Umno’s decision to divorce Perikatan Nasional
Umno believes it was the Malays, not the Chinese (and Indians), who ousted Umno-Barisan Nasional in GE14. And Umno also believes the Malays regret voting for Pakatan Harapan and will never do that again. And Umno further believes the Malays will return to Umno-Barisan Nasional — which means Umno no longer needs PAS-PPBM.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
It seems Umno has finally made the decision to divorce Perikatan Nasional. Umno, however, has denied Malaysiakini’s news report but insiders say it is true. We may need to wait to see whether it is true or not — but time will tell.
PAS will be told (in fact, has already been told) to choose to either remain with PPBM in Perikatan Nasional or to go back to Muafakat Nasional — meaning choose Umno over PPBM.
Umno does not really love PAS anyway
Many in Umno do not really want PAS, though (especially Umno in the East Coast). Hence, if PAS chooses to remain with PPBM in Perikatan Nasional, Umno will not get terribly upset about it.
In fact, many in Umno, especially Umno in the East Coast, would prefer that because they don’t like PAS anyway.
If Umno really wanted to be friends with PAS that would have happened in 2018 during the 14th General Election or GE14. Talks had been ongoing for three years from 2015 but at the last minute Umno backed down and chose to go for three-corner contests against PAS and Pakatan Harapan.
Umno’s intelligence reports in 2018 said PAS was going to get wiped out in Terengganu, Kelantan, and Kedah — plus in all the other non-Malay heartland states.
What happened was PAS won two-thirds of the seats in Terengganu-Kelantan while Umno won only one-third. The four Pakatan Harapan parties of PKR, PPBM, PAN and DAP won zero seats.
Does Perikatan Nasional really need Umno?
Umno was shocked, and they were even more shocked that they lost GE14 itself, something that they never dreamed would happen (their intelligence reports said Barisan Nasional was going to win 135 out of the 222 Parliament seats).
Somehow, Umno is of the opinion that the GE14 performance is not going to be repeated and this time, in GE15, Umno and Barisan Nasional are going to bounce back. The reason for this optimism is that they believe the reason Umno-Barisan Nasional got wiped out in GE14 was because of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad — and now that he is no longer with Pakatan Harapan, they are going to lose GE15.
In short, Umno believes that the Umno-Barisan Nasional disaster in GE14 was because of one factor or because of one man, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Umno believes the GE14 disaster was because of Mahathir and, without Mahathir, Pakatan is going to lose GE15
Maybe 95% of the Chinese voted for Pakatan Harapan in GE14. But 85-90% of the Chinese also voted for Pakatan in 2008 and 2013 as well. In 2018, though, the Malays also voted for Pakatan Harapan.
Hence Umno-Barisan Nasional lost GE14 because of the Malays, not because of the Chinese and Indians.
Umno believes it was the Malays, not the Chinese (and Indians), who ousted Umno-Barisan Nasional in GE14. And Umno also believes the Malays regret voting for Pakatan Harapan and will never do that again. And Umno further believes the Malays will return to Umno-Barisan Nasional — which means Umno no longer needs PAS-PPBM.
The GE14 Malay voting pattern in the Malay heartland
