Hadi Awang, the future PM?

Umno and PAS will seal their cooperation on September 14, and PPBM and Amanah, which rely heavily on Malay votes, are getting really worried.

As a result, Amanah vice president Husam Musa and PPBM deputy president Mukhriz Mahathir have extended their invitation to PAS to join the Pakatan Harapan family.

PAS president Hadi Awang said his party had “no appetite” for PH.

If Umno-PAS were to take on PH one-on-one in the next general elections, they might recapture 21 parliamentary and 45 state seats, including those currently held by 11 PH ministers and deputy ministers.

In the 2018 general elections, PH and Warisan Sabah won a total of 122 parliamentary seats, Umno 54 and PAS 18.

If we take away 21 seats from PH, the coalition will only be left with 101, short of the 112-seat threshold to form a government.

Umno-PAS, meanwhile, will have 93 seats (excluding any seat won by MCA and MIC), resulting in a situation of hung parliament that will make GPS of Sarawak the ultimate kingmakers.

Umno president Ahmad Zahid said Umno could work with any political party so long as they conform to Umno’s three guiding principles. He even revealed that the PM’s people had come to him for prospects of cooperation.

How will Mahathir work with Umno if he has wanted to take actions against corrupt Umno leaders?

Moreover, Mahathir’s position now is rock solid and even PAS’s Hadi has voiced his support for Mahathir serving a full term.

As a matter of fact, PH component parties do not need to worry about a looming Umno-PAS alliance because these two parties will start to quarrel sooner or later over seat allocation and issue of dominance.

It has been reported that Umno has its own formula of seat allocation: it will not back down on seats it already won in GE14. As for constituencies both parties contested, the party with more votes will field its candidate in a constituency. No changes for seats contested by MCA and MIC.

PAS will be the biggest loser based on Umno’s formula because the party did not win any seat in Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, Kuala Lumpur and Sabah, and only managed to win a single state seat in each of Johor, Selangor and Penang.

As if that is not enough, PAS’s votes in almost all constituencies in these states were well below those of Umno’s.

PAS can only pin its hopes on seats previously contested by ex-BN parties such as Kota Kemuning state seat in Selangor where PAS’s votes outnumbered those of Gerakan Rakyat.

Disputes might also arise in some other constituencies, including Semambu in Pahang where PAS won 9,480 votes and MCA 7,323.

Even if PAS is going to exchange seats in Kelantan and Terengganu with Umno for seats in southern part of the peninsula, there is a limit to what it can do because the party does not want to lose its dominance in these east coast states.

The only good thing for PAS based on Umno’s formula is that the party may control the Kedah state administration, but Umno will have more states.

If the new alliance eventually wins the next general elections, Umno will still get the biggest number of seats and therefore the PM post and the right to form the new cabinet.

Umno has approached PAS for a tie-up in the hope the Islamist party will help it make a comeback.

But how will PAS respond since Umno’s seat allocation formula is highly unfavorable to the party?

Hadi Awang wants to venture out of the east coast to become a reckoned force nationwide and eventually become the prime minister himself.

PAS used to work with PKR and DAP with the same kind of political ambition of implementing its religious policies on the federal level.

It is therefore understandable that the party will not settle for a secondary role in its relationship with Umno.

So, who will become the chairman of the Unmo-PAS alliance? Based on the number of seats won, sure enough it will be Ahmad Zahid. But, will Hadi Awang take over the lead if Zahid is eventually found guilty by court for any of his court cases?

The opposition camp does not yet have a suitable candidate to be the next PM, either one that is tainted with corruption cases or too entrenched in religion. Their victory in the election will spell a major disaster for the nation.

What are the political principles of the new alliance? If all that it wants is to set up an Islamic state and enforce the hudud, then it might as well forget about contesting in any of the urban seats and in East Malaysia, too.