COMMENT The announcement by Selangor DAP chief Tony Pua that the party is eyeing eight seats in the state that were either contested or held by PAS at the last general election is more an attempt at grandstanding than a strategically thought-through manoeuvre.

The announcement is akin to PKR MP Hee Loy Sian’s filing of a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak before the current Budget session of Parliament - done for the mere sake of doing rather than for substantive reasons.

Hee’s motion had to be withdrawn so that Opposition Leader Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail could render the move more primacy and weight by her serving notice of intention to table the motion.

Prior consultation among the opposition parties and also within PKR could have averted for the bloc the criticism that Hee’s move was not properly mulled given its importance.

A similar jumping of the gun appears to be the case in Tony Pua’s ( photo ) declaration of DAP interest in contesting PAS seats in Selangor.

No doubt, DAP must have been stirred to come out with a response to the publicly expressed intentions from PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang, which were repeated by party veep Nik Amar Nik Abdullah, that the Islamist party will be fielding candidates in seats held by the DAP, even in the latter’s stronghold of Penang.

However, those intentions can easily be dismissed as mere bravado, for the wing of PAS from which the party will choose its contestants for the DAP-held seats - the Supporters Club - is presently a shell of its old self because most of its members have crossed over to the splinter, Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah).

In Amanah, these former members of the Supporters Club are accepted as full members, unlike in PAS where they can participate in party activity but do not enjoy the right to vote on decisions.

Not suprisingly, many of them have abandoned PAS for full membership of Amanah, and one, Hu Pang Chow, who was a founder member of the club when it was inaugurated in 2004, is now a member of Amanah’s central committee.

It’s just like Hadi and Nik Amar ( photo ) to pretend to have strength where no such prowess continues to exist.

Even if the Supporters Club were not already hollowed out by crossovers to Amanah, the wing would be hard put to furnish credible candidates to pit against the DAP.

Prior to its recent emasculation by Amanah, the club was steadily rising in numbers and public recognition of its clientele but still had some distance to go before its stauncher elements could be deemed as electable worthies.

Vacuous affectations

Hadi's and Nik Amar’s affectations as to the strength of the Supporters Club are vacuous - reason enough for the DAP to avoid tit-for-tat grandstanding by saying that they are going for PAS-held or contested seats in Selangor.

The whole issue of seat-sharing among components of the newfangled opposition coalition, Pakatan Harapan, needs to be thought through carefully and away, preferably, from the media gaze.

That way Pakatan Harapan would be is seen to be a more cohesive and credible grouping than its predecessor, Pakatan Rakyat.

The latter expired from a combination of ideological incoherence and disinclination by the upper tier of one component’s leadership to endorse coalition decisions.

Given this experience of the collapse of Pakatan Rakyat, Pakatan Harapan’s components should be wary of grandstanding and unilateralist conduct by by a component party.

It’s still two-and-a-half years to the next general election, time enough to take steadier stock of where the fluid flow of current issues are headed.

Seat sharing talks among Pakatan Harapan components can commence but ought not to be broached in public because they would give forces hostile to Pakatan Harapan room for exploitation of the give-and-take that undergird the negotiations.

Some acrimony did mar the seat-sharing talks among Pakatan Rakyat components that preceded the last general election (GE13).

It must be Pakatan Harapan’s aim to avoid any acrimony in the talks preceding GE14 which is some 30 months down the road.

One supposes some dissonance would be unavoidable, but acrimony must be avoided.

Towards that end, hasty announcements and grandstanding must be avoided like the plague.

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.