Bedfellows and backstabbers on the winding road to Putrajaya

Bedfellows and backstabbers on the winding road to Putrajaya

5 hours ago

Letter to the Editor

When the dust settles on the next general election, the only guaranteed result is of a spectacularly hung parliament.

From Moaz Nair

Welcome to the era of “polytropous” politics, a term analysts use when they want to politely say our politicians suffer from severe relationship commitment issues.

As we barrel towards the 16th general election, the political landscape in the Peninsula resembles less a stable Westminster democracy and more a chaotic, high-stakes episode of “The Bachelor: Putrajaya Edition”.

For those trying to keep track of the prospective political mathematics, the current options on Anwar Ibrahim’s whiteboard read like labels on a broken calculator:

Pakatan Harapan Plus, Perikatan Nasional Plus, or perhaps a convoluted equation like Barisan Nasional-minus-Bersatu, Wawasan, Gerakan, Malaysian Indian People’s Party, and Pejuang, multiplied by PAS.

The truth is, no one has locked in a mega-coalition because everyone is too busy playing the field.

Take Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the grand master of political gymnastics. At the federal level, the Umno president sits snugly in the marital bed of the unity government with PH and the DAP, smiling warmly for the cameras.

But the moment he crosses state borders into Johor, Negeri Sembilan, or the electoral war zone of Melaka, Zahid sneaks out the back window to hook up with Abdul Hadi Awang and PAS.

Talk about a shameless double life. Zahid and Anwar run the country together during the week, but come the weekend, BN teams up with PAS to try and wipe PH off the state map.

When launching the Melaka election machinery, Zahid proudly declared that “hijau sudah menerima biru” (green has accepted blue). Yet the irony is loud: BN aggressively kept 23 seats for itself, dumping the remaining five hard-to-win seats on PAS and its PN allies.

But let’s be real — this romance has a strict ceiling.

Zahid wants PAS and PAS only, completely blanking other PN roommates. Besides, is Hadi really going to hand over safe seats in Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah, or Perlis just to be nice to Umno? Local warlords say there’s a better chance of snow hitting these states, especially after Umno just squeezed their allies out of two extra seats in Melaka.

PN is trapped

Meanwhile, PN is trapped in a dilemma of its own making. To properly court BN, they are being asked to dump their entire entourage — Gerakan, MIPP, Pejuang, and the newly minted Wawasan led by the exiled Hamzah Zainudin. It turns out Zahid doesn’t want to pay for a group dinner.

To make matters funnier, the house that Gerakan and MIPP are clinging to is literally on fire.

In a massive political shockwave on Oct 20, the Registrar of Societies officially cancelled Perikatan Nasional’s registration. This stemmed from a toxic internal feud where Bersatu complained it was unlawfully excluded from a crucial PN council meeting. Though the High Court granted a temporary stay on Oct 22, the alliance is legally a “ghost ship” caught in intense friction, while its internal engine — Bersatu under Muhyiddin Yassin — is causing an absolute earthquake of instability.

Naturally, the vacuum has sparked wild rumours. Whisper it, in Shah Alam, but word on the street is that a fractured Bersatu is looking to jump ship entirely and work with PH, starting with a cosy trial marriage in Selangor that could spread nationwide.

This comes hot on the heels of party leaders executing a federal confidence and supply agreement with Anwar Ibrahim’s government — a pact explicitly designed to buy parliamentary stability and secure the passage of the 2027 budget.

If you’re keeping score: Zahid is sleeping with PN’s partner, while Muhyiddin’s remnants are trying to move in with Zahid’s federal spouse.

While the Peninsula fractures into a million messy social media threads, East Malaysia is watching the soap opera with mild amusement. The regional titans, Gabungan Parti Sarawak and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah have zero interest in joining a rigid, peninsula-centric bloc or any stressful mega-coalition.

Why buy into the drama now when you can just sit back, secure your own backyard, and wait to play kingmaker after the election?

It’s complicated

When the dust settles on GE16, the only guaranteed result is of a spectacularly hung parliament. None of the party leaders, Anwar, Zahid, Muhyiddin, and Hadi, will have the 112-seat magic number to form a government on their own. We won’t see clean “plus” coalitions on the ballot paper.

Instead, we will get “fluid understandings”— the political equivalent of “it’s complicated”. Our leaders will avoid three-cornered fights where convenient, stab each other in the back where necessary, and then awkwardly gather in a hotel ballroom post-election to figure out who hates each other the least.

Brace yourselves. The road to Putrajaya is no longer a highway; it’s a swinging party, and everyone is invited.

Moaz Nair is an FMT reader.