Most Malaysians lamented the loss of democracy and clean elections in the country at the recent general election. With BN winning 133 parliament seats, these people's hope for Pakatan Rakyat to form the government was dashed.

It is good to know that Pakatan can still manage to win the popular vote even though they had to labour under these trying and unfavourable circumstances.

Limited resources, biasness of mainstream media, advertorial attacks and scare tactics, and alleged fraudulent practices on election day itself can hardly be called favourable.

However it is never too late for the Pakatan and the 51 percent of the Malaysians (those who have voted in favour of Pakatan in GE13) to realise that there can be a sure victory for them in GE14.

But something has to be done now and this is the defragmentation of the Pakatan coalition and the building up of the Pakatan brand.
Being under the leadership of three key leaders; Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Guan Eng and Abdul Hadi Awang, Pakatan is in fact a fragmented opposition pact. It is high time these three parties move together under one banner and create a prominent brand to take on the ‘dacing' of Barisan Nasional in GE14.

That brand must be created now and strengthened during the next five years.

Currently, it can be confusing and agonising for a great number of people to come to terms with having to vote for a candidate from another party in the coalition.

For example, where a PAS supporter has to put a cross against the rocket symbol, and a DAP supporter has to put a cross against the moon symbol or the ‘eye' symbol of PKR.

Through this branding exercise, the overlapping of fielding candidates from Pakatan parties can also be eliminated; recently there were many cases of the fielding of candidates from two Pakatan parties for the same seat.

This is really unnecessary ‘friendly fire' that can diminish the Pakatan's opportunity.

In this process of defragmentation, Pakatan will need to incorporate other ethnic groups from Sabah and Sarawak to ensure that ‘split' votes will not happen and spoil the day.