Kongzi (孔夫子) or even Ma Huan (马欢) and the other Ming era (明朝) government officials might have sworn, the Malays and Chinese are such natural allies. Sadly, that has not happened. Instead, grievances were before invented and this, below, is the result.
Table 1: Dewan Rakyat as at March 2008, votes in millions, “outcome” is guessing on seats, 112 seats to win
| Votes | % of total | Seats | A outcome | B outcome | |
| Barisan Nasional | 4.1 | 50.3 | 140 | ||
| Peninsula-BN | 84 | ||||
| Umno-All seats | 2.4 | 29.3 | 79 | <70 | <84 |
| Sabah-BN | 26 | ||||
| Sarawak-BN | 30 | ||||
| Pakatan Rakyat | 3.8 | 46.7 | 82 | ||
| PKR | 1.5 | 18.6 | 31 | 42 | 42 |
| PAS | 1.1 | 14.0 | 23 | 27 | 13 |
| DAP | 1.1 | 13.8 | 28 | 39 | 39 |
| Sabah | 11 | 11 | |||
| Sarawak | 20 | 20 |
Table 2: Dewan Rakyat seat strength – how PAS-Umno unity looks like, past, present and future (112 seats to unite)
| Seats | 1986 | 1995 | 1999 | 2004 | 2008 | 2012/13 |
| PAS | 01 | ? | 27 | 7 | 23 | 27 |
| Umno | ? | 89 | 71 | 109 | 79 | 75 |
| Total | 98 | 116 | 102 | 102 |
Notes to Table 1:
A outcome = Scenario A, 2012/13 election outcome, conjecture.
B outcome = Scenario B, 2012/13 election outcome, conjecture.
Notes to Table 2:
The 2012/13 figures are pure conjectures.
Without comments, the above tables point to the conclusions as follows:
- A federal government of only PAS and Umno, with no other Barisan Nasional partner, is an arithmetic possibility. (See Table 2, 2004 column.)
- With 1.1 million votes in 2008, the popular vote for PAS was 14 percent of total, close to the 15 percent in 2004 (7 seats), in 1999 (27 seats) and, possibly, in other previous elections as well.
- Without getting more votes, PAS got more seats in 2008 than in 2004, evidence that Umno’s loss is PAS gain and vice-versa. In each election season that PAS has more seats, these came following dissensions within Umno (1999 and 2008) and not because PAS is intrinsically the bigger draw of the two Malay parties. This also means they contest the same electorate.
- Unlike the Barisan that hinges on one large party (Umno), while each of the multiple small parties can do little to bring it down, the Pakatan Rakyat parliamentary set-up is vulnerable to destabilization.
- Unlike the present situation in which some PAS members are for defection (“unity government”) to Umno and others are not, an electoral change in the relative strength of PAS in the future either increases or decreases its likelihood of defection. There is no standing still.
- If Pakatan is to neutralise the effect of PAS defecting, then it has to deal with two out of several future electoral outcomes. (a) Seat gains by PAS require the other Pakatan members to substantially increase their individual shares from the 2008 numbers to produce the 112-seat parliamentary majority (Table 1, A outcome). (b) Paradoxically, seat losses by PAS require the same aggregate number of other Pakatan seats (Table 1, B outcome), a situation that calls on Pakatan (ex PAS) to go for the same high seat targets (as in A outcome), without encroaching into PAS territories.
- Once PAS and Umno are joined, the PAS mullahs would access enormous power by the back door what they couldn’t, for 30 years, gain through the front door. The mullahs (Hadi Awang for example), by definition and reason for existence, are not democrats and don’t want to be. Theocratic rule would supervise democratic bodies; Iran offers PAS such a model but, there, the women in particular reject the iron-fist of theocracy so that one of the earliest targets of PAS is the group Sisters-in-Islam (SIS). Umno’s policies (NEP) have less reason to be dismantled, and it sees how PAS is in fact strengthening those policies in Kedah and Kelantan, never mind if ordinary Malays suffer as a result. Note, finally, that PAS never calls for upholding the Federal Constitution.
