In Kuala Besut, Terengganu Sultan may again hold the aces

(The Malay Mail) -  The possibility of a PAS victory in the Kuala Besut by-election will pile pressure on Barisan Nasional (BN) to reach across the aisle for unity rule and avoid letting the matter fall into the hands of the state Ruler.

A PAS win will see both BN and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) each holding 16 state seats and neither the majority. In this case, Terengganu Sultan Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin will be obliged to choose the new mentri besar whom he believes commands the confidence of the majority of the assembly.

“If there are equal seats between the two parties, BN might want a unity government ... There might be a reshuffle, the mentri besar might stay or he might not,” said Prof Dr Shamsul Adabi Mamat, a political analyst with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).

But if the state Ruler decides that none of the representatives has the confidence of the state assembly, he may opt for dissolution and trigger fresh polls.

“It will be a hung assembly, I suppose there will be crisis ... Ultimately the Sultan will be responsible,” Wan Saiful Wan Jan of think-tank Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) told The Malay Mail Online here.

The state monarch is no stranger to making decisions on such matters. Following Election 2008, he appointed Kijal assemblyman Datuk Seri Ahmad Said as mentri besar over the incumbent, Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh, who was recommended by Putrajaya.

And if BN is unable to convince PAS to co-operate ― an uphill battle ― then it faces the very real possibility of the Sultan appointing a representative from the Islamist party as mentri besar.

But PAS spiritual adviser Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat’s previous declaration that there will never be a pact with Umno for as long as he is alive places a near-insurmountable rock in BN’s path.

Also of concern for the ruling coalition is PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s cordial relationship with the palace and support from Terengganu folk for the party, two factors that may tip the balance in its favour.

“PAS has shown some recovery in the state compared to in 2004 and 2008 ... PAS seems to be on the rebound while BN is suffering somewhat for being in the state government since 2004,” independent pollster Merdeka Centre’s Ibrahim Suffian told The Malay Mail Online.

“There have been some unmet expectations, causing BN to lose some seats in the recent elections,” he added, referring to the seven state seats and two parliamentary seats lost by BN to PR.

Shamsul Adabi was less optimistic, however, about PAS’s chances, noting that the late BN Kuala Besut assemblyman Dr A. Rahman Mokhtar had won by a 2,434-vote majority in an area with only 17,679 voters. Dr Rahman died in Kuala Terengganu from lung cancer on Wednesday, triggering the by-election.

His outlook was shared by Ibrahim, but the pollster also highlighted that the majority enjoyed by BN seems to be decreasing despite the seat being its stronghold. BN had won with a bigger majority of 2,631 votes in 2008.

Wan Saiful pointed out that the imminent crisis might turn out to be good in helping to develop the maturity of Malaysia’s democracy.

“Crisis is good ... If there’s an opportunity to learn, we have something that has never happened before,” he said. “One of the biggest lessons so far if we were to have the redelineation next, is we shouldn’t have even numbers of constituencies.”

Terengganu currently has 32 state and eight parliamentary seats. In Election 2013, BN retained control of the state by winning 17 seats to take a two-seat advantage over PR.