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PETALING JAYA: The result of Slim’s by-elections last week spells trouble for PPBM, although the losing candidate was Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s Pejuang-backed person, according to a Singapore-based political analyst.
Norshahril Saat, principal investigator at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said in a newspaper column that it was the ability of Umno and PAS to mobilize their grassroots members that contributed to the massive Barisan Nasional victory, while PPBM remained a spectator.
On Saturday, BN candidate Mohd Zaidi Aziz, leader of Umno’s local division, won 13,060 votes to an overwhelming majority of 10,945 over independent candidate Amir Khusyairi Tanusi, a Sharia lawyer backed by Pejuang.
“This is a strong indication that Umno does not need PPBM to win the next general election,” Norshahril wrote in an article in the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong.
“Recent events show that Umno wants to regain its dominant role as a Malay nationalist party by saying that it wants to regain the seats lost to the PPBM in 2018,” the researcher said.
Norshahril said the focus had been on how Pejuang would perform in Slim, as an indication of what the party could achieve in an early general election.
Describing Amir as a “kamikaze” candidate, Norshahril said that Pejuang had entered the race to test the waters to see how Malaysians would welcome the party, and whether he should join PH in the event of an early general election.
“Pejuang’s priority is to weaken PPBM’s support base by accepting defectors.” His other motivation was to test how far he could go alone without Pakatan Harapan, and he got his answer, he said. Pejuang found that he needed PH partners Amanah, PKR and DAP to help run his campaign.
Although the results were hailed as the “end of the Mahathir era,” Norshahril said the result actually suggests that PN, especially PPBM, is not on a certain basis.
“It also shows that Umno has regained the trust of voters, especially Malays, and that its collaboration with the PAS has been successful.” The results of the previous by-elections had reinforced the value of the Umno-PAS union, and Umno would be more confident of regaining the seats lost to the PPBM in the 2018 elections and then through defections.
An early general election would work to the benefit of Umno, he said, unless former President Najib Razak and his successor Ahmad Zahid Hamidi were convicted of corruption and other charges.
