Bersatu heading for stormy weather in the days ahead

Zainal Epi, Malay Mail Online

Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) is now sailing without direction as some of its members swear allegiance to former chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad while others are with president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who is now the country’s prime minister.

Since its founding, Mahathir had failed to strengthen it or chart a new direction for the party which seemed no different from Umno.

Now Muhyiddin has to determine the party’s objectives and vision to make Bersatu relevant to the new political equation called Perikatan Nasional because without a strong footing and numbers, Muhyiddin will find himself in troubled waters.

His new government — we don’t even know who is in the Cabinet yet — seems particularly vulnerable to strong political winds.

He has to either complete what Dr Mahathir failed to do or find a new form of agreement with Umno and PAS so that the two parties stand behind him in facing the current political storm.

Otherwise, Bersatu will remain irrelevant in the new government despite the prime minister being from the party.

Mahathir had failed to eliminate Umno or at the least reduce its hold and influence on the country despite efforts at running down its leaders and branding it as a corrupt party.

He also failed to get Umno’s MPs to jump ship except for a few which stalled Bersatu’s progress in every political aspect.

Bersatu was supposed to be the anchor party in the now-collapsed Pakatan Harapan (PH) government besides multi-racial Malay-based Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Chinese-based multi-racial DAP and Islam-based Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah).

And the way to be an anchor party was increase membership; Umno members and leaders were the target the past one and a half years after winning the 2018 general election.

Mahathir did not want to work with Umno as a party but instead just individuals in the party who he saw and viewed as “clean from corrupt practices.”

Muhyiddin did not bother about all that as he needed to form a government as fast as possible to overcome the political impasse.

Now that the ball is at his feet, Muhyiddin may be caught in a difficult situation as Bersatu is not a dominant party in the new political equation, just like when it was in the previous PH government.

Bersatu now looks like it may be playing second fiddle to Umno, the party that has the most parliamentary seats in the new government.

Even the state governments are now in a Catch 22 situation given that Umno is majority in places like Johor and Melaka.

Adding to Muhyiddin’s woes is the party is scheduled to hold its election — the first — in June.

It looks like turbulent weather in the days ahead for Bersatu.