COMMENT | It's almost certain that a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Najib Razak will be tabled when Parliament re-sits on Oct 19 for its budget session.

This is in spite of speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia's captivity to BN interests.

Even one as partial to BN as he cannot ignore that when the Conference of Rulers has deigned to speak on the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) affair, the matter and its tumultuous saga cannot be quelled by a ruling that it is not of urgent and public importance.

He has to allow the motion to be tabled; the question remains as to who should table it - would-be dissidents within BN or the opposition leader.

A shrewd assessment of the prevailing situation holds that for the motion to succeed, it should be tabled by dissenters within the BN fold.

Are there such dissenters? There are, no doubt.

Or, more pertinently, are they in sufficient number to make a successful go of it?

Ostrich response not option

It is not inconceivable there is a sufficient number of dissenters to the seeming BN consensus that all's well with the 1MDB issue that the doubters would want to make common cause with opposition MPs to back a no-confidence motion against the PM.

Former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad's relentless questioning of the affair, the public revelation that the Conference of Rulers entertains misgivings about it, and incipient Bank Negara's cavils about the matter, have all combined to shift the ground from under the feet of worried BN MPs.

No doubt, the latter are fretting about the consequences to their re-election prospects of more damaging revelations about 1MDB to come and its impact at the next general election.

It would take, at this point of the saga of 1MDB, brazen optimism to hold that the issue is finished as a suppurating wound on the nation's finances and that there are no more damaging revelations to come.

Hence an ostrich-like burial of heads-in-the-sand simply won't do for concerned BN Mps.

If dissenters to the complacent BN consensus that all's well with 1MDB as the PM and his claque of supporters say include a collection that has the deputy president of Umno, a former MCA chief and the Conference of Rulers, then it's certain that fretting BN MPs will signal a willingness to make their move.

This may happen, if not just before Parliament reconvenes, then part way through its usually two-month budget session. The 2016 Budget will be tabled on October 23.

Motion best if from BN

Normally, nothing overshadows the budget session of Parliament in its claims on national attention unless it is an intrusion of volcanic gravity.

But 1MDB has been an issue that courtesy of Mahathir - aided and abetted by The Wall Street Journal , Sarawak Report and New York Times - has grown from a tremor in the distance to an issue of seismic intensity.

The matter won't go away; the statement of concern last Tuesday by the Conference of Rulers attested the gravity of the matter and the necessity of bringing it to a point where definite closure can be contemplated.

That means, of course, that Parliament will have to come to grips with the issue, which is why a no confidence motion against the PM will represent a denouement.

Once again the question will be: who should bring it to be tabled? Whose tabling has the better prospect of success, a rump of BN or the opposition leader with Pakatan Harapan in tow?

Opposition leader Dr Wan Azizah Ismail wants to discuss the move with all interested parties, but from a realistic standpoint, it's best the move come from within the BN.

Pakatan Harapan should wait and see

It's a bold person who would say such an initiative would not originate from within the BN.

Tuesday's statement from the Conference of Rulers was a dish of cold water on the pessimists.

It's tactically shrewder for Pakatan Harapan to wait until the initiative comes from the would-be rump of BN dissenters.

Let them emerge first, and from the cooperation they will ask, Harapan should pledge with just two provisos - that retired judge Hishamuddin Yunos be appointed the new Election Commission chair, and that all future appointees to the judiciary be vetted by the Bar Council.

Fulfilled, these two conditions will make Pakatan Harapan well-placed to fight Election 2018 on a playing field the most equitable that's ever been.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others.