ADUN SPEAKS | There are no two ways about it - Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has clearly lost the majority.

In fact, he never had the majority from the time of the 'Sheraton Move'.

He had to camouflage the absence of majority support by going for emergency rule.

In other words, the emergency rule was more intended to shore up his embattled government than the means to stem the tide of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In fact, there is no relationship between the emergency ordinances and the need to contain the pandemic.

The Perikatan Nasional (PN) government did not have the support of the majority of the MPs, to start off with.

After more than a year, the country has come to a standstill under the weight of the myriad health and economic problems.

The vaccination process might be ramped up, but there is much left to do to get back to normalcy.

The PN under the leadership of Muhyiddin has simply lost not the majority but the mandate to govern.

I believe that too much emphasis on numbers might not be the right way to assess the PN government or the leadership of Muhyiddin.

The hasty but failed attempt to revoke the emergency ordinances - bypassing the Yang di-Pertuan Agong - illustrates the kind of government that the country has.

After the meeting with the Agung and having to swallow his pride, Muhyiddin had no choice but to set the date for the tabling of the ordinances to be revoked in a full parliamentary sitting.

Muhyiddin sought to convince the Agong that he has the majority and promising to prove it in Parliament in September.

The king is wiser this time around. Rather than be convinced of the argument of Muhyiddin, he wanted him to prove his parliamentary majority.

Whether he will be able to prove this remains doubtful. But knowing Muhyiddin, he might be able to pull a surprise in the game of narrow numbers.

Calling for immediate parliamentary sitting is simply out of question because the cunning fox knows that the majority is not there, not after the 11 Umno MPs pulled out their support.

So, Muhyiddin has one solid month to debate the emergency ordinances before their abrogation and to prove his majority. The former can be done without much difficulty but the latter is something to be watched keenly.

He needs the time simply because, in the absence of a majority, he needs the time to garner more support from the MPs who are undecided now or those who might be lured with material promises.

There might be more Umno MPs who are willing to desert Muhyiddin, but have not come out in the open.

Right now, Muhyiddin might not have the majority, but September might be a different story.

His government might not have the resources to fight the pandemic but certainly have them to buy support.

Muhyiddin thinks that the lure and temptation of financial rewards will be good enough to literally buy support.

Of course, this has been tried before, and there are no reasons why financial inducement will fail.

For Muhyiddin, hypocrisy and lies are something normal. His remark that some Umno MPs have pulled out simply because he refused to intervene in their cases before the court cannot be taken at face value.

Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s counterpoint that if he and others had become sycophants to Muhyiddin, Muhyiddin might have readily intervened to throw off their cases.

In the turbulent and mercurial politics, it is not about legitimacy or the moral dignity to govern, it boils down to the game of numbers.

Muhyiddin might be a useless leader, but by virtue of his control of the federal government and financial resources, he has the means to alter the political game.

It is not that we had great and morally upright prime ministers in the past.

Najib was ousted in the last general election due to financial scandals and the two-term prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who is desperate to come back, has completely lost all legitimacy to govern.

Muhyiddin is no better than Najib or Mahathir; it is merely the question of damage that has been inflicted on the country and its people.

Whether Muhyiddin succeeds in establishing his majority or not remains to be seen.

Sadly, it has to be admitted that he, like his predecessors Najib and Mahathir, has done colossal damage to the country at a time when there is pressing need for moral and dignified leadership.

If Muhyiddin succeeds in the numbers game in September, he will continue as the prime minister.

This will mean that the country will take a further plunge into uncertainty and despair.

RAMASAMY PALANISAMY is Perai assemblyperson and deputy chief minister II of Penang.

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