Kuala Lampur, Aug. 3 -- One of the greatest mistakes any political coalition can make after an election is to confuse the popular vote with political power.

The two are related, but they are not the same.

Pakatan Harapan (PH) should therefore resist any temptation to console itself solely with winning the popular vote if it loses strategic control of state legislatures or, eventually, Parliament. Malaysia has seen this story before.

In the 2008 general election, the then opposition won a remarkable share of the popular vote and denied Barisan Nasional (BN) its long-standing two-thirds parliamentary majority. It was a political earthquake.

Yet despite the moral momentum and electoral enthusiasm, the opposition did not form the federal ...