AESOP’S Fables of a bundle of sticks are as old as time where three quarrelsome brothers were taught about the strength of unity and union.

Most memorably, the parting words of their father to his sons having trouble breaking the bundles of sticks was: “Individually, you can easily be conquered, but together, you are invincible. Union gives strength.”

While that dictum is generally applicable in most aspects of life, like all things else it might fail to hold up to the vicissitudes and unpredictable nature of political parties in Malaysia. This is none more so if we are talking about the merging of PKR and Amanah.

Political parties usually combine their strength or merge as one for a myriad of reasons, but more commonly it was done so for the purpose of combining their individual electorate strength to win elections.

Defeat after defeat in the United Kingdom’s general election forced the century-old Liberal Party to merge with the Social Democratic Party to form what is now known as the Liberal Democrats.

Similarly, the merging of Parti Keadilan Nasional (Keadilan) with Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) in 2002 was with the intention of combining the strength of the former’s Reformasi movement led by Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and the latter’s well-oiled grassroots support.

Nevertheless, the potential merging of PKR and Amanah is rather odd in several different ways.

If the reason for merging is to leverage on both parties’ electoral support, you might argue that both political parties are already doing that under the Pakatan Harapan (PKR) coalition.

Those who subscribe to Amanah’s beliefs are most likely voting for PKR candidates and likewise there is little chance the PKR faithful would be voting anyone else other than the candidate contesting under the PH flag.

Setting the complex question of competing ideologies, there is at least some mathematical sense in previous merging attempts under the first-past-the-post electoral system.

The Liberal Party and Social Democratic Party were competing against each other, and merging would technically combine their votes to compete against the more established Conservative and Labour parties. 

This is why PKR and Amanah as merging to become one seems strange when both parties’ electorate support in past elections had already been aggregated.

Also, the question that needs to be asked is whether the merging would help both parties in expanding the electorate support and thus winning more support at the expense of Barisan Nasional (BN) and Perikatan Nasional (PN).

And this is only possible if voters perceive that the merged party is radically different from PKR and Amanah with a complete change of leadership helming the “new” party.

If the merged party inherits the leadership that came before it, this might render the merging an expensive rebranding exercise which does not excite voters or fence-sitters to any degree.

PKR and Amanah might as well maintain the status quo and focus on reviving PH’s fortunes.

If the purpose is not to win elections, then it could be argued that the merging is being bandied about for other political reasons.

It is interesting to note that PKR’s Kota Anggerik assemblyperson Najwan Halimi has welcomed the merging as a means to fill in the political vacuum in PKR left by Azmin Ali while Amanah’s No.2 Salahuddin Ayub has categorically refuted such a proposal.

In some ways the merging might benefit PKR given that any successful merging would most likely result in Amanah being absorbed into PKR.

With the increased number of seats and extra political resources, this would grant PKR and Anwar Ibrahim some much-needed reprieve from criticisms about his suitability as opposition leader.

The inclusion of Amanah into PKR would have ramifications within PH as DAP might be isolated if its lawmakers and reps persist in not wanting Anwar as the sole prime ministerial candidate for PH.

Some proponents of the two parties merging would also argue that the union would also effectively create a PKR-Amanah party wielding 46 parliamentary seats, thereby replacing DAP as the largest opposition bloc in Parliament.

This will work to the advantage of PH because the propaganda of DAP controlling PH would be dismissed or negated. However, this theory does not stand to scrutiny when you consider that DAP was not the largest opposition bloc in 2008 during the first formation of Pakatan Rakyat.

Yet, this does not deter political opponents framing DAP as the main force behind the curtain of any opposition coalition. Worse still, voters who do not prefer PH for whatever reasons would not suddenly have their political views changed just because they are not the opposition with most seats.   

Therefore, the merging proposal strikes me as an odd move, for it does not address PH’s weakness that was clearly exposed during the Malacca elections: its inability to excite voters which is attributed to a lower voter turnout and the swinging of Malay votes to PN.

PH should perhaps offer a narrative that is based on reform and fundamental economic issues to arrest its continued decline of electoral support. That would be more effective than any talk of merging or union between political parties. – December 5, 2021.

* Kenneth Cheng has always been interested in the interplay between human rights and government but more importantly he is a father of two cats, Tangyuan and Toufu. When he is not attending to his feline matters, he is most likely reading books about politics and human rights or playing video games. He is a firm believer in the dictum “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will”.

* 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.