FOR the second time in 18 months Yang di-Petuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah has summoned the nation’s members of Parliament to the palace to affirm their support for a prime ministerial candidate.

In February last year, Muhyiddin Yassin was affirmed prime minister, but after his resignation earlier this week, his heir apparent is his former deputy prime minister and Umno vice-president Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

It is apparent Ismail has been able to sure-up the Perikatan Nasional/Barisan Nasional coalition numbers with all MPs from Umno supporting him for prime minister.

Ismail has also kept Bersatu fully intact, with no defections, along with the rest of the coalition.

This takes his support to 114, three more than the 111 MPs he needs to become prime minister and form a government.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad, with his four-MP Pejuang, will fall behind the PN/BN coalition and express the desire to serve in the cabinet, should they be invited.

This would take Ismail’s support to 118, a comfortable majority in the Dewan Rakyat to conduct government business.

It appears that Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) was only able to muster 101 MPs to support him, with two seats currently vacant.

This is another one of the numerous occasions Anwar has just fallen short of the necessary numbers to become prime minister.

To many, this is a deep emotional blow, especially for those who strongly believe that Anwar should be given an opportunity to show what he can do in government.

Ismail is a Malay-centric politician, who has not been without controversy over the years.

During the last general election, Ismail said a vote for DAP is a vote to eliminate the special rights of Malays and the uniqueness of Islam.

He also caused controversy back in 2015 when he, on his Facebook page, urged Malay consumers to boycott monopolising and profiteering Chinese businesses that discriminate against non-Chinese entrepreneurs.

He also set up a Malay-only electronics mall “Loy Yat 2”, to compete with the Chinese-dominated business at Low Yat Plaza, although it did not get off the ground.

Ismail, from Pahang, the same state as the king, began his parliamentary career as the MP for Bera in 2004, after being involved in the Umno party machinery since 1987.

He became a cabinet minister under Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in charge of youth and sports in 2008.

In 2009, under prime minister Najib Razak, he became the domestic trade, cooperatives and consumerism minister, and after the 2013 general election, was appointed agriculture and agro-based industry minister.

In 2015, he was appointed rural and regional development minister until the 2018 general election, where PH defeated the BN government.

After Najib’s electoral defeat, Ismail in hard fought Umno polls became party deputy president.

After the Sheraton putsch, where Muhyiddin came to power, with his PN government, Ismail became a senior minister with responsibility for defence.

Last month, he was appointed deputy prime minister, after criticism by Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and his supporters.

This led to Zahid to declare that Umno will, with immediate effect, withdraw support for Muhyiddin and the PN government. Two Umno ministers resigned in support.

Ismail is closely aligned with the Hishammuddin Hussein group in the Muhyiddin cabinet.

Hishammuddin is also well known for his kris-waving and Ketuanan Melayu rhetoric at past Umno congresses.

Ismail has also been a staunchly loyal party man for more than 35 years and knows the Najib Razak group very well.

His party pedigree was probably the reason he was able to persuade MPs like Shamsul Anuar Nasarah, Mohd Nizar Zakaria, Ahmad Nazlan Idris, Noh Omar, Noraini Ahmad, Azalina Othman Said, Ahmad Maslan, Bung Moktar Radin and Shahidan Kassim to support him.

This would have forced his nemesis Zahid to follow suit or split the party mortally.

One would expect the first Ismail cabinet to include more Umno members, including some of his past critics.

So, instead of a PN/BN government, this will be a BN/PN government, which will fulfil the aspirations of many Umno members, who wanted to see Umno as the dominant party in government once again.

For Anwar and PH, this means taking a back seat until the next election.

With the current Covid-19 and economic crises starting to affect the very survival of many Malaysians, any political antics could be seen as going against the king’s advice he gave to all party leaders earlier in the week.

This does not mean that Anwar should do nothing. This is a time for Anwar to rebuild his own torn-apart PKR, after the Mohamed Azmin Ali exit, and that of the coalition.

PH needs to look at its narrative to the Malay heartland and perform well as an opposition.

Anwar may well consider forming a shadow cabinet to better hold ministers in the new government accountable.

PH has 12-18 month before the next election and needs to build campaigning capacity on the ground, where it weak.

Next election, PH does not have Dr Mahathir on the hustings in the Malay heartlands, so this needs to be taken account of.

In addition, Anwar could bring some of his younger members forward as future leaders and take on more of a mentor role.

Anwar as a mentor will be much more marketable than an Anwar perceived to just wanting to be prime minister.

With the future Ismail cabinet primarily being made up of old wine in new bottles, a young and hungry PH line-up may be formidable.

DAP has been doing this, and within PKR, there is a lot of young talent.

Amanah, under Mohamad Sabu, must rekindle the old Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat approach, which has been lost from PAS today.

Amanah must show the Nik Aziz approach to Islam, which non-Muslims grew to respect.

For the upcoming government, the realisation must quickly set in, that power is not for power’s sake, and Malaysia is in the deepest crisis the country has ever been in.

The events of the last week have given the new government a potential window of opportunity without politics. At least until the next election.

If this occurs, then Westminster system Malaysian style, where the king plays a major role as an umpire has been shown to work well in the nation’s case.

Now is the time for executive government to get back to serious work. – August 19, 2021.

* Murray Hunter reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.