Selling prime ministerial candidate's name no longer relevant - Iskandar Fareez

KUALA LUMPUR: A coalition of political parties needs to change its approach to win the hearts of voters, no longer by just highlighting the prime ministerial candidate alone.

Director of Communications for Research for Social Advancement (REFSA) Raja Ahmad Iskandar Fareez Raja Shamsul Kamal, in saying that, added what can be done by any coalition to endear themselves to the voters is to provide a leadership of calibre that has the potential to lead the government.

That way, he said, it could help voters make a paradigm shift in making choices in the next elections.

"If we look at our Westminster Parliamentary-shaped system, even if the figure or character of the Prime Minister is very good, but if the Cabinet does not work, then his leadership will be assumed to be a failure.

"So, if we want to see how a government can be projected to move efficiently, then the composition of the Cabinet proposal itself must be strong in terms of their abilities and background," he told Astro AWANI.

He added that since the 2018 General Election (GE), the country has witnessed a rather radical change in the structure of the ruling party, compared to the Barisan Nasional (BN) era for more than 60 years.

Pakatan Harapan (PH), after winning the democratic process, has fielded a prime ministerial candidate who is not from the largest component party, namely Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who was then the chairman of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu).

During the BN era, the candidates for prime minister and deputy prime minister usually came from UMNO, making the party always dominant in formulating policies and direction of the country.

More interestingly, the Perikatan Nasional (PN) saw that UMNO no longer had great dominance and influence as the prime minister was the president of Bersatu himself, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

Commenting further, Raja Ahmad Iskandar said, the period of more than 60 years under the BN administration backed by UMNO, saw Malaysians accustomed to the hegemony dominance of a single political party.

He said all parties should be aware that there is no longer a dominant party in the government, either during the PH or PN administration.

"However, there are still many politicians who cannot accept the fact that the Malaysian political landscape has changed," he said.

Raja Ahmad Iskandar claimed that the instability of Muhyiddin's administration today was a result of the competition between Bersatu and UMNO to be the 'big brother' in the PN coalition.

This, he said, will have an impact on the form of cooperation or perhaps the 'dispute of opinion' of the two parties in the next GE.

Going forward, he said, political parties in Malaysia should realise the current political developments and rebuild the political coalition born from the spirit of cooperation instead of the dominance of the ‘big brother’.

"For the political coalition, this means that they must present a group (cohort) of efficient and capable leaders to ensure their survival.

"Diversity of talent by mixing new names with experienced personalities may be the key to attracting voters in the future," he added.