COMMENT | Perikatan Nasional (PN) would have survived by the skin of its teeth had a vote of confidence been taken at the sitting of the Dewan Rakyat. It would have probably mustered just two or three votes more to stay in power.

Its glaring weakness was there for all to see when it removed speaker Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof and his deputy Nga Kor Ming by a mere two-vote majority (111-109). The message is clear and unequivocal: the PN government is clinging to power by its fingertips.

Like a sick patient, PN is limping on crutches supplied by its partners Umno and PAS. It hobbles here and there, not knowing when it will fall and take so hard a knock that it will not be able to rise again.

Every feeble step it takes will be painful because the long knife twisting behind its back is moving deeper and deeper into its political innards. The hands clutching the knife are many, but PN doesn't know who are these back-stabbers.

The friends-traitors could be Umno, which still cannot accept the...