PRIME Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will have to rely on two of the people that he had crossed swords with to pass his first national budget in Dewan Rakyat today.

On one side is former Umno president and prime minister Najib Razak and on the other is current president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

Najib sacked Muhyiddin from his cabinet in 2016 while Muhyiddin beat Zahid in the recent Sabah state polls.

Although Perikatan Nasional (PN) has 112 MPs on paper, all is not well as both Najib and Zahid were less than enthusiastic about passing Budget 2021.

The 112 consists of PN (50), Barisan Nasional (42), Gabungan Parti Sarawak (18), PBS (1) and one independent (Lubok Antu).

Najib, the Pekan MP and BN Backbenchers’ Club chief, said BN’s support depends on extending the loan moratorium until June 2021 and allowing the withdrawal of RM10,000 in Employees’ Provident Fund in one lump sum.

Zahid went a step further by asking Putrajaya to allow Parliament to debate the no-confidence votes against Muhyiddin. There are 24 no-confidence and two confidence motions for Muhyiddin.

Since then, Najib has held several meetings with BN lawmakers, with the last two this week, indicating some uncertainty in the BN camp of 42 MPs.

And two days before the budget vote, 20 BN ministers and deputy ministers issued a statement to back Muhyiddin.

“A statement like that just two days before an important vote in Parliament is like the proverbial vote of confidence given to a football club manager just before he is sacked,” said a Pakatan Harapan (PH) leader.

The PN Backbenchers’ Club, which is headed by Umno’s Perlis strongman Shahidan Kassim, added more intrigue when it said last night that all its MPs, including those from BN, will back the budget.

The price of abstention

As of last night, sacked Bersatu chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the Pejuang four and their “friends” will reject Budget 2021 today. He even called on his successor to resign if the budget was not passed.

Although Dr Mahathir did not state who his “friends” were, it is believed that it includes Warisan and Upko’s nine MPs, who are led by Mohd Shafie Apdal.

And while PH, which has 91 MPs, has not given any official statements, it is believed that the bloc will also reject the budget.

But even with the addition of independents Maszlee Malik (Simpang Renggam), Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman (Muar) and two more from Parti Sarawak Bersatu, the opposition only has 108 MPs, four short of PN’s 112.

This is where the Najib-Zahid factor comes in.

“There appears to be different factions in Umno,” said a PH leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“You can clearly see it in the Parliament debates where Najib, Zahid, Ahmad Maslan (Pontian) and several others are against the budget while those like Shahidan, Mohamad Alamin (Kimanis) and others are supporting it,” said the lawmaker.

He said everything depends on how many MPs are on Najib and Zahid’s side.

Veteran Umno leader Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (Gua Musang) told Dewan Rakyat speaker Azhar Azizan Harun that he does not wish to debate the budget as Muhyiddin’s legitimacy as prime minister is still in doubt.

“All it takes is for Najib-Zahid to have more than five MPs on their side (including themselves), and they wouldn’t even have to reject the budget.

“They just have to abstain or not show up and the government will only have 107 against the opposition’s 109,” said the lawmaker.

In 2019, PH learnt an important lesson when it tried to restore Sabah and Sarawak’s position in the federal constitution.

While political observers assumed that GPS would support the amendment that would aid Sarawak, its MPs decided to abstain, causing the constitutional amendment to fail.

In that episode, PH needed 148 votes but could only muster 138.

Will history repeat itself for Muhyiddin’s budget today? – November 26, 2020.