After the ruling coalition, the Barisan Nasional (BN), suffered unexpected electoral defeats in the country’s northern states on March 8 this year, Malaysia has been going stuck in political uncertainty and confusion.

Seven months down the road, it has become clear that Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s time is up, and no amount of foot-dragging on his part will help. What is still unclear is how the dominant party, UMNO, will lead the ruling coalition during this mandate period. Despite remaining the party with the most number of members of parliament, an inability to consolidate itself over the last six months has now led to a rush by second-rank leaders to push for top-level appointments.

As long as the party remains in a state of uncertainty, it cannot possibly exercise authority over its allies. None of the combinations that will configure its next top leadership guarantees party unity. Even if UMNO manages to put its act together in some fashion by March next year, when the party holds its elections, it is faced with a coalition that appears anything but united.

Admittedly, only one of the BN’s members – the Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) – has left to go its own way since the elections.  The BN still has 13 member parties in its stable.

However, there are strong indications that the remaining members do not know what political changes are required, and how quickly they need to find a new footing and reinvigorated purpose.

For one thing, by insisting on remaining within the BN, they not only limit their options radically, but also constrain their thinking fundamentally. Indeed, Abdullah is not the only one guilty of foot-dragging since the elections. UMNO and all its allies seem to be doing the same thing.

Some lessons have definitely been learned recently, such as how one should not use the Internal Security Act so flippantly as the government did last month, and how the voter revolt against the BN was not a whimsical matter. The latter was proven in the Permatang Pauh by-elections that saw opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim winning the same seat even more emphatically than his wife had done on March 8. That by-election showed that rural Malays were willing to vote even for a multiracial party, not just a Malay-centric one like UMNO, or a religion-based one like Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS).

What is also discouraging the BN is the reality that the opposition parties seem to be ruling their states effectively, showing that their inexperience is not an insurmountable hurdle.

As a rule, after a defeat in battle, one looks for signs that the enemy has overreached itself in order that one may try to regain as much lost ground as possible. Instead, after winning impressively in March, PAS, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Anwar’s Parti KeAdilan Rakyat (PKR) actually managed to get together and form the alliance of Pakatan Rakyat (PR) to directly challenge the BN’s right to rule the country.

Was that move perhaps a bridge too far for these parties? There was such hope within the BN, as UMNO quickly tried to lure members of PAS over to its side, and in the process undermine the fragile trust within the PR that had taken the three parties so much trouble to build up. That tactic failed, and the PR appeared stronger, in spite of the rumblings over PAS’ Islamic agenda.

When Anwar advanced his position one step further by claiming that he had enough defectors from the BN to topple the government, and would make his move on 16 September, a half-disbelieving BN did what it could to make things difficult for him. Parliament was recessed for the month of September, and dozens of BN backbenchers were sent off to Taiwan “to study agricultural innovations”.

As it turned out, Anwar did not topple the government that day, but nevertheless kept his finger on the BN panic button by continuing to claim that he did have the numbers, and was merely biding his time. Such a threat has been interpreted to have contributed to the UMNO supreme council decision to throw off Abdullah earlier than planned.

The sodomy charge against Anwar did indeed cause panic in the PR’s ranks. Without Anwar, the PR cannot possibly survive for long. Anwar’s counter-move was to force the Permatang Pauh by-election to be called. His alliance came out of that one smelling roses. No doubt, the sodomy charge continues to vex him, but the trial is bound to be postponed repeatedly for quite a while yet, and will drag on for some time before any verdict can be returned.

No other serious sign of discontent and disappointment has appeared to embarrass the PR enough to give the BN hope that the PR would break apart. There have been taxing events such the destruction of an Indian temple in Selangor that led to an Indian PKR leader threatening to resign, or the participation of a Malay PKR leader in the disruption of a lawful conference on Muslim conversions organised by the Malaysian Bar Council. But these have not (at least not yet in the latter case) developed into a serious threat.

The PR is acutely motivated to stick together as long as UMNO and the BN show signs of cracking up. What we are observing is not so much a chicken race where one of the two contestants has to veer to one side or risk perishing in a frontal crash. What we have instead is a pro-active waiting game. The one who is more edgy than the other is more likely to make the decisive wrong move. Making the other panic before you do, is the name of the game.