

In his roadshow briefings that he's been giving to Bersatu grassroots, Dr M talks about PH abandoning him. He conveniently leaves out the reason why they did so. They didn't change their minds on a whim. They dumped him when he made it clear he didn't want to head a PH government anymore.

So, who actually abandoned who?

Now that all of this has come out (everything you've read above has been published in reports by various media outlets), it will make it hard for PH and Dr M to work together. But work together they must in order to show that Muhyiddin doesn't have the majority in Parliament.

It is very plausible that PH + Dr M faction of Bersatu + Warisan + a few other individual MPs could make up a simple majority of 112. In contrast, it's hard to come up with a scenario where Muhyiddin has as many as 112. (His numbers appear to be around 108 or so).

We won't know for sure what the numbers are on either side until a vote of no confidence is called in Parliament but there's more than an even chance of PH succeeding.

If that comes to pass, Muhyiddin could ask the King for a dissolution of Parliament, which would then lead to snap polls. But the King could say no and instead recognize PH 2.0 as the government of the day.

If that were to happen, Dr M would presumably become the PM, heading a PH 2.0 government. Would things be a little bit different after all that has transpired? For example, would he make Anwar DPM and set a firm transition date?

It doesn't look like it. Media reports have emerged where he is said to have rejected the notion of Anwar as DPM. Will PH agree to that? One suspects they might just to get back into power again.

But PH would be pretty silly to allow Dr M with only five or six Bersatu members and and nine supporters from Warisan to call all the shots in PH 2.0. Yet, one suspects that's exactly what might happen.

You would think that the smart folks in DAP, PKR and Amanah would have learned their lesson and no longer trust a politician as Machiavellian as Dr M to do the honorable thing.  

They should no longer be afraid of his nuclear option. Rather, they should make him afraid of their nuclear option. After all, PH as a bloc has a whopping 92 seats in Parliament. Dr M + Warisan in contrast, has 15 perhaps? Even if the remaining five or so (that would make up a majority at 112) were to be on Dr M's side, that would make a grand total of 20.

That's 20 vs 92. PH deserves to be defeated if they allow a person with less than a quarter of what they have, boss them around. They tried the appeasement route the last time around and look where that got them.

If Dr M were to insist on having everything his way, including refusing to set a transition date, PH would be better off walking away from the deal and staying in the Opposition. The next few months would likely see Perikatan Nasional implode anyway and that could very well lead to snap polls, which PH could win.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Malay vote is still split despite Bersatu, UMNO and PAS coming together. So, PH should not be afraid of snap polls.

Pushing ahead as three parties might not get them what they want in the short term but in the long term it would allow them to build a stronger foundation for PH. They cannot afford to rely on marriages of convenience anymore, which was what their collaboration with Bersatu and Warisan was. If Dr M doesn't play ball, it's best to dump him.