Speaking to FMT, Council of Professors fellow Jeniri Amir said Pejuang did not have enough members and was too starved of impressive leaders to benefit PN.
“In terms of leadership, there is nothing it can be proud of,” he said. “With Mukhriz Mahathir leading the party, it doesn’t have any wow factor.
“You can see what happened in the last general election (GE15). Pejuang did not only lose in every seat it contested, but all its candidates also lost their deposit.”
In GE15, Pejuang vied for 115 parliamentary and 43 state seats but none of its candidates made an impact with voters.
This included its former chairman, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who hoped to retain the Langkawi parliamentary seat he won in the previous general election (GE14) in 2018.
The former prime minister founded Pejuang after leaving Bersatu in 2020. He was joined by other Bersatu leaders, who had refused to join the Muhyiddin Yassin-led party in the move to oust the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government in February that year.
Mahathir has since left Pejuang to join Putra. Jeniri said this showed that even the founder had no confidence in the party any more.
Another analyst, James Chin of the University of Tasmania, said Pejuang’s request to join PN was part of a consistent pattern among right-wing Malay parties.
“PN is shaping to be a coalition that will be the umbrella for all the Malay and Islamic right-wing groups,” he said. “If PN accepts Pejuang, the only benefit is that it will be known as a coalition that champions Malay supremacy.”
He added that the grouping of these right-wing parties meant that Anwar Ibrahim’s unity government could not claim to have majority Malay support.
“That is why there is a form of political instability. In Malaysia, there is a belief in politics that you can’t be a stable government if you don’t have the majority Malay support.”
Chin said PN was likely Pejuang’s only choice given its slant towards extremism.
“Umno would reject it because it’s chasing after the same Malay hardline voters. Also, Mukhriz has also been fighting against Umno for a long time.”
Yesterday, Mukhriz said Pejuang’s central executive council had decided that it would apply to join PN in the belief that it was not sufficient for the party to form electoral pacts with other parties to avoid seat clashes.