Muhyiddin may have the majority after all

Political scientist Wong Chin Huat figures Muhyiddin might be able to garner a total of 113 seats based on the following numbers:

BN: 42
Muhyiddin's Bersatu: 32
GPS:18
PAS: 18
Sabah Parties (PBS 1, PBRS 1, STAR 1): 3

This gives him 113 (112 is needed for the majority).

The key to his majority is the Sabah parties. Without them, he would have only 110. But he gave the Sabah parties one ministerial and two deputy ministerial positions. And voila, he has 113.

Smart move and maybe this is enough to checkmate Dr M & Pakatan Harapan, which had previously claimed to have 114, then 112. Now, it looks like they have only 107.

Of course PH has until May 18 to turn things around and get that elusive 112 so they can take back the government. That's slightly more than two months away. Two months can be an eternity in politics where allegiances can switch overnight, but right now it seems like Muhyiddin's done what he needed to do to secure himself the majority.

That said, it's not going to be smooth sailing for Muhyiddin, whom Chin Huat calls "the weakest of all prime ministers" we've had so far. There's trouble brewing because as with the case when it was in PH, Bersatu has awarded itself the lion's share of ministerial and deputy ministerial positions.

To quote Chin Huat: "Despite being the smaller party, Bersatu gets more executive jobs than its bigger partner, UMNO. Every 4 out of 5 MPs from Muhyiddin's Bersatu gets a job as minister or deputy minister, but only 2 in every 5 MPs in UMNO... every one from Azmin's camp - except Rashid who is already the deputy parliamentary speaker - gets an executive job."

And here's the money graph from Chin Huat: "How long will the losers in UMNO (also GPS, PAS and even Bersatu) tolerate this disproportional distribution of spoils?"

Chin Huat's got a good point. You see, when you're talking about a coalition whose member's primary motivation is to get Cabinet positions, the ones who got nothing (not even a deputy minister position) will not be satisfied. It will especially grate with UMNO and PAS MPs because of the disproportionate number of positions that Bersatu MPs got.

PH parties tolerated that kind of situation because, as I had mentioned in many blog postings, they decided to adopt a policy of appeasement (that's euphemism for kowtowing). 

They felt it's better to not rock the boat and instead to let Dr M have his way for two years. Then when Anwar takes over, he can change things. Or so they thought. Turns out Dr M was never going to let Anwar take over.

Hindsight's 20/20 but in retrospect, it's clear that appeasement was what did PH in. It emboldened Dr M, Muhyiddin and Azmin who saw the others as pushover. Give them an inch and they'll take a mile. 

UMNO and PAS will not make that same mistake. There is no chance of them adopting an appeasement/kowtowing policy. 

Zero.

One thing you can be sure of is that every single UMNO/BN and PAS MP is fully cognizant of the fact that together, they have almost double the number of MPs Muhyiddin has. 

That fact will never be lost on them and they will make demands of Muhyiddin accordingly. When he can't or won't give them what they want, that's when the trouble begins. 

As for PH, rather than try to engineer crossovers to get back the 112 they thought they had, perhaps it might be better for them to just lick their wounds and gear themselves up for GE15 about two years down the road.

PH needs to plan for a victory that gives them 112 seats without Dr M's Bersatu faction and without Warisan. It needs to win 112 seats on its own, without external help or else it will always be held to ransom by a small party that has enough MPs to give PH the majority.

Dr M might have only five or six MPs with him while PH has 92, but don't be surprised if he views Bersatu to be the dominant party in a PH 2.0 government.

He knows PH leaders are scaredy cats who were ghostly afraid of upsetting him lest he uses the nuclear option and blows up the whole coalition.

That tactic might not work anymore though.

In the past few days, he's been busy badmouthing Anwar for some reason. Why he thinks that is a good strategy when he badly needs PH's support, is anybody's guess.

This has not gone unnoticed and it has even provoked a response from Anwar, who probably has had enough of Dr M by now.

PH has got to realize they need to go their own way and try to secure a majority through elections rather than crossovers.