Wong Chin Huat of Sunway University said PAS now appears ready to shift course and build a new coalition with the Reset movement led by Hamzah Zainudin, as well as Pejuang and Berjasa.

He said cooperation with Umno and Bersatu was impossible as the two parties were large enough to become significant rivals, likening the three-way dynamic to rival suitors.

“The advantage of Pejuang and Berjasa is that they are small and insignificant. As such, they are likely to accept whatever PAS offers in exchange for projecting an image of Malay-Muslim unity,” he told FMT.

Wong added that such a coalition would also free PAS from negotiating seat allocations with Bersatu, while allowing its new allies to contest against Bersatu on their own terms.

He was commenting on remarks by PAS treasurer Iskandar Abdul Samad, who suggested that a coalition comprising PAS, Pejuang, Berjasa and Reset could provide the most stable platform to advance the Malay-Muslim agenda.

However, Iskandar said such cooperation would likely face attempts to undermine it, without elaborating further.

Azmil Tayeb of Universiti Sains Malaysia said that PAS sees itself as capable of operating independently, or alongside other parties or movements, having realised that losing Bersatu would not significantly affect it.

He said this was evident during the last general election (GE15), when Bersatu was shown to be heavily dependent on PAS’s grassroots machinery to remain electorally competitive.

“It would resemble the GE14 model, where PAS worked with smaller parties like Berjasa to form the Gagasan Sejahtera coalition, yet still managed to win 18 parliamentary seats at the time,” he said.

Azmil also said Umno’s preference for contesting solo, overlapping traditional seats, and a complex political history between the parties would make any post-PN cooperation difficult.

“Parti Bersama Malaysia (Bersama), meanwhile, has a different ideology because its struggle is not rooted in Malay-Islam supremacy,” he said.