Hishammudin's increasingly desperate campaign . Ali Rustam plays the spoiller

Readers may have been alerted to DSHH's appearance in one of the Wanita UMNO gathering in Johor picked up blogger Another Brick in Wall over here.



I think its unmistakable that Dato Seri Sharizat was wanting nothing to do with DSHH. The body language is unmistakable, and what's worse, this form of interjection into Wanita UMNO politics may backfire spectacularly for DSHH.

First, this reveals a couple of things. Number one, Sharizat does not like DSHH and thinks that DSHH is a goner. After all she was trying as hard as she could not to be associated with DSHH and for DSHH to go quite 'low' in trying to rub shoulders with Kak Jat makes him lose a lot of prestige.

Obviously, she sees him as carrying too much political baggage.  Nobody wants to be associated with the 'ugly boy' of politics and DSHH is right now the person nobody wants to be seen with.

Contrast this with Dato Seri Zahid Hamidi's recent appearance with the WP delegates at the now infamous event which featured Tengku Adnan's call for the delegates to maintain status quo. The Home Minister was completely at ease with his surroundings, and basically displayed something which DSHH lacks which is confidence.

So the smart money is for DSZH to win one of the 3 posts. That leaves two posts left to be contested between the other five contenders. Mathematically, the odds are now of 40% success.

We can perhaps narrow this down with some further analysis. According to the rules, this will be a winner takes all votes for each state - something like the Democratic party convention nomination system. We can firmly say that DSZH will win in Perak, will win in NS, will appear as part of the winning trio  in WP, will win in Selangor, will win in Penang, will win in Pahang, and will appear as part of the winning trio in Kedah. So that is 7 , mathematically enough for him to be assured to be part of the winning trio.

As for Mukhriz, he will win in Kedah, will win in WP, will win in Penang, will get the nominations from Selangor.  Ali Rustam will win in Melaka.

We know that Hishammudin will not be part of the winning trio in any of the areas which suffers from the crime epidemic. On top of that, he also suffers from areas where there is a strong contender because game theory postulates that the decision will go down for them not to elect Hisham since he is the weakest.

Mathematically, it goes like this. There are 2 slots left for grabs. Voting Zahid Hamidi is a no-brainer, because he is assured of getting one of the 3. So lets say in place like Sabah, the smart thing to do is vote Shafie, vote Zahid Hamidi and vote the weakest person in the third. That means voting Ali Rustam or Isa. In Kedah, the same thing will work as well - vote Mukhriz, vote Zahid Hamidi, and vote the weakest. In Perak, that is where it will be interesting. Given the bad blood between the races and DSHH's perceived weakness, he will just be ignored. In WP and Selangor, the same thing, vote Mukhriz, vote Zahid Hamidi and then split the vote between perhaps Shafie or Ali Rustam.

In Melaka, this is where Ali Rustam's grassroots needs to see whether he can pull off what he needs to do. It must be Ali Rustam, Zahid Hamidi and then club a deal with Mukhriz. Say to Mukhriz, if you vote for me in Kedah, I will deliver Melaka.

In either way, it may now be almost impossible to save DSHH's career. If he is down and out,and so is Isa - who is considered as not seriously offering any threat, then the choice narrows to to Shafie Apdal, Mukhriz and Ali Rustam for the last 3.