COMMENT The phenomenon of high-octane battles for parliamentary and state seats in Malaysia began in earnest at GE8 in 1990.

This feature of our electoral history was initiated by the opposition parties, DAP in particular.

Its current adviser Lim Kit Siang, as it were, owns the copyright on incursions into BN strongholds for the purpose of signalling to the overall electorate that a do-or-die battle is to take place.

Kit Siang's move to contest the Padang Kota state seat in Penang in the 1990 general election raised the stakes and heightened the drama of GE8 simply because the incumbent was the Penang Chief Minister, Dr Lim Chong Eu.

NONE As political theatre it had all the trappings of a high wire trapeze act with no net: defeat for Chong Eu would end his 21-year run as Penang CM; defeat for Kit Siang would have taken the wind out of the sails of DAP's perennial drive to wrest Penang from Gerakan, under whose electoral control the state had been since the 1969 general election.

Even without Kit Siang's brazen move, GE8 had shaped up to be a spine-tingling affair because by 1990, then-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was already four years into the controversial stage of his tumult-ridden premiership.

Deputy prime minister Musa Hitam's sudden resignation in February 1986, the Umno presidential battle of April 1987, and Salleh Abas's sacking and impeachment in May 1988 were the events that set political nerves on edge in the prelude to GE8 in October 1990.

This turbulent prelude set the stage for a possible denial of a two-thirds majority to BN by the opposition Gagasan Rakyat (People's Might) that grouped the DAP, PAS and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah's Semangat 46 in an electoral pact that threatened to divest BN of his customary parliamentary superiority.

If realised, the denial of the two-thirds majority would had been the first time since the 1969 general election (GE3) that BN and its precursor, Alliance, suffered such a setback.

It was in the context of several crises that the Mahathir administration was embroiled in that DAP's Kit Siang, sensing an opposition-favouring shift in the political winds, decided to beard the Gerakan lion in its den.

He took on Chong Eu, whose astute steering of the state government is thought well off even to this day, and although the opposition stalwart won, his compatriot, P Patto, in a comparable try at unseating MIC titan S Samy Vellu in the latter's bastion of Sungai Siput, was unsuccessful such that the saga of ‘High Noon' battles enjoys a chequered record in Malaysian electoral history.

Big guns in do-or-die battles

With GE13 rife with BN-overthrowing - as distinct from BN-shrivelling - possibility, Kit Siang's decision to move from his safe seat of Ipoh Timor to Gelang Patah in Johor is reminiscent of the brazenness that had marked his attempt in 1990 to upend Chong Eu.

Johor has long been a BN bastion, forged on an understanding between Umno, with formidable ties of sentiment to the state where the party was birthed, and MCA, a party with its links to the Chinese business community whose preference for prosperity-generating stability insures distaste for political adventurism.

This Umno-MCA symbiotic understanding has built Johor into a BN stronghold, wholly insulated from shifts in the political winds that may affect the rest of the country.

That was why the opposition could not make inroads in Johor at the March 2008 tsunami that had ravaged BN in much of the rest of Peninsular Malaysia.

It appears that Pakatan supremo Anwar Ibrahim has been stirred by Kit Siang's derring-do, enough to want to move out of his lair of Permatang Pauh in Penang to Perak or Selangor, to contest a parliamentary seat.

NONE Yesterday, at a press conference, Anwar hinted at the move but left the exact location tantalisingly vague though reports say he favoured Perak.

Although indications of an Anwar move out of Permatang Pauh have been bruited about in the last two years, the word before yesterday was that the hypothetical move would be within Penang and not outside of the state where he was born.

Nibong Tebal, on the mainland, or sometimes Bayan Baru, on the island, were the seats most frequently mentioned.

The climate of political change has deepened in the last two years to the detriment of Umno-BN such that Pakatan luminaries like PAS vice-president Husam Musa has flirted with the idea of across-state forays that seek to leverage on the ill-winds besetting the ruling coalition.

Thus Anwar is mulling Perak, while Husam is eyeing the geographic locus of the federal government: Putrajaya. This shows the extent of the confidence coursing through the veins of Pakatan.

Anwar to take on a minister?

One cannot say for sure that this gambit is not part of the one-upmanship that Pakatan celebrities may enact in the subtle game of manoeuvre that elevates one contender over the rival in the coalition's pecking order.

A few months ago, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang offered to contest against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in the latter's haven of Pekan.

The move caused a brief stir before receding into campaign trivia. Still, it was an early indication of the manoeuvring for electoral advantage that is the common coin of the political realm.

Suffice it to say that all this maneuvering is being done for the furtherance of the Pakatan goal of supplanting Umno-BN in Putrajaya, an aim that almost daily gains credence from the serial character of exposures of the ruling coalition's decrepitude.

If Anwar heads for Perak, there are six seats of the 10 allocated to PKR for GE13 available for him to contest, the remaining four being either occupied by PKR incumbents Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj (Sungai Siput) and Dr Lee Boon Chye (Gopeng), or having pre-selected candidates such as Bagan Serai (Dr Muhammed Nor Manuty) and Pasir Salak (Mustapha Kamal Ayub).

The six yet-to-be-nominated-a-candidate seats are Padang Rengas, Tambun, Bagan Datok, Lumut, Tapah and Tanjong Malim. The first four are held by cabinet ministers, three from Umno and one from MCA.

Should Anwar shift from Permatang Pauh to Perak, it would likely be to one of the minister-held wards. The Pakatan supremo has drawn large crowds at recent rallies in these constituencies. Their size bodes ills for Umno-BN.

The outsize attendance is what gives confidence that a move into Perak will electrify the Pakatan campaign to regain the state after its ouster within 11 months of its enthronement at the March 2008 polls and would tell the national electorate, especially fence-sitting voters, the hour of political change is nigh and cannot be stemmed.

This would ratchet up the ‘high noon' tension in which GE13 is already steeped and sharpen the do-or-die option that some Pakatan luminaries, like Kit Siang, and now, apparently, Anwar are moving towards.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.