Life is imperfect. Democracy is an earnest attempt to enable the rule of the people.
It’s rife with imperfections, like my relationship with Sugu, my Seremban cousin through marriage who knocked out a tooth off me, after I did the same months earlier.
We would have been between eight and nine years old.
Sugu died some time back but Negeri Sembilan democracy may resuscitate if actors act in good faith.
Actors dictate democracy’s efficacy.
Why? In a universal direct participatory democracy, all decisions require all to vote on and removes the principal-agent problem inherent in representation.
For instance, if all Negeri Sembilan adults are asked to vote today on whether Aminuddin Harun should continue as menteri besar, a conclusive outcome prevails. Except this is not possible.
Therefore, the conduct of those in power decide whether things are smoother or a complete wreck.
State voters elect their state representatives who then pick a menteri besar. This happens ideally every five years, as it did in August 2023.
The majority of state representatives known as assemblymen picked Aminuddin in 2018. They were all Pakatan Harapan members.
In 2023, Pakatan contested in tandem with its new ally Barisan Nasional. Both Pakatan and BN dwindled to 17 and 14 respectively, shedding five seats to Perikatan Nasional.
Those 31 Aduns from Pakatan-BN chose Aminuddin to continue. A super-majority in the house, Pakatan-BN was a solid coalition.
There was a squabble involving the feudal lords and the state palace last week. The column won’t weigh into it, the subject is firmly about Aminuddin’s future.
It was, however, a pretext for why the 14 BN electors withdrew support for Aminuddin’s administration which brought this kerfuffle.
It’s a curious development. Months pass without any mention of Negeri Sembilan. On a ranking, the state south of Selangor is quietest in the country.
Only three men have been mentri besar in the last 44 years. Even the longest serving, Isa Samad (1982-2004) serves a prison sentence for his shenanigans as Felda chairman, not as Negeri Sembilan’s menteri besar.
There’s hardly any stories of rifts and betrayals from Seremban. Yet, this happens.
The actors
The DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke is omnipresent, not only because he is an assemblyman but that his party is 11 of the 17 Pakatan assemblymen. This is shared a lot, including the discourse DAP-Umno relations are at a lowpoint.
What is not shared as much is that of the 14 BN assemblymen, and all of them are Umno representatives, the most senior of them is former MB for 14 years, Rantau assemblyman and party deputy president Mohamad Hasan. Which is why all the pictures of BN assemblymen display only 13 individuals.
Also, as foreign minister at a time of international jeopardy and intrigue, Mohamad or affectionately known as Tok Mat, has plenty of occasions to speak to the Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, also Aminuddin’s party and coalition leader.
With all these criss-crosses or matrix reporting lines, how did we end up in this swamp?
Who is truly disgruntled?
Cascades into a political race
2025 ended with drama and a change of MB in Perlis.That has not fully settled.
Perak was the test case of Umno-DAP relations in 2022, which is the bedrock of the Madani government. If Negeri Sembilan continues to unravel, attention turns to Perak, and then to Johor which needs an election next March.
A round of switcheroos occurred in 2020 after the Pakatan federal government imploded. Another is on the cards if those in Cabinet are unable to cease the bleeding in Seremban.
There are obvious questions about relationships inside Umno and Pakatan from the current political stalemate.
Already DAP is ready for elections at the federal and state levels this year, and in a way, the situation brings it to a head, the long term viability of persisting with a fixed alliance between Pakatan and BN.
The other rumour
The word around the campfire is that Negeri Sembilan is a ruse to test the waters. Whether voters are keen or not on Pakatan and BN going in different directions in the lead up to GE16.
Expectations are that the matter resolves itself in a fortnight.
A way to see how organised PN is to take advantage of the indecision among Umno ranks.
And finally, to remind Aminuddin who is closely linked to out of favour former PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli, who are those that have the patronage to sustain his stay as MB.
The early signs indicate that a contained disjointment is manageable.
It is excellent for both BN and Pakatan to score the situation.
They’d both be happier to face each other in the general if indeed it’s a two way battle for supremacy.
Glad to trade blows in a general election and still be cousins with an outside chance of forming government again together if they cannot muster the majority on their own.
It is not a great advert for the progress of democracy in Malaysia, but a sign of several schemes in play, just not in plain sight.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist Praba Ganesan .
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