COME next week, Malaysians will likely find out who is their new prime minister and his government, following critical announcements within hours of each other yesterday.

Firstly, it is now certain that the two leading candidates for prime minister are Anwar Ibrahim and Muhyiddin Yassin, both former deputy prime ministers but from different political coalitions.

As of this morning, Muhyiddin, the Bersatu president has a slight edge in terms of parliamentary numbers over Anwar.

Secondly, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong will meet the leaders of all political parties next week to assess whether they back Anwar or Muhyiddin, or someone else altogether.

This is after individual interviews with all 222 MPs by the palace on Tuesday and Wednesday failed to produce a prime minister candidate who commands majority support.

If the palace’s latest effort fails to the break the political impasse next week, Malaysians will likely have to head back to the ballot box.

This is a prospect activists and pundits have argued the country can ill afford, given a global economic slump and the spread of the coronavirus.

After a torrid week of partisan manoeuvring, comebacks and u-turns, an alignment of two major political coalitions is crystallising around Anwar and Muhyiddin.

The “kingmakers” will be the Sabah and Sarawak political coalitions and parties who, between them, have 33 parliamentary seats.

But since the situation is fluid and alliances change by the day, Malaysians will just have to wait until the palace confirms who among the two men has the necessary support.

How did it come to this?

The 22-month old Pakatan Harapan government collapsed on February 24 following defections from its component party Bersatu, which has 26 MPs.

Eleven lawmakers from PKR, aligned to its former deputy president Mohamed Azmin Ali, announced their departure from the party.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad resigned as prime minister but was re-appointed as interim prime minister by the King. He also quit his post as Bersatu chairman.

Initially, Bersatu, the 11 rebel PKR MPs were planning to team up with Umno, PAS, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) and Parti Warisan Sabah to from a so-called “unity government” with Dr Mahathir as prime minister.

When Dr Mahathir refused to work with Umno and PAS, the plan fell apart.

The palace stepped in to say that it will meet individually with all 222 MPs to determine who they wanted as prime minister or whether they wanted snap elections.

Umno and PAS u-turned on their earlier stand to back Dr Mahathir and announced that they wanted fresh polls.

After a series of meetings with the Bersatu leadership, Dr Mahathir is now back as chairman and the party announced it will support Muhyiddin as the prime minister.

Umno and PAS yesterday again reversed their decision and said they supported Muhyiddin.

PH, which now consists of only DAP, PKR and Amanah, announced on Tuesday it was backing Anwar.

Where do they stand?

Bersatu has announced that together with Azmin’s team, they have 36 MPs. With the support of 39 Umno MPs, 18 from PAS, Muhyiddin now has 93 MPs in his corner.

Umno’s allies in Barisan Nasional, MCA, MIC and PBRS have two, one and one MP each respectively.

This brings Muhyiddin’s tally to 97.

Anwar has 93 committed MPs, all of whom are from PH.

Among those who have not declared their allegiances are Sarawak’s GPS – with 18 MPs – and Gabungan Sabah with five seats.

GPS said they will announce their choice on March 1, while nine MPs from Parti Warisan Sabah and one lawmaker from Upko, had been aligned with the old PH government.

Four days ago, Warisan said it would back Dr Mahathir as prime minister but as of yesterday, it has remained silent on whether it supports Muhyiddin or Anwar.

Expect these Borneo parties to be heavily lobbied this weekend. – February 29, 2020.