A RECENT conversation at a burger stall in Shah Alam sums up the hurdles that Pakatan Harapan MPs such as Khalid Samad face in a political landscape of multi-candidate contests.

With three political coalitions now fighting for the Malay vote, burger stall owner Zainal Ahmad was uncertain who to support.

“Nowadays,  I don’t know who to choose. One side is bad but we don’t know about these other parties either,” said Zainal, 53.

Zainal is one of an increasing number of Malay Muslims who balk at choosing the ruling Barisan Nasional but is unsure of the Opposition, which is now split into Pakatan Harapan and PAS.

History has shown that the BN always emerges the winner when votes for the opposition are split in a three-cornered fight.

This is even while support for the BN is low as voters blame it for rising inflation due to the goods and services tax (GST).

So even though record numbers of Malaysians, especially Malay Muslims want to punish the BN, they are unsure about supporting a disunited and constantly bickering Opposition, said analyst Ibrahim Suffian of the Merdeka Centre.

This sentiment is reflected in the ballooning number of undecided voters, which make up an average of 15% of all voters in any given constituency said the Merdeka Centre.

This cohort will be crucial to PH parties such as Khalid’s Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) as it needs every edge in a multi-cornered fight to defend its seats.

Shah Alam is the type of Malay majority seat held by the Opposition that could go back to the BN due to three-cornered fights.

Khalid however, who is a PAS-turned-Amanah MP, is optimistic of being able to sway these undecideded voters in order to retain Shah Alam, where Malays make up about 69% of its more than 99,900 voters.

In 2013, Khalid retained the seat by 10,393 votes. 

Mainstream recognition 

“If you look at PAS, we don’t know what they stand for anymore,” said Katrina, 52, a factory supervisor who was met at Zainal’s burger stall.

“Supposedly there is now Bersatu and Amanah. But what kind of ‘bersatu’ (unity) is there? And is Amanah really ‘amanah’(trustworthy)?

She was referring to Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), a Malay-centric PH component party helmed by prominent ex-Umno leaders such as its iconic former president Dr Mahathir Mohamad and ex-deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin.

Khalid acknowledges that Amanah has far to go in terms of getting the brand recognition that PAS once had.

But he hopes that by being in league with Bersatu, whose leaders such as Dr Mahathir, Muhyiddin and (deputy) Mukhriz Mahathir are national icons, the party will be pushed into the mainstream.

That may still be a tall order, said Merdeka Centre’s Ibrahim Suffian, as Bersatu is also a new party that has yet to make a national impact.

“Their appeal is still limited to Umno members and supporters (in the case of Bersatu) disgruntled with the leadership and PAS members who disagree with PAS’ decision to end ties with PH (in the case of Amanah).

“It takes time to get mainstream recognition,” said Ibrahim.

“If PH and PAS fail to unite and field their own candidates, Malays may choose PAS because it seen as the safer, stable alternative to Umno.”

But the end result will mean that votes going to the Opposition will be divided between PAS and PH parties Amanah, Bersatu or PKR, making BN the eventual winner.

Beating history

Khalid, who is Amanah communications chief, believes that the above scenario may be fait accompli in the past but it is no longer automatically the case today.

This is since Bersatu has altered the Malay Muslim ground and is making up for the Malay votes that PH had lost when PAS exited PH in 2015.

Previously in a three-cornered fight, the BN could garner between 40-45% of all votes cast, while the Opposition parties would split the remaining 60-55% among themselves.

Now, Amanah argues that the calculus has changed. In December last year, Umno’s support among Malays was at 40% PAS at 25%, while PH was at 21%. The number of undecided voters stood at 14%.

PH’s strategy is to bring down Umno’s support to 30% and PAS to about  18% by stealing 10% away from Umno and 7% from PAS and adding it to the PH for a total of 38%.

“If we can pull in half of the undecided votes, we will get enough to get more than 40% and win.” – May 26, 2017.