Prominent Democratic Alliance Party (DAP) leader Tony Pua even used the words “go to hell” in a Facebook post to describe the proposed new alliance.
If Anwar accepts, he would effectively be unravelling the PH coalition – of which his PKR party and the DAP made two key pillars.
The core issue now is trust. Can UMNO bank on Anwar more than Muhyiddin?
Anwar does not even have a government in place. Many of UMNO’s core voters in the rural areas may also reject UMNO’s support in helping to create an Anwar administration.
Many are distrustful over what they see as Anwar’s liberal attitudes given his decades-long alliance with the DAP. These conservative Malays cannot accept DAP in power.
So what is Anwar to do? UMNO’s pull out of support may end Anwar’s fourth attempt to be PM. Unless Anwar can build a coalition to vote down the budget in the next parliamentary sitting, I cannot see a path forward for Anwar to keep his Sep 23 announcement that he has the numbers to get rid of Muhyiddin in these few weeks.
LOGIC OUT OF THE WINDOW
In the meantime, should one take seriously the statement by Zahid that UMNO will support Muhyiddin for now? The short answer is no.
Zahid does not have the complete support of UMNO. At most, Najib and he have the strong support of the most influential faction in UMNO
Anwar will of course keep knocking on UMNO’s various factions, hoping one of them is strong enough to support him or, at least, try to undermine Zahid’s open pronouncement that UMNO will support Muhyiddin.
If there is a common lesson from the recent political movements, it is that COVID-19 has not stopped the Malay political elites from playing the game of “who controls Putrajaya”.
Those who think this was resolved in March when he became Prime Minister after another political saga, will really need to re-evaluate their assumptions of Malay politics.
Malay politics has never been based on rational actions or what is best for the country. It has always been driven by personal interests and sprinkles of ketuanan Melayu Islam (Malay Islamic Supremacy).
The process is mostly illogical from the system-viewpoint.
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