By Pook Ah Lek, Sin Chew Daily

PM Muhyiddin's effort to combat the coronavirus outbreak has been commendable, but unfortunately this alone is not going to assure him he can always keep his PM seat, nor his party PPBM remains solid as ever.

While fighting the virus, he is also trying to rope in more elected reps, Indeed, there are too many political frogs constantly making noise in the midst, totally unprincipled, dishonorable and morally depraved.

Tun M is not going to be left out as he is prowling to make a comeback soon. The thing is, how many people will place their trust on this old man again, save for Pakatan Harapan? To seize the lost power, PH will still opt to dance with the devil, knowing very well he could hardly be trusted.

Anwar seems to have somewhat changed in recent weeks. He has started to get tough with Mahathir, having refused to meet him on several occasions and absented himself from press conferences he chaired. Party insiders say Anwar's tolerance for Mahathir has been stretched to a limit and he is not going to submit himself to the old man any more.

We all know that Anwar's attitude will sooner or later soften for the sake of power. Expectedly, the two men met again before long. On June 10, Mahathir made a personal call at PKR headquarters to attend the PH meeting to discuss the PM candidate if PH++ gets to rule again.

The PM post is the only palpable barrier standing in the way of PH–Mahathir cooperation. We have yet to see whether Anwar will make himself a fool once again.

Given the current political chaos in the country, political frogs have become a tradable commodity. Both Mahathir and PH are racing against time to get elected reps on their side while seizing any available opportunity to talk the 18 GPS MPs into joining them, which will significantly boost their chances of returning to power.

Mahathir's son Mukhriz has claimed that PH will form a new government before the parliamentary sitting resumes in July. Both PN and PH claim they have the numbers.

The numbers are, in reality, no longer important, as frogs can hop from one side to another and statutory declarations can be signed carelessly. Mahathir has said the numbers keep appearing and disappearing and he just doesn't know whether he has the numbers!

Indeed, power will make one crazy, and once the sweet taste of power is savored, it will stay etched in the mind and be grabbed back at all costs if lost. In order to grab the power, many politicians have forgotten that the power entrusted to them actually comes from the rakyat, who are their real bosses. When power is at hand, they become arrogant and would indiscriminately abuse that power.

Mahathir is now working very hard to recapture that power from the hands of Muhyiddin. In addition to getting more MPs to support him, he also challenges Muhyiddin in the court over the termination of party membership of him and four others. He insists he is still the party's legitimate chairman.

Muhyiddin not only needs to put up a good show in combating the virus, he also has tons of political challenges to face. To consolidate PPBM's position in the ruling coalition, he has proposed to register PN as a formal alliance, but that does not seem to work out quite nicely.

Majority of PPBM leaders and members were from Umno, both parties sharing very identical DNA. No one can tell for sure MPs defecting to PPBM post-GE14 will not go back to Umno one day. Which side will these people stand if a snap election is called soon, or if Muhyiddin's administration would last until the next general election is due?

There were as many as 46 parliamentary seats that saw three-cornered fights among Umno, PAS and PPBM in GE14. Of these seats, PPBM only won ten while Umno and PAS took 30 and six respectively.

It will be inconceivable for Muhyiddin to get Umno to hand over these seats to his party, and pro-Mahathir former education minister Maszlee Malik is skeptical PPBM can even retain the existing ten seats.

The fundamental support bases of these three parties are all Malay-dominant constituencies. Once the Parliament is dissolved, all these parties will be operating on their own. Neither Umno nor PAS is going to negotiate seat allocation with you!

Muhyiddin was unlucky enough to have assumed the PM post at a time the country's coronavirus outbreak was on the verge of an explosive growth. And with the virus now somewhat under control, he has to muster all his energy to tackle the siege from PH and Mahathir.

Mahathir has never absented himself from the Malaysian governments during the past four decades. Save for his 22 years as prime minister, he also made himself visible during Abdullah's and Najib's administrations. He took out Abdullah to install Najib, and then took out the latter to become PM himself, again.

This February, his rushy resignation killed the PH administration, and he was then fighting to get reinstated. He will not call it a day until Muhyiddin—the unpresumable eighth prime minister who betrayed and unseated him—is taken out of office.

Mahathir still has the clout, and is now making advances towards becoming the country's ninth prime minister, another world record indeed! But, can we still look to him to deliver another miracle?