SHAH ALAM - The unexpected success of Perikatan Nasional (PN) winning over 60 Parliamentary Seats in the 15th General Election (GE15) unofficially brings the possibility of its chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin becoming the closest to be crowned as the new prime minister compares to Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Former Klang MP Charles Santiago said this was because PN was strongly supported and Pas was seen as having more opportunities to form a unity government with Barisan Nasional (BN), Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) after GE15 compared to the opposition coalition led by Anwar.
He said GPS, who won 22 of 31 Parliamentary seats in Sarawak as of now had the difficulties to accept DAP which became a part of PH compared to Pas however, Pas's religious ideologies that were extreme had caused the coalition to be uncomfortable with the party.
"On paper, PH indeed has the most Parliamentary seats compared to the other parties even though PN and Pas were tailing them closely from behind.
"However, when the Malay voters no longer trust Umno-BN and they trusted PN and Pas more, the current situation is the Parliament depended on where a coalition government will be formed.
"I believe Muhyiddin has a better chance of becoming the 10th Prime Minister than Anwar because the Sabah and Sarawak local parties are seen as more comfortable to cooperate with him to form a coalition government than PH.
"Assessing BN's situation, the party has no other choice than to accept PN's cooperation if they want to remain in the new government," he explained to Sinar Premium.
He said this to comment on the surprise performance of PN and Pas which swept almost all the parliamentary seats in the states of Perlis, Kedah, Terengganu and Kelantan.
PN also created a surprise by winning many parliamentary seats in the states of Penang, Selangor and Perak in GE15.
As of 12.15am the Election Commission (EC) announced PH was leading the total Parliamentary seats obtained in GE15 with 28 seats, followed by GPS (20 seats), Pas (18 seats), PN (17 seats), BN (16 seats), GRS-BN (eight seats), DAP (four seats), Parti Warisan (two seats), Muda (one seat) Parti Bangsa Malaysia (one seat).
Charles explained that if the official results on Sunday showed no parties crossing the 112 Parliamentary seats to form a majority government, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong would normally follow the convention of the Commonwealth countries by calling the three coalitions that gained the most Parliamentary seat to allow them to discuss on forming a mixed government.
The DAP veteran hinted at the Yang di-Pertuan Agong giving a suitable period for them to negotiate however, he did not rule out the possibility that the negotiations could not be reached following the three coalitions' different ideologies and perceptions between them.
"Therefore, the second scenario of the formation of a new government that could happen was the most dominant party that was PH and PN trying to gain the support of other coalition parties to complete the number over 112 Parliamentary seats to form the government.
"If PH could win over 90 seats, the chances of the coalition to form the new government with GRS-BN or even BN in West Malaysia may be more realistic than having the support of GPS.
"However, as I explained, Muhyiddin's experience had formed a PN coalition with GPS and GRS-BN during the administration of the PN government and it was seen to give an advantage towards the coalition and the new government was announced with him returning as the prime minister for the second time.