Introduction
UMNO’s recent successes at the state elections have stirred anxiety in Perikatan Nasional (PN). Despite initially working together to cease control from Pakatan Harapan (PH) in 2020, UMNO has refused to continue being a part of the PN coalition and instead chose to continue with the Barisan Nasional (BN). PN and PH’s limited success in both the 2021 Malacca state election and 2022 Johor state election, thus, signifies the need for a new strategy in the upcoming 15th General Election. Notably, a cooperation between both coalitions could improve their chances to counter UMNO’s dominance. However, why is such a cooperation improbable?
The Beginning of PN’s Quagmire
Rumours are ripe in Malaysia that the 15th General Election (GE15) would be held by the end of 2022 despite Parliament’s mandate to do so by September 2023. Among the reasons for this call for election is the failed bid by ex-premier Najib Razak to overturn his 2020 conviction for abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering. With other UMNO leaders such as Zahid Hamidi and Bung Mokhtar facing court cases themselves, there have been resounding calls within UMNO to pressure Prime Minister Ismail Sabri to dissolve the Parliament and call for early elections. A faction in UMNO famously known as the ‘court cluster’ prefers to have the election soon as they believe BN is in a stronger position and thus would be able to regain parliamentary majority without having to cooperate with PN. Conversely, Ismail Sabri stated that he would prefer to continue with the various reform agenda that was agreed in the Memorandum of Understanding with the opposition before dissolving parliament and to wait for the littoral combat ship (LCS) scandal to evanesce from public discourse. Of course, as a less influential leader within UMNO, Ismail Sabri is trying to stay as prime minister for as long as he could. Previously, UMNO had tried to placate him by promising to support Ismail Sabri as BN’s prime minister candidate in GE15. However, Ismail’s reluctance to interfere in Najib’s appeal has rendered his position almost untenable. While the official party narrative in UMNO is to regain stability for the country, there has been no doubt that the party wishes to regain control of national institutions as they had done in the first 61 years of Malaysia’s history. Additionally, Ismail Sabri has indicated that the tabling of the 2023 budget would be brought forth to early October 2022, further fuelling rumours that election is imminent.
As UMNO tries to reclaim its supposed traditional hold on power, PN has found itself in a quagmire of their own doing. This difficult position faced by PN is akin to the classic prisoner’s dilemma.
Prisoner’s dilemma is a common example within game theory that demonstrates why two perfectly rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears to be in their best interests. Since betraying a partner yields greater reward than cooperating with them (on condition the partner keeps silent), all purely rational self-interested prisoners will betray the other.
In the 2020 Sheraton Move, it could be deduced that those who defected from PH were acting rationally as their payoff was greater relative to those who were left behind in the then-ruling coalition. Those who left the PH government were rewarded with opportunities to be a part of the government that succeeded PH. This was made possible with the backing of UMNO and BN. PH, for choosing to stick to its principle, was quickly relegated to its former position as the opposition within government. Anwar Ibrahim, leader of PH, claimed to know of support by 15 UMNO members for him to become prime minister as revealed by former UMNO Supreme Member, Tajuddin Abdul Razak. However, Anwar said that his reluctance to interfere in Najib and Zahid’s court cases costed him the chance to become prime minister.
Irrational for both PN and PH to Cooperate
There are a few versions of the prisoner’s dilemma and one of them is the iterated variant. In a repeated game, players may be less eager to cooperate if their counterpart has not cooperated, resulting in dissatisfaction and a worse outcome.
This has impeded PN from cooperating with PH in the next general election. After the recent state elections, PN has sought to again work together with PH in the name of securing the country from falling into the hands of UMNO warlords once again. While Muhyiddin Yassin led this call, PKR defector Azmin Ali seemingly chose to prioritize the economy over politics. Such efforts were needed when UMNO had clearly ruled out any possible cooperation with PN beyond the current composition of the federal government. With no ally on its side, PN increased its call for the people to abandon UMNO. While the narrative of saving Malaysia from UMNO appears to resonate with urbanites, rural Malaysia continues to view UMNO and BN specifically as the best coalition to provide development as that was their lived experience for decades prior.
What Muhyiddin Yassin, PN chairman, was seeking is the best possible outcome of the prisoner’s dilemma when both prisoners within the game cooperate by keeping silent instead of confessing to their crime. In prisoner’s dilemma, the best outcome for both prisoners would be to not admit to the crime, but if one of them defects, the defector would be set free while the other prisoner would serve a longer jail sentence. Without knowing what the other person would do, the rational choice is always to defect. The dilemma is that if both defect, they would be worse off than if they had cooperated. But for both players to cooperate successfully, they need to hedge on their partner keeping to their end of the agreement. This is where their past defection will come to haunt them. A rational player such as PH, taking past precedence into consideration, is less incentivised to trust Muhyiddin Yassin and PN. It would be noble of PH to trust PN but irrational. Therefore, based on game theory, Rafizi Ramli of PKR is right not to accept PN or even Mahathir’s newly formed Gerakan Tanah Air (GTA) as partners in the next election. It may also be irrational for PH to cooperate with MUDA despite the latter being ready to do so. This is considering the newly established youth party’s refusal to be an official component of PH. Without such commitment, the possibility for the party to defect from this cooperation could be too much for PH to stomach.
Further preventing such cooperation is the refusal of several members of the PN coalition to cooperate with PH. PAS, for example, has clearly stated its refusal to work with PH. To prevent the risk of these members exiting PN, any calls for cooperation with PH is all but dead. Despite both PN and PH likely to be at the losing end in the next general election, it would be the most rational choice for them.
Beyond Game Theory?
Of course, political coalitions are not merely based on game theory. Political players are, after all, more than numbers and formula. Though unlikely, PH may be swayed by Duverger’s law going into GE15. According to this law, a plural electoral system would most likely produce a two-party system. If votes continue to be split three-ways, there would be a lot of wasted votes and those elected into power may not represent the majority. Based on previous state elections, the winner would most likely be BN in GE15. Questions remain as to 1) whether the possibility of such an outcome compel both PN and PH to irrationally cooperate, and 2) how stable would such cooperation be?
