Marriage of convenience

There is no guarantee that the alliance will remain intact once the parliamentary elections are over.

The endless haggling over the sharing of the first-past-the-post (FPTP) lower house seats in the upcoming November 20 elections has been unseemly as the members of the five-party ruling alliance have put numbers before everything else. The dominant characteristic of the upcoming parliamentary elections this time is set to be a battle for numbers and not a clash of ideologies. In fact, the alliance gives one the impression of a prickle of porcupines huddled together to save themselves from external enemies, but staying far enough not to prick each other. The problem with the alliance partners is worse—they do not even belong to the same genetic group and are bound together by a common goal to garner enough parliamentary seats to form the next government.