Muhyiddin and Azmin managed to create a backdoor government. That's quite a feat, especially since they were going up against Dr M and Anwar, both political animals with tons of experience dealing with political shenanigans. Yet, they managed to pull it off. Unfortunately for Muhyiddin, that's the easy part.
He's got challenges in the short and medium terms.
Short term
The short term challenge of course is being able to prove he actually does have the numbers come May 18 when parliament convenes.
Based on Malaysiakini figures, here's what he has right now:
Bersatu (30)
UMNO (39)
PAS (18)
GPS (18)
*If you add in MCA & MIC, that's another (3)
That adds up to 108. PAS has been quoted as saying Perikatan has 114. It's not clear where the 6 comes from. (He will need at least another four to make up the 112 majority).
You can be sure there will be a lot of horsetrading between now and May 18 on both sides. Dr M and Anwar will pull out all stops to try to bolster their numbers and Muhyiddin will do the same for his.
On the Harapan side, their argument will simply be: Join us because we will prevail and you want to be on the winning side. Don't be on the losing side when the dust has settled.
Muhyiddin's argument will be: We are the winning side. I am the PM and Perikatan controls the government. A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. Don't join the Opposition because they will stay in the Opposition.
Which argument is more convincing is yet to be seen. But right now, Harapan is saying it has 114. If that is true, then Muhyiddin actually does have only 108. Maybe the truth is a bit tighter with Harapan having 112 and Muhyiddin 110. That's very close but a miss is as good as a mile.
Whatever the case, Muhyiddin has got to convince more MPs to join his side if he want to get past May 18 and remain PM. Not easy.
If Harapan is able to prove, through a vote of no confidence, that it has 112, perhaps Muhyiddin will ask the King to dissolve Parliament to make way for snap elections. Then he has a different headache to deal with (which is more or less the same as his main medium-term challenge).
Medium Term
Let's say he manages to prove he has the majority and is able to stay on as PM until GE15, around two years down the road. Two years might seem like a long time but it's not enough time to sort out seat allocations among Bersatu, UMNO and PAS. In fact, no amount of time will ever be enough because these three parties are all vying for the same Malay-Muslim vote.
Right now, Muhyiddin is heading a minority government. His party has a grand total of 30 MPs. UMNO and PAS together have 57 (close to double his numbers). There is no way they will give Bersatu the lion's share of constituencies to contest in. They will want it for themselves, and in fact UMNO and PAS will also have disputes over seat allocations.
In contrast, PH has already got their seat allocations largely sorted out. The only new seats they have to work out are the ones previously contested by Bersatu.
As political scientist Wong Chin Huat has pointed out, all three parties were largely contesting against each other in GE14. "The inconvenient fact is, for every Malay candidate who gets to represent PN, there will likely be two aspirants who are dropped and unhappy," says Wong.
What you will likely see are two problematic scenarios:
a) Either the unhappy ones contest the constituency anyway, as independents if necessary
b) They don't contest but instead do some sabotaging
Either way, it doesn't look good for the candidate who was chosen, who will not enjoy the support of the other key parties in his coalition. In contrast with PH, every DAP, PKR and Amanah candidate will enjoy the support of his teammates.
The reality is that PH is a formal coalition comprised of three parties that complement each other and who work together well. PN, however, is a marriage of convenience involving parties that are direct rivals to each other.
Whether there are snap elections or elections two years down the road, the problem of seat allocations will plague PN and it is not something they can solve due to the nature of their key component parties. All three are vying for the same demographics.
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