GE15: New coalition to be formed if there is no winner

SHAH ALAM - Although the idea of a "unity government" formation has been rejected by Barisan Nasional (BN), Perikatan Nasional (PN) and Pakatan Harapan (PH), political analysts seem to have an different view.

In fact, they said the political blocs in the country would be forced to set aside their differences in opinion if there was no political party that managed to gain a simple majority of 112 parliamentary seats on Nov 19.

National Council of Professors senior fellow Jeniri Amir said based on the current situation, BN was expected to collaborate with PN and a coalition from Sabah and Sarawak to form a government.

"However, if BN still could not accept Bersatu, BN may be forming an alliance with Pas and the parties from Sabah and Sarawak.

“The third possibility is the cooperation between BN, PH without DAP as well as parties from Sabah and Sarawak.

"However, this collaboration is considered difficult to be implemented and out-of-the-box," he told Sinar Harian.

However, Jeniri said he was of the view that BN and Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) will not work together with PH as long as there was DAP.

He said the situation after GE15 was predicted to be an ordeal as any alliance that wanted to form a government needed to get support from parties from Sabah and Sarawak.

"Without their support, no party could form a government.

"The important thing is how the collaboration will be able to persuade and convince the parties from Sabah and Sarawak to support them.

“I'm inclined to say that the BN, Pas, Sabah, Sarawak alternative has higher chances. It's impossible that there is a party that will get a majority of 112 seats even though all coalitions claim that they are able to," he said.

Meanwhile, Universiti Teknologi Mara senior lecturer in Political Science, Dr Ariff Aizuddin Azlan said if there was no party that was able to get a majority, the alliance that will probably happen was between BN and PN or BN and PH.

However, in the context of collaboration, is will be quite difficult for BN to cooperate with PH because there were many leaders including deputy PKR president Rafizi Ramli who warned that he will prevent such collaboration.

“This is a constraint in the context of the bloc itself. I am seeing a possible collaboration between BN and PN.

"If BN does not succeed in achieving 112 seats, the coalition can look at other blocs like in Sarawak.

"In Sarawak, they remain consistent in winning seats which are quite dominant. That too is one of the possible scenarios that might happen.

"In the context of PH, it is quite impossible for PH to collaborate with BN or PN.

"For me, even if they lose, they will not be playing around with the people's mandate to form a coalition with BN or PN," he said.

Malaysia's political landscape changed after PH won GE14, thus ending BN's dominance for 60 years.

Since then, there were no more political affiliations that were dominant in Malaysia.

On March 1, 2020, the first unity government was formed as a result of an agreement between Bersatu, Pas, BN, Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (STAR).

Five months after the government’s administration, PN was formed through the collaboration of Bersatu, Pas and STAR before they were joined by Parti Maju Sabah (SAPP) and Gerakan.

The PN-led government only lasted 17 months. The country was then led by the coalition government of BN, PN, GPS and PBS on Aug 30, 2021.