Soul searching time for BN & PR

THE results of the highly anticipated GE13 was not something either party will be happy with. Pakatan Rakyat (PR) failed in its bid to take over Putrajaya.

Meanwhile, Barisan Nasional (BN) failed to win back key states and a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

It's not exactly 2008 all over again but it is pretty close to a status quo. There are a few key differences which will force both coalitions to do some serious soul searching.

Let's start with BN. Prior to the polls, it was widely commented by political observers and analysts alike that Prime Minister Najib Razak needs to win big in order to keep his job.

Specifically, he needs to win back Selangor and also secure a two-thirds majority control of Parliament. In other words, do much better than in 2008.

If he fails to achieve these two things, he might face challenges to his position as president of Umno. Well, Selangor is still in PR's hands and BN still does not have a two-thirds majority in Parliament. Does that mean Najib's position as prime minister is doomed?

If one looks at what happened to former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi after BN's poor showing in 2008, that would be the natural conclusion. But at the end of the day, it all depends on Umno, for the president of Umno is traditionally the prime minister of the country.

Will there be internal party challenges to topple him? Or will his lieutenants and troops instead all rally behind him and help gear up for the next five years and GE14? What Umno has to decide is whether replacing Najib will improve BN's performance in the next election or will giving him the full backing to continue with his transformation programmes do the trick.

Umno's key partners in the peninsula failed to perform. MIC managed to win four federal seats, just like the last time around. It's not a great showing but it's better than MCA and Gerakan, who performed disastrously.

MCA saw its 15 parliamentary seats shrink to a mere five. Its president Chua Soi Lek had famously declared before the polls that if MCA did worse than before, as a matter of principle, MCA would not accept any positions in a BN cabinet.

If he sticks to this principle, there would be serious implications to both MCA and to BN. What would become of MCA if it's not part of the cabinet?

Any lingering relevance of influence it would have would be gone. But it's also a problem for BN for it would mean the BN cabinet would largely consist of Umno and East Malaysian parties. Is that a viable situation for a government whose slogan is 1Malaysia?

MCA needs to seriously consider its role in the coalition. In a way, its raison d'etre is already gone. If the 2008 results indicated that the Chinese had abandoned MCA, the 2013 results confirm it.

Should it transform itself into a multi-racial party instead? Or should it adopt an even more radical approach and instead of remaining a political party, become a Chinese NGO that focuses on commerce and education, for example?

Whatever the case, it can't do more of the same. It should forget about harping on hudud and warning that a vote for DAP is a vote for PAS. That simply does not work anymore. Warning Chinese voters that they would lose representation in the government if they don't vote for MCA doesn't work either. It needs to seriously think out of the box.

The same goes for Gerakan, which was completely wiped out in Penang, again. There is no hope for rejuvenation by doing more of the same. Like MCA, it needs to consider whether it should continue as a party and if so, what it needs to change in order to become relevant and appealing again.

Pakatan Rakyat parties had mixed results. DAP performed superbly, winning almost every seat it contested in. Both PKR and PAS did "so so". Both managed to wrest several seats from BN but both also lost a few to BN too. PAS however lost a state, Kedah, to BN.

In one of my pre-election commentaries, I mentioned that the most stable configuration for PR would be for DAP to have the most number of seats followed by PKR and then by PAS.

In such a scenario, DAP would be pragmatic enough to defer coalition leadership to PKR, which would be fully aware that it is not the dominant party. PAS in third place would not be able to insist on hudud. Such an optimum configuration allows for equilibrium in the coalition.

DAP has done well but its growth its limited as long as it remains a Chinese-dominated party. It needs to find a way to attract other races into the party, particularly the Malays.

This has always been a challenge for the party and it has not made much progress in that area. If it ever aspires to lead PR, it needs to be more multiracial.

PKR's Anwar has said that this would be his last election. The problem is that there is no clear successor. There is no senior party member that has his kind of gravitas or stature.

No one that both DAP and PAS can accept as their prime minister-in-waiting. His daughter, Nurul Izzah, is very popular but she is also very young. Her time will come but it won't be so soon. Its second-tier of leaders will need to step out of Anwar's shadows. It won't be easy.

In recent years, PAS saw a tussle between the hardliners and the progressives. The party is currently led by the latter but the former still wields some influence.
Notice how the hudud issue flared up right before the polls.

This is something PAS needs to sort out. Its relatively poor showing, particularly its loss of Kedah, which was run by hardliners, should indicate to the party that progressiveness, not conservatism, is the way to go. But can its leadership accept that wholeheartedly?

Oon Yeoh is a columnist for theSun and editor of the book "Tipping Points – Viewpoints on the reasons for, and impact of, the March 8 election earthquake."