NOVEMBER 16 ― Come November 19, we will find out which political coalition will form our new government. Will Barisan Nasional (BN) obtain a clear victory in partnership with Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), or will this coalition need PAS to form our next government?
Alternatively, will the incumbent government BN and Perikatan Nasional (PN) form the next government again? Or will Pakatan Harapan (PH) win instead?
No matter who wins, I fear that our country has become so polarised by race and religion that we will not have the stable government that we all desire.
Certain groups will vote according to their racial backgrounds, no thanks to the rhetoric spun over the past decades by our political leaders.
We have a tendency to vote along racial and religious lines and hence the government we vote will continue to placate their voters who will continue to vote the same way.
I know as I was part of this system.
The main culprits are Umno and PAS who target the majority Malay/Muslims for votes. While attracting Malay votes, they alienate non-Malays at the same time, and push them towards supporting Pakatan Harapan, especially DAP.
In the last elections held on May 9, 2018, the Pakatan Harapan coalition came into power with 121 Parliamentary seats (consisting of PKR ― 48, DAP ― 42, Bersatu ― 12, Amanah ― 11 and Warisan ― 8).
BN clinched only 60 seats (consisting of Umno ― 57, MIC ― 2 and MCA ― 1) and GPS obtained 19 seats, PAS 18 seats, Star one seat and independent candidates three seats.
My analysis below is based on these results of the last elections, before the frog-hopping Sheraton move as it reflected voters’ choices at that time.
What will be their choices for this election?
At the start of this election campaign, many were predicting a victory for BN in partnership with GPS from Sarawak and GRS from Sabah.
The predictions are now changing as BN is faltering in their campaign due to their inability to counter the onslaught of allegations by PH and PN against their policies and those concerning its chief Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and his pending graft charges in court, amongst others.
Their would-be supporters may be looking at alternative options, that is PH or PN.
My prediction is that there will be more Malays switching their support to PAS in the PN coalition rather than Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) or Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) in the PH coalition.
For that reason, PN which many had written off at the beginning of the campaign has now seen a resurgence in popularity, with PAS as their lynchpin I predict that none of the three coalitions, that is, BN, PN or PH will have an absolute majority.
With PN’s resurgence, BN is unlikely to obtain the majority number of seats even with GPS & GRS as PN would have eaten into their traditional seats.
I know I had predicted a big win for BN in an earlier article but the ground has shifted for the reasons I stated above.
I foresee that PH will obtain the largest number of seats (but still short of the majority to form the government) followed by BN and PN. This is because PN’s increase will be mostly from BN’s seats.
Sarawak’s 31 seats will be largely grabbed by GPS while Sabah’s 25 seats will be shared quite evenly by GRS, DAP and Warisan.
In this case, will PH and PN work together? They may need GPS to garner the majority number of seats required to form the government, as PN would not win sufficient number of seats unlike BN. GPS would probably side the winning coalition in order to be part of the federal government and would have to choose either the BN/PH or PH/PN combination.
However, the possibility of BN and PH coming together is slimmer than the BN, PN, GPS and GRS bloc.
On the other hand, the partnership between PH and PN is possible but they must persuade GPS to join them. PH’s chief Anwar Ibrahim will most likely offer the role of Deputy Prime Minister to GPS to entice them to join his PH/PN partnership in that case.
My prediction is that we will get the same government, ie. BN, PN and GPS that we are having now.
Will Ismail Sabri be the PM or Zahid or Tok Mat?
The slight difference is that Umno will be a bit stronger with slightly more seats than the 37 they are having now as they will get some of the seats they won in the previous elections but lost to defections to Bersatu.
As for my preference, I choose PH with PN and GPS with Anwar Ibrahim as the PM and a GPS as the DPM.
We have tried the BN led government for a long time and several of their key leaders have outstanding court cases.
We have also experienced a PN led government which is not much better than the BN government as it was just a BN replica.
We should try the PH led government with Anwar as the PM.
It might not be better but it will definitely not be worse than the BN or PN governments.
We had a taste of a PH led government for a short 2 years but then Mahathir was the PM.
Two years was not enough to prove themselves and also a lot of their promised reforms were stifled by Mahathir.
I do not think I am biased towards PH as I was a State Assemblyman under MCA/BN for three terms and definitely still got some feelings for BN although I was sacked by MCA for my role in opening up the PKFZ fiasco.
It is just an alternative we have not tried and might bring us a better government.
To conclude we can only pray for a better government to achieve a better Malaysia.
In God we trust.
* Datuk Lee Hwa Beng is a three-term State Assemblyman and co-author of PKFZ: A Nation’s Trust Betrayed and Where is Pastor Raymond Koh?
** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
