Whichever way one looks at it and whatever spin one puts on it, the jailing of Najib Abdul Razak and the avowed support he got from top Umno leaders, including clamours of a pardon, must be negative for BN and Umno in the forthcoming 15th general elections whenever they may be held between now and September next year.
The finding of the court yesterday that Najib’s wife Rosmah Mansor was guilty of all charges related to the RM1.25 billion solar power project further reinforces the negativity without any doubt.
Both the Umno prime minister then and his wife have been found guilty of corruption charges, and a slew of other Umno top leaders, many of whom are publicly clamouring for Najib to be pardoned, face charges. These must surely be negative for Umno.
The question is by how much and whether it is enough to tip the balance in favour of the Pakatan Harapan coalition again so that they come up on top. That would be difficult to answer but indications are in favour of a hung parliament with no group coming out a clear victor.
Umno, fresh from victories in Malacca and Johor, is confident it can gain power but the voting pattern in these two states indicates that no one coalition has a clear majority and the results are not likely to be fully mirrored at GE15.
There are now three clear coalitions dominating Malaysian politics and all MPs and state assemblypersons are likely to be from one of these three coalitions (see chart). In addition, there are coalitions in Sabah and Sarawak too, the major one being in Sarawak.
BN, in terms of numbers, is currently the weakest with 41 MPs, but to be fair at the end of GE14 in May 2018, they had 54 MPs, the numbers being whittled down by defections mainly to Bersatu.
PN comes next with 47 MPs but one has to remember that Bersatu only had 13 MPs at the end of GE14, its numbers being inflated by defections from Umno and PKR. And then comes Harapan with the largest number of 90. PKR saw its numbers reduced from 47 at the end of GE14 to 36 due to defections by the Azmin Ali gang.
BN, PN and GPS combine for a total of 107 seats, still short of five seats for an absolute majority. One of Azmin’s gang, Zuraida Kamaruddin’s Parti Bangsa Malaysia or PBS’s four seats takes it up to 111 and other independents and parties take it up to 116, giving this grouping a five-seat majority in the 222-seat Parliament.
This is, of course, a fragile majority needing only three to jump ship for a change in government but the government has been considerably stabilised after Harapan signed a memorandum of understanding to support Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s government under some conditions in September last year.
That’s the backdrop. Meantime, Umno/BN has been encouraged by wins at state elections in Malacca and Johor against mainly PN and Harapan, but in both instances they did not get a majority of the popular votes, perhaps indicating some vulnerability.
Pressure on PM for early GE
While the court cluster within Umno, for obvious reasons, wants the elections to be hurried, Ismail Sabri on the other hand prefers to take it slow and easy, wait for the courts to get the cluster out of the way and ensure a smoother path towards his eventual leadership.
But that may not transpire because considerable pressure is being applied on him and he seemed to be succumbing by bringing the national budget announcement to the first week of October instead of the end of the month. Why, he is even considering delivering the budget instead of the finance minister, probably for the optics it gives to improve his standing among Malaysians.
Bets are now on the elections being held before the end of the year. But one can’t discount totally that when the heat subsides and when he can muster enough support within Umno, Ismail Sabri may still want to delay it to next year.
From Umno’s point of view, but not the court cluster’s, it may even be better. A whole nation has been nauseated by the moves of some Umno leaders to urge the king for a pardon for Najib when he has only barely begun serving the sentence.
That would not sit well with a large section of the populace. How could you set free a convicted criminal even before he has served a significant amount of the sentence? And how can you justify this when he is facing numerous other charges involving billions of ringgit?
What the court cluster within Umno is pushing for seems way over the top and is likely to anger many leaders within Umno - in fact when Umno secretary-general Ahmad Maslan called for a special meeting of divisional heads to discuss the issue, only 71 out of 191 attended.
If Ismail Sabri bides his time and waits till next year to ask the king to dissolve Parliament, the economy would have shown strong recovery by then, budget measures would have begun to bite, the embarrassment of the court cluster would be well out of the way and he will be better able to present the picture of a resurgent Umno.
The only advantage of an early election is that Harapan does not still have a complete strategy over the Malacca/Johor debacles but it is recovering fast under measures taken by PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli to up its profile and make some decisions, including the important one of going it alone for the next elections.
But that’s offset by Najib going to jail and Rosmah being found guilty and the raucous, un-statesmen-like behaviour of the Umno court cluster which can only be negative for Umno.
While Umno has traditionally been strong in Johor and Malacca, they underestimate PAS’ hold in the rest of the Malay heartland at their own peril. PAS has always had a strong presence in these areas. If they jettison PAS and Muafakat Nasional - the grouping of the ummah - Umno may not do as well if it goes on its own.
Those are broad brush strokes but Ismail is probably politically savvy enough to understand that while Umno succeeded in Malacca and Johor when it went solo, that may not work at the general elections when Malaysians are likely to look more at national interests.
There are too many imponderables at play right now. - Mkini
P GUNASEGARAM is a former editor at online and print news publications, and head of equity research at local and foreign brokerages.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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