Pakatan Harapan Far From Ready For The General Elections, Needs Reality Check

Zainal Epi, MMO

Pakatan Harapan (PH) is far from ready to go into battle… at least not in the near future, as the opposition alliance has yet to choose who will be prime minister!

With Its “plus” component Parti Warisan headed by Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal in Sabah and former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad with his team of five parliamentarians, the opposition alliance is still far from achieving its goal to retake the government.

The parties just cannot come to an agreement on the prime minister candidate as they see weaknesses (or rather, distrust) in both Dr Mahathir and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim when it comes to the elections.

If Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin takes this as an opportunity to wipe out the opposition by calling for snap elections, he may win hands down and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) may be erased totally from the political scene and DAP may lose probably one-third of its Chinese support.

While “negotiations” are carrying on, the voters seem to be happy with Muhyiddin who has been doing a good job containing the Covid-19 pandemic as well as rebuilding the economy.

With people’s minds on bread and butter issues, they do not have time to think of choosing another prime minister… especially not someone who was given a chance but failed to deliver.

Dr Mahathir lost credibility with the opposition alliance, especially PKR, when he did not hand over the position to Anwar as promised.

Still DAP and Amanah’s leaders feel that Dr Mahathir still has the edge over Anwar when it comes to winning the Malay votes although they acknowledge the former prime minister has lost tremendous support from the community.

In fact the two parties — Amanah is supposed to attract the Malay voters as it was a breakaway from PAS while DAP is multi-racial but Chinese-based — have been the target of criticisms from Malay voters as they are seen as championing the Chinese more than Malays.

Amanah opened up its membership to non-Malays when it failed to attract the Malays which is why the party till today is seen as nothing more than a platform for DAP to further its cause.

DAP has no issues with Anwar as prime minister as the party leaders and Anwar have been working together since the 90s and have more trust in each other than Dr Mahathir.

The only edge Dr Mahathir has is Parti Warisan from Sabah and some support from Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) members who are still loyal to him.

PKR leaders and members’ distrust of Dr Mahathir may be beyond redemption though and this makes the discussions on the matter more difficult.