Can DAP and BN work together?

Political analysts feel this may happen to maintain the racial composition of the government.

KUALA LUMPUR: It may seem like a most unlikely scenario – the DAP and Barisan Nasional – working hand in glove. But political analyst Farish Noor feels that in order to maintain the racial composition of Malaysia in national politics, BN may approach DAP.

He said this could take place if the Barisan’s Chinese coalition members, MCA and Gerakan are to lose badly in the coming general elections.

“I will not be surprised if the DAP is approached by the BN in the eventuality where MCA and Gerakan are completely wiped out in the coming elections.

The BN may feel it necessary (to do this) in order to create a government of national consensus,” said the senior fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

He said that these offers made by a party in one coalition to another party in a different coalition were all part of the reality of coalition politics in Malaysia where no one single party could form the government in Malaysia.

“In order to be a national party which represents the racial demographics of Malaysia, it can only be done based on a coalition, even Umno realises this.” he told FMT.

The MCA had recently said that if the party’s performance in the coming elections is poorer than the 2008 polls, it might not to accept any post in the Cabinet.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak had also said recently that the Chinese risk losing government representation if they keep voting for the opposition.

Farish said this when commenting on Najib’s offer last week for PAS to ditch their Pakatan Rakyat coalition and join the Barisan.

Offer to PAS not new

Farish said that the offer was a part of the political games but also the nature of Malaysia’s coalition politics.

He added that the offer to PAS was nothing new as offers to the Islamic party has been made since the 1970s and the party joined the the ruling coalition from 1973 to 1978 under its then president Mohd Asri Muda.

However he said there were still veteran members of the party who will not accept the offer to join the ruling coalition as they felt they were played out by the federal government before.

“The condition set for PAS membership joining the ruling coalition (in the 1970s) was that the federal government will not intervene in the party’s internal politics and the domestic politics in Kelantan.

“But what happened in 1978 showed otherwise resulting in PAS puling out from the coalition,” he said.

Another analyst Ooi Kee Beng echoed this view saying that the offer made by Najib was merely a part of “coalition elbowing”.

“No Malaysian political party is big enough to rule the country, no matter what Umno people think,

The co-ordinator of Malaysia study programme at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies said that the mere offer could “cause ripples” within PAS which may in turn unsettle the Pakatan.

“Umno knows some of their leaders could take a short cut to Putrajaya if they ditched affliation with Pakatan.