Too late for Muhyiddin, Azmin & Hamzah as Anwar, PH & Umno forge past? Do Malays still need Bersatu, even Pas at risk
KUALA LUMPUR (politicsnowmy.blogspot.com) - Former premier Muhyiddin Yassin is probably finding out the hard way that being an achiever or a doer is much more difficult when out of power, whereas rival Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim probably has a more sanguine view of life now.
Muhyiddin, or Abah (Malay for father) as he likes to call himself, can insist and even shout that there's nothing wrong with his Bersatu party or that membership is rising - yet even the most hardcore of his supporters, and there are in reality less rather than more, would risk being called naive if they believed him.
Noisy rows, public quarrels and even protests erupting as the Bersatu party election took place lent credence to the rumors of mass exits and cascading waves of anger and unhappiness at his leadership, with severe factionalism at the core of the rot.
"At the end of the day, Muhyiddin's biggest failure is his inability to quell infighting in the party. He cannot unite it and that's why there are visible signs of implosion. Muhyiddin can choose to bury his head in the sand but the results of the previous two by-elections are serious wake-up calls," a political analyst told PoliticsNow Malaysia.
"The more he ignores the problem, the more ground Bersatu cedes to Umno. Bersatu is now visibly unstable while Umno is visibly stabilizing. And if Muhyiddin still doesn't get it, this means support from Malay voters is moving away from Bersatu and back to Umno and this is happening fast."
EAST MALAYSIA TSUNAMI AFTER THE CHINESE TSUNAMI
At the 2022 general election, Anwar's Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition won 82 of Parliament's 222 seats, while Muhyiddin's Perikatan Nasional (PN) won 74. Anwar managed to cobble together a unity government with the help of Umno's 30 seats and later with the King's help expanded on the wafer-thin margin by pulling in East Malaysia's GPS and GRS coalitions.
Anwar's own PKR party won only 31 seats but the DAP, seen as the lynchpin in PH, won 40, while other components Amanah and Upko made up the balance.
Muhyiddin's Bersatu won only 25 seats but his main partner in the PN alliance, the Islamic-based Pas, won a stunning 49 seats. Together, Bersatu and Pas won 54% of the Malay vote in Peninsular Malaysia - becoming the new 'champion and defender' of the Malays, the predominant race in the country, and taking over the role long-associated with Umno.
"Whoever wins the Malay vote wins the government and for the longest time, this was true especially under Umno's six decade-long hegemony. But the trend has been changing for a long time now and if the big Malay parties like Bersatu, Pas and Umno don't wake up to this, then they are in trouble," the analyst told PoliticsNow Malaysia.
"In the 2008 election, it was the Chinese tsunami where Chinese voters abandoned the Umno-BN because of its racist policies and rhetoric. Then in 2022, for the first time ever, the East Malaysian blocs tied up with Anwar's Pakatan, which is multi-racial and Malaysian-centric rather than Malays-only and Malay-centric. There may be a lot of Malays in Sabah and Sarawak but they see themselves as Sabahans and Sarawakians first rather than Malays first. And this is not a passing fad but I believe here to stay and will grow even bigger."
CORNERED BY THEIR OWN MALAY-CENTRIC STANCE?
So where does this leave Muhyiddin's Bersatu and partner Pas? Both are stridently Malay-centric parties and grew to where they are today on the basis of Malay support.
Unfortunately even before the internal power struggle in Bersatu grew to its current ugly levels, the party's leaders and MPs were seen as being too laid-back, even lazy, whether in offering or articulating their views in Parliament or in contributing alternative policies or ideas.
As for Pas, the Muslim-based party with roots in the rural east coastal regions of Peninsular Malaysia, it has failed to show Malays it can govern in a modern and efficient way.
"Of course, you notice Pas is trying to tone down their religious extremism but it may be too late. Its leaders are seen to be too steeped in religion and have little know-how about the modern world - or at least they have not been able to convince Malays they can do the job. So going into the next general election, the chances are high Pas will lose quite a number of seats. Many Malays are already asking themselves, what has Pas got to offer other than religion," said the analyst.
"The same for Bersatu, which is also at risk of losing more seats because they could not show they could deliver anything to take the country forward. All Malays see so far is a lot of internal power struggles for personal interests. Even if the two main Bersatu warlords Hamzah and Azmin bury the hatchet, it won't make much difference."
"Pas and Bersatu must remember they won an unprecedented number of seats in 2022 because Malays were angry with Umno. But now Umno looks a lot less dirty than it did before. So the odds are shifting back to Umno and this doesn't augur so well for Anwar because his own PKR party cannot expand its Malay support. So as Umno recovers, Anwar too will find his power clipped," the analyst added.
He was referring to Hamzah Zainuddin, a disgruntled power-broker in Umno who defected to Bersatu in 2018, and Azmin Ali, seen as Anwar's successor in PKR before jumping ship in 2020 to help Muhyiddin topple the Pakatan Harapan administration then helmed by the legendary Mahathir Mohamad.
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE FOR MUHYIDDIN, HAMZAH & AZMIN?
Of the two men, Azmin is seen as being the more capable leader by far. But even so, Azmin remains crippled by his 2020 betrayal of his own PKR party and voter distrust remains a major obstacle for him to reach the pinnacle of power.
As for Hamzah, the former football player has been an MP and holding junior ministerial posts since 2008. Yet there have been few, if any, light bulb moments from Hamzah as far as national agenda and policies are concerned - and he is known instead for a ruthless streak, unfearful of using racial and divisive agenda to achieve his political goals.
"Whatever Azmin or Hamzah were thinking of, they left it too late. And the same goes for Muhyiddin. They should have started firing on all fronts right after narrowly losing the government in 2022, but instead they went into hibernation. Maybe they were trying to save money but then they are all very rich men. So who to blame if they now find themselves left behind by time, fighting over a party that may already be redundant?" said the analyst.
"Muhyiddin, Azmin and Hamzah should realize that as they lazed and stinged on their efforts, Anwar, Pakatan and Umno moved ahead and armed with the resources of the government, it is easy to leave rivals behind in the dust. And this is the exact situation now - Anwar, Pakatan and Umno are no longer fragile as they were two years ago - the government is now for them to lose."
Written by Stan Lee, PoliticsNow Malaysia
https://politicsnowmy.blogspot.com/
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