BY now, it is clear that UMNO and Pas are cornered. Even if they have joined hands to win Cameron Highlands and Semenyih, the joint intensity of their (electoral) focus is a reflection of their common fear: both are trapped, either by the rule of law, or the encroaching long arm of the laws that will pounce on them.

On the eve of the by-election, Phar Kim Beng, a critical political analyst who got the 14th general election spot on, was wrong on Semenyih. He argued, not unfairly, that Pakatan Harapan would win. The results turned out to be the obverse.

To a large extent, the likes of such analysis are not flawed. When corruption is endemic, as it is the case in UMNO and Pas, any analyst with the right frame of mind would argue that UMNO and Pas would be severely punished by the voters. Thus, Phar Kim Beng's analysis was not so much mistaken as he was misunderstood by a Malaysian audience who insists on by-election as a barometer.

By-elections are not referendums. If they were, only those that showed a huge dip of support is the appropriate framework to suggest this frame of mind. Take the sudden death of Jamaluddin Jarjis, for instance.

When his helicopter crashed and burned, resulting in his immediate fatality, the parliamentary constituency of Rompin was up for a by-election. In the by-election in May 2015, the vote banks of UMNO and Barisan National (BN) in Rompin, Pahang collapsed by 50 %.

In the Semenyih by-election, the research of P Gunasegaran showed that the dip in Malay support for Pakatan Harapan was a mere 2 %.

According to P Gunasegaran, this does not augur well for the whole of the future General Election by 2023. Whatever Pakatan Harapan possesses now, it can tip over by a swing of 2 per cent and above into the parties of UMNO and Pas.

Of course, if Pakatan Harapan is as corrupt or bad as Barisan National under UMNO, between 2015-2018, then it goes without saying that Pakatan Harapan has loads to fear.

In the 2018 General Election on May 9, P Gunasegaran affirmed that some analysts pointed to a "swing of as high as 18 per cent". But Pakatan Harapan is a collection of parties that splintered from their mother ships.

Bersatu split from UMNO, as did Amanah from Pas. One could even say that PKR conformed to 'the former' too, as it emerged from the Reformasi of 1998.

When a party departs from the old ones, it suffers from two structural characteristics. One, it cannot completely abandon the politics of old; secondly, it cannot completely reinvent itself as a new party either.

Thus there will be issues of corruption, misgovernance and bad practices. These are things that voters do not want to see. Thus if given a choice in a by-election to choose reforms over further punitive measures, the voters may yet opt for more and more discipline, to the degree of skewing the balance of objectivity altogether.

Take Semenyih, again. Or, Cameron Highlands for that matter. Both sets of voters demand genuine reforms. Since Pakatan Harapan hasn't delivered on all fronts, due to variety of factors that include the inheriting of administration in a flux, mixed of inexperienced ministers who are more interested in flying cars etc, the voters are not afraid to go with a baleful campaign such as "Malu Apa Bossku" out of sheer spite.

Yet "Malu Apa Bossku” be it in Cameron Highlands or Semenyih, cannot be the defining national creed too. If it was, UMNO and Pas —- in their attempt to unite against the law enforcement that is against them now —- would be joining hands and celebrating the brilliance of this meme.

But they did not. UMNO and Pas, at no point, has lauded the strength or veracity of "Malu Apa Bossku". This is, precisely, because they know that their weakness is the return of law enforcement. If they go around the country with this message, MACC and the Electoral Commission, not excluding the potential Royal Commission of Inquiry on Judicial Interference, would come hammering down on them.

Thus be it Semenyih or Cameron Highlands, one should not dread of the instant prospect of UMNO and Pas uniting as one.

When the law enforcement agencies start nabbing their leaders one by one, their younger members would rise to the top. When they do, there is then the whole question of whether they can project their youthful idealism into any practical programs either.

So far neither UMNO Youth and Pas Youth have been able to showcase any ability to govern other than by sniping at the electoral manifesto of the Malaysian government.

While this can cause a dent in the vote banks of Pakatan Harapan, it cannot completely dismantle Pakatan Harapan altogether, since the latter has indeed worked very hard at fulfilling all their manifesto, only to be hampered by the lack of actual fiscal room.

All in all, UMNO and Pas looming as a collective electoral threat is not pleasant. But one should not panic too quickly or easily. Pakatan Harapan has four years to govern. Over the next four years, if high-income jobs can be provided to the Malaysian government, then there is no way with which the kleptocracy of old can return, since Datuk Seri Najib Razak's criminality and breach of trust would have been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt in all courts of law - not forgetting others of his ilk too, be them from UMNO or Pas.

* Datuk Dr Rais Hussin is the Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia chief strategist.

** The views expressed here are strictly of the author's and do not necessarily reflect that of Astro AWANI's.