Any PH-Bersatu ‘reunion’ in Selangor would be about survival, says analyst

 Hisommudin Bakar says both sides are likely exploring new alignments after their losses in the Johor and Negeri Sembilan polls.

Analyst Hisommudin Bakar of Ilham Centre said both Bersatu and PH have read the results of the recent elections and realised their limitations.

PETALING JAYA:

Any “reunion” between Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Bersatu in Selangor would hinge on their need to navigate the current political landscape through new alignments, a political analyst says.

Hisommudin Bakar of Ilham Centre said both PH and Bersatu suffered heavy losses in the Johor and Negeri Sembilan elections where Barisan Nasional (BN) and Perikatan Nasional (PN) consolidated the Malay votes.

He also said PH faced a trust deficit among Malay voters, while Bersatu had suffered from its fallout with PAS in PN, which it co-founded.

“The needs of PH and Bersatu could potentially converge in Selangor. I do not see it merely as a desperate move by PH to defend Selangor at all costs.

“More precisely, it is a strategic recalibration. Both parties have read the results of the recent elections and realise their limitations. In politics, parties seek new formulas when old formulas no longer yield victory,” he told FMT.

On Aug 10, Selangor menteri besar Amirudin Shari said PH had not closed the door to cooperation with PN or Bersatu, and that prospective partners must uphold “political stability and the people’s interests”.

This prompted DAP deputy secretary-general Ramkarpal Singh to ask whether the matter had been discussed or decided by the PH presidential council. He also said that DAP had never discussed such an alliance.

Bersatu was a component of PH from 2016 to 2020, when it helped engineer the Sheraton Move which led to the collapse of the PH government in February 2020.

Asked whether PH risked a backlash for partnering with one of the parties behind the Sheraton Move, Hisommudin said recent developments had shown that political adversaries could eventually work together.

He said voters were increasingly aware that political alignments were not permanent, and that the real risk to PH would not come from collaborating with Bersatu but from failing to explain why such cooperation was necessary.

Hisommudin said both PH and Bersatu would have trouble getting their grassroots members to support such a partnership, but that this was not an “insurmountable obstacle”.

“If PH and Bersatu can build the case that cooperation is necessary to create a stable government, avoid vote-splitting and offer a more competitive political option, acceptance can gradually take hold,” he said.

Reconciling opposing narratives

Ahmad Zaharuddin Sani Ahmad Sabri of Global Asia Consulting was more sceptical, saying a PH-Bersatu arrangement would force voters to reconcile two political narratives that were built in opposition to one another.

“PH’s political legitimacy has been partly constructed around the promise of reform and resistance to political manoeuvring. Bersatu, meanwhile, built much of its post-Sheraton identity around opposition to PH.

“How does one explain that yesterday’s political adversary has suddenly become today’s strategic partner? And more importantly, what happens to the voters who supported PH precisely because they rejected PN?” he asked.

Zaharuddin said questions were being raised about whether PH was worried enough about losing Selangor to consider embracing Bersatu.

“If PH genuinely believes Bersatu is its strategic salvation in Selangor, what does that say about PH’s confidence in its own political machinery? Selangor should not become an experiment in political convenience.

“The greatest danger to PH may not be losing Selangor. It may be winning Selangor while losing the reasons voters once believed in it,” he said. - FMT