Umno is a strong and united party today. Devoid of any leadership crisis and internal strife, the party should be able to lead the BN into the next general election beaming with confidence.

Rumours about an early general election this year have created speculation on whether BN would repeat its landslide victory in 2004 and how well prepared are the opposition parties to face the coming polls.

Analysts look back to the history of Umno to predict its level of success in the upcoming elections.

Umno will be strong enough to face any opposition onslaught as long as there is no major leadership crisis like the one prior to the 1990 general election. Umno went through a split right down the middle when Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah challenged Dr Mahathir Mohamad for the Umno presidency in 1987.

Mahathir narrowly won the contest by a mere 41-vote majority. However, several Umno members brought the case to court alleging a fraudulent election. They claimed that illegal delegates from unregistered divisions within Umno had voted in the party elections, thus making the elections null and void. This caused Umno to be declared an illegal party.

Tengku Razaleigh then created a splinter group called Parti Semangat 46 (S46) while Mahathir quickly registered a new Umno. The breakup of the original Umno divided the party into two factions and this greatly affected the party's performance in the 1990 general election.

PAS goes up and down

Umno also lost Kelantan to PAS that year. PAS had worked closely together with S46 in their Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah opposition front.

In 1998, Umno found itself embroiled in another crisis when Anwar Ibrahim was fired from the party and as deputy prime minister. This led to the creation of Parti Keadilan, helmed by Anwar's wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. Keadilan teamed up with the other opposition parties as Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front) to face the BN during the 1999 elections. Later, Keadilan merged with PRM to form a new entity, PKR.

PAS performed very well in the 1999 polls, capturing Terengganu in the process. Keadilan also captured a few seats while DAP also performed credibly.

However, the 2004 general election saw a different leader at the helm of Umno. Mahathir stepped down as prime minister and Umno president the previous year. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, then a relatively 'new broom', swept very well in the elections. The BN recaptured Terengganu from PAS and was only narrowly defeated in Kelantan. PKR was reduced to only one MP in the person of Wan Azizah.

Based on the BN's landslide victories in all five by-elections since 2004, the party is theoretically in a stable position to face the upcoming general election.

According to analysts, Umno is in fact ready to face the general election at any time. Umno is not expected to see a strong challenge from its usual nemesis, PAS as the party will most likely concentrate its resources in defending Kelantan.

The PAS government in Kelantan is in a very vulnerable position as it has only a one-seat majority. The party will want to do its utmost to increase its representation in the state legislative assembly to a more comfortable level.

Assured of 148 seats?

However, by focusing on Kelantan, the party's performance elsewhere is expected to be affected and PAS may not be able to help its allies as much as it would have wanted to.

Without strong competition from PAS, Umno will be assured of securing all its 110 parliamentary seats it won in 2004. This is almost half of the total number of 219 parliamentary seats up for grabs. Include another 38 'safe' seats from Sabah and Sarawak, Umno is assured of a total of 148 seats. This is the magic number of a two-third majority in Parliament.

BN coalition partners in the peninsula - MCA, Gerakan, MIC and PPP - are also not expected to face major obstacles in the upcoming elections. In 2004, MCA won 31 seats, Gerakan 10, MIC 9 and PPP won 1.

If the component parties are able to successfully defend two thirds of their seats, it would be enough for BN to stay in power comfortably even though it cannot achieve its current glory of 199 seats.

If the Indian Progressive Front (IPF) merger with MIC becomes a reality, the Indian parties are sure to be in a good position to face the upcoming elections.

DAP ready as well

With PAS in an uncomfortable position of having to concentrate on defending Kelantan, observers also feel that PKR would not pose much of a threat to Umno or BN.

They are saying that PKR has not really settled down yet and current withdrawals of some key figures from the party has not done the party any good. The party is also in the midst of a leadership transition with Anwar Ibrahim buying time to take over as party president from his wife.

Anwar will also need more time to pacify old party members who had alleged that they were marginalised following the entry of corporate figures into the party.

On the DAP, observers say the party will perform quite well in the coming polls given its state of readiness and no internal party strife.

However, the party's focus is on non-Malay areas and is not expected to affect Umno seats directly.

With all the speculation on the performances of political parties, analysts are now saying that the date of the coming general election is not too far off - possibly even by August this year.

Well, if politics is the art of the possible(s), the August date is not impossible.

The full four-part series