PH needs to win the old-fashioned way

Based on the latest media reports, it looks like Muhyiddin might be able to pull of the Sheraton Move 2.0 after all. UMNO and PAS have done yet another U-Turn and have decided to support him. Now, all he needs is GPS from Sarawak to endorse him and he will have the majority. Throw in Warisan and they will have a comfortable majority.

Of course many things are still in flux and the situation could be very different 24 hours later. Look at how Dr M was everyone's choice for PM at one point, and how quickly that support dissipated. At the time of writing though, Muhyidden looks to be within striking distance of the big prize.

Let's say he makes it and becomes Malaysia's 8th PM. What can PH do? It could try to entice some MPs to jump ship and cause Muhyiddin's government to collapse but that will only lead to another round of aggressive horse trading on both sides. The rakyat will really lose hope in all politicians if that happens.

Instead of that, a defeated PH should lick its wounds and start planning for GE15, which they have a chance of winning in a big way.

It should be noted that while PH is a coalition of parties that complement each other, Muhyiddin's group is a coalition of rivals. They may rejoice and be happy with one another if they succeed in forming a backdoor government but shortly after that you will see endless bickering as each components asserts its perceived importance to the group.

As mentioned in an earlier posting, if there's an election, the Bersatu-UMNO-PAS coalition would not not be able to sort out seat allocations. Even if they have two years to do it, they will not manage to achieve any kind of agreement because they are all going for the same target demographic: the Malay vote.

Each of those parties will want to increase their share of MPs post GE15. To do that, they have to contest in more constituencies. As a result there will be many Malay-majority constituencies in which Bersatu, UMNO and PAS all lay claim to.

Being a coalition of rivals, you will not see the kind of give-and-take spirit that exists in PH. So, you will have constituencies where Bersatu and UMNO or Bersatu and PAS or UMNO and PAS will clash.

If you look at how PH operated in the past 22 months and concluded that it was too fractious, imagine how utterly chaotic it will be for a Bersatu-UMNO-PAS-GPS-Warisan coalition. There will be endless fighting literally from Day 1.

If Muhyiddin succeeds in forming a government, PH needs to get over it as quickly as they can and start preparing for GE15 two years down the road. This is an opportunity for PH to really win big -- so that they will not need to rely on a problematic partner like Bersatu or any of the two East Malaysian blocks.

So forget about getting MPs to cross over, forget about making deals. Just win it the old fashioned way, by getting at least 112 MPs of their own. This is not only possible, it's actually very likely if they play their cards right.