LETTER | The phrase "Houston, we have a problem," is immortalised in Apollo 13. Only in this case, the problem seems to be Putrajaya.

Last night, Dr Mahathir Mohammad and Nik Omar did something equivalent to a double tap as defined by the World Wrestling Association. They delivered two speeches barely a kilometer away from the Prime Minister's Office in Putrajaya

If Najib was stuck in the fifth floor of the PMO, brainstorming over the next counter-attack, he could not have missed the sea of flash flights beaming from the smartphones of the thousands people who came from afar to listen to the duo – no doubt including many civil servants who had received cash bonuses in the not too distant past.

The message, oddly, enough, was simple. In fact, it was a repetition of what had hitherto gone viral. Nik Omar affirmed that had his late father Tok Guru Nik Aziz been alive, he would have undoubtedly supported Pakatan Harapan. The crowd went wild!

Nik Omar's justification was once again to the point, and simple: Syariah necessitates no imposition and time frame. It is a common journey destined by God for Muslims and non-Muslims to work together. Nik Omar even had an Islamic term for it - fastaburillah.

The latter implies a race towards more virtues among different groups and races, with the goal to uplift the living standards and human welfare of all, regardless of race, creed and colour.

Mahathir, being more advanced in age, could have echoed Nik Omar's message.

But he swivelled gently and still stayed on the message. As long as we remove the "crime" minister, and replace it with a new "prime" minister, Malaysia would be the new Tiger of Asia again. The crowd roared in jubilation!

Barely 24 hours after the duo's act, Mahathir kept up the punishing pace, and strategic momentum again. He announced to the world media that at 8pm on May 8, just hours before the termination of all GE14 campaign speeches, he would attempt to speak to some 10 million viewers on Facebook Live.

Since up to 85 percent of all Malaysians get their news feed on Facebook, the announcement of Mahathir is not unlike a heat seeking missile pointed directly at Umno and BN.

More importantly, it wasn't all fire and brimstone from Mahathir either. On May 3, just prior to going to Putrajaya for the rally with Nik Omar, whom many Malaysians have warmed up to, Mahathir published an open letter encouraging, and inviting, other remaining members of Umno to join Harapan.

In politics as in sports, it’s not how you start but how you finish.

Nomination day for Harapan was by all accounts a fiasco. But the campaign seems to have righted itself and now the momentum is building. Even the international media, which has been cynical on a Harapan victory for much of the last five years, is starting to read the tea leaves portending the real chance of a new government.

Between April 26 to May 4, news portals only featured two appearances from Najib, one being a live feed Facebook in Setiawangsa that seemed to feature a crowd of no larger than 1,000 people although 3,000 bags of Briyani rice were cooked and ready.

Another story had Najib calling Mahathir a "number one actor"; unaware of the famous adage of Shakespeare that "Life is all but a stage." If anything, by praising Mahathir, even if this was done sarcastically, Najib has in effect conceded the game may go to Harapan, since 90 percent of politics is indeed perception management.

Thus, if Najib wants to undo all the inertia of his lacklustre electoral campaign, he had better do it soon. As things stand, even the chief of Malaysian navy has taken the tack from Harapan by urging all his officers to vote in droves and to assure them that their vote is secret.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.