PARTI Bangsa Malaysia (PBM) is expected to find a large party or coalition to partner with because it lacks enough grassroots support, analysts said.

This is likely to be Barisan Nasional (BN), according to Universiti Malaya lecturer Prof Awang Azman Awang Pawi.

“Yet, this won’t be easy as BN usually gives the mixed seats to MCA and MIC,” he said.

He said PBM’s credibility, due to being labelled party-hoppers, would also make BN think twice about a partnership.

In January, PBM’s new president Larry Sng said the leaders had accepted a motion to join BN and would be discussing this soon.

PBM was thrust into the spotlight last week after Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin said she was leaving Bersatu to join the party.

Since the party’s formation last year, it has been expected that former PKR lawmakers that had joined Bersatu in 2020 would in fact jump ship again to PBM.

Politicians that have already done so include Sng, who was a former PKR vice president, and former Tebrau MP Steven Choong.

Although Sng is not originally from PKR, he joined the party as an independent after winning the Julau seat in 2018.

Sng, Choong and Zuraida are among the 13 MPs who quit PKR during and after the Sheraton Move to support Bersatu’s Muhyiddin Yassin as prime minister, after the Pakatan Harapan government was toppled in 2020.

International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) political science lecturer Tunku Mohar Tunku Mohd Mokhtar said PBM has no choice but to partner with a much larger ally for the 15th general election.

He said that the party was too new and lacked popular support.

One example, said Tunku Mohar, was when Choong contested and lost his deposit in Puteri Wangsa during the recent Johor polls.

Although Choong was an MP for Tebrau, his “unpopularity” after quitting PKR showed when he could not get one-eighth of the votes cast, Tunku Mohar said.

“PBM will have to choose between Perikatan Nasional and BN, because there is too much bad blood with PH,” Tunku Mohar said. – May 31, 2022.