Muhyiddin's soft-shoe shuffle over 1Malaysia BN

Pakatan Rakyat may have lost two general elections in succession, but there can be little doubt that it is the main driver of political change in the country.

Never in with a chance to win the 12GE, the opposition coalition did the next best thing which was to deny, in the March 2008 polls, the ruling BN its customary two-thirds majority in Parliament.

That achievement forced the incumbent prime minister out of office and compelled his replacement to undertake reforms, delusional as those have turned out to be, as witness the apparent crackdown on oppositionists and NGO types.

Rated with a chance to win GE13, Pakatan was made to miss out on a victory at the polls through electoral sorcery under the supervision of the Election Commission.

Nevertheless, Pakatan has succeeded in gaining the next best thing - a not insubstantial edge in the popular vote.

Gaining that edge has had almost immediate salutary effects: the courts are more willing to issue judgments in favour of the underdog, as can be seen from decisions made in cases involving security offences and the Sedition Act; and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin (left), hitherto a hardliner on Malay rights, is now talking about the possibility of BN as a single party conglomerate.

Court decisions that are benign to the opposition and a topnotch former hardliner opting for a soft-shoe shuffle are changes that can be credited to Pakatan's exertions.

Cozy ties with Singapore investors

Muhiyiddin's double-take is the more interesting and the more instructive, especially about what it may say about the shifts and trimmings that a democratising polity induces in its principal players who nurture ambitions of going up the totem pole.

Throughout - from the time he became deputy prime minister in April 2009 till just before he indicated yesterday that a single party BN may be a viable proposition to assure the ruling coalition's relevance as a political force - the deputy president of Umno has taken the hardboiled stance on issues to do with Malay rights.

Anyone who knew how cushy his relationship with Singapore investors was during the time he was Johor menteri besar (1986-1995) was entitled to feel surprised at his newfangled ethnocentrism.

That relationship was cozy and Johor surged in importance as an investment hub and as a place to do business.

Years after he left the MB-ship for ministerial office in Putrajaya, members of the Johor business community continue to recall the times when Muhiyiddin was in charge, presumably on the grounds that his reign was good for business.

The thing about politicians known to be partial to business is that their subscription to archaic race-driven theories of dominance tends to wax and wane with their perception of what it takes to get ahead in the succession sweepstakes.

Thus, even as DPM Muhyiddin took stances to the right of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, there was the lingering suspicion, to all but those who do not know or recall his fraternal ways with Singapore investors, that his hardline stances on Malay rights were an expedient pose rather than an expression of settled belief.

Spawning ground of Umno liberals

Telltale proof of that is his newfound readiness to water down Umno's dominance within a unified BN conglomerate of the 13-parties that have since 1974 composed the ruling coalition with its precursor, Alliance (or Perikatan).

Muhyiddin's current stance is a surprise, given what has passed for his attitudes since becoming DPM four years ago: these were invariably to the right of the PM.

It must be noted that he, as distinct from Najib, held his counsel as to what factors were responsible for BN's comparatively poorer showing in GE13 over that at GE12.

In GE13's immediate aftermath, Najib had rushed to judgment by faulting the "Chinese tsunami" for the enfeebled BN performance.

Clearly, he was positioning himself for the inevitable battle for the presidency of Umno later this year in which Muhyiddin is expected to challenge him for the post; Najib appeared to staking out positions to the right of Muhyiddin.

After his initial haste and its ill-considered judgment on what was responsible for the BN's relatively poor showing in GE13, the PM has withdrawn into a lull while Muhyiddin has emerged from his pregnant pause with a proposition that is not consonant with his past stances.

To want to water down Umno's dominance in a unified BN is not the done thing for a Malay right-winger.

But one must remember Muhyiddin is from Johor, spawning ground of Umno liberals from Onn Jaafar to Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman through to Musa Hitam.

Politically, they are apt to be more alert to the writing on the wall than their northern and eastern counterparts.

Hence Muhyiddin's soft-shoe shuffle after the thump and the stamp of his flirtation with Malay rightist stances.

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TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.