LETTER | Why Bersatu should now lead the opposition

LETTER | One doesn't need to be Albert Einstein to know that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The quote attributed to one of the world's foremost scientists of all time should be a lesson for Malaysia's fractured opposition post-Johor election.

The truth is that Johor is the third consecutive state election where the opposition was reduced to a pale shadow of its formidable 2018 past. During that general election, Pakatan Harapan toppled the ruling BN for the first time in 61 years and swept to power in several states.

Today, Harapan can't even muster enough support to deny BN and GPS the two-thirds majority in the state legislatures of Sarawak, Malacca and Johor. If this trend continues, it's a matter of time before Umno regains its alpha position in Malaysia's political landscape ala pre-2018.

As of now, the conversation on the opposition front is dominated by how to stop BN's advance, which could see the country regressing back to its corrupt, incompetent state, as embodied by the 1MDB scandal. The truth is nothing will change if the opposition bloc is still stuck with the current way of doing things.

It is time the opposition step up to this new crucible and make bold changes at a time when this nation is at a critical crossroad. One is to revisit existing alliances or consider forging new ones to enhance political synergy.

The country's largest opposition alliance, the Pakatan Harapan, has been hobbled by successive electoral setbacks since 2018. Ironically, the weakest link in Harapan now is its so-called lynchpin, PKR.

The party failed to win any seats in Sarawak and Malacca and took only one in Johor, where the party, for some unfathomable reason, refused to use the Harapan logo, despite being the dominant party in the alliance.

Its president, Anwar Ibrahim, is no longer the trusted reformist from yonder but regarded more as a power-hungry opportunist who would bend his principles at the drop of a hat, such as accepting "political frogs" in Malacca.

It is time PKR take a backseat in Malaysia's opposition ecosystem and do some soul-searching while allowing others to step up to the plate, as we brace for a general election that may be called in months, if not weeks.

And considering that any political alliance in Malaysia needs to be anchored by a predominantly Malay party of calibre, Harapan should consider looking up to Bersatu to fill this vacuum.

During the Johor election, it was the Bersatu-led Perikatan Nasional (PN) that garnered the top votes among the non-BN bloc. PN took 24 percent of the popular votes (334,457), followed by Harapan at 20.5 percent (284,969 votes ), while PKR, using its own logo, only had 5.9 percent (82,556 votes).

If the disparate opposition parties could get their act together in time for the 15th general election, I wouldn't put it past them to once again get rid of BN from Putrajaya. If Johor is any indication, the opposition could have denied BN from even forming the government had there been straight fights in all the seats.

Of the 1,426,573 voters who took part in the election, 826,820 (or 56.89 percent) voted against BN. Had all the opposition parties banded together, it would have won 35 of the 56 seats in the Johor assembly and went on to form the state government.

So, it doesn't take a genius like Einstein to see that the opposition is due for a major shake-up, and that includes getting PKR to sacrifice for the Malaysia we had hoped for back in 2018.