True to its name, Pakatan Harapan has so far offered us only hope. Until last Saturday, it was a pale, wavering hope, not enough to give us a reason to vote for it.

It is easy to trumpet slogans about hope and change, but as Barack Obama has found out, talk is cheap and change takes a lot more than just wishful thinking. And soon Pakatan will face an election that is sure to be the most hotly contested of all time. Already, it faces an increasingly polarised society, it faces political chicanery, and it faces its own internal conflicts.

But truly, the root of the problem was that Pakatan Rakyat, its predecessor never really stood on a unified platform with one message and one agenda. It was a marriage of convenience that offered the possibility of more political power than an individual party could have garnered on its own, and like all such marriages, it fell apart due to the lack of a unified front.

For all its unpopularity, Barisan Nasional has not yet failed to present a united front on most things. But with Pakatan, its “agree to disagree” policy always meant that there was going to be friction as the ideological opposites within the coalition collide.

If it doesn’t address the lack of a unified, thoroughly vetted direction for the coalition, Pakatan Harapan will end up dead like its predecessor. The infighting within Pakatan Rakyat soured many voters on the coalition itself, not just PAS.

That’s why the agreement reached last Saturday between the three parties of the coalition is a huge step forward. Knowing that the new coalition is handling the situation in a mature manner is a reassuring factor for beleaguered opposition supporters who saw former establishment figures like Mahathir Mohamad come to represent the unhappiness of the people as Pakatan fought with itself.

The framework of this agreement must hold each of the three components as equal to each other as well, or else we risk a repeat of PR’s fate. There can no longer be the notion that any one party is more important and more “right” than the others. If such a perception is allowed, it will become a weakness as Pakatan Harapan’s enemies seek to plant doubts about the viability of this coalition.

Pakatan Harapan has a lot to prove. Whichever party or coalition leads the country after GE14 will face tremendous challenges in the form of rising national debt, a depreciating currency, and a global economic slowdown that may embroil parts of the world in deep recession. If Pakatan hopes to convince Malaysians that it’s capable of meeting those challenges, the agreement is only the first step forward.

Hope, if backed by positive moves, can sometimes be a reason to keep fighting on.