DON’T you miss the days when two heavyweights – Barisan Nasional led by its chairman Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Pakatan Rakyat/Pakatan Harapan led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim/Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad traded – hammer blows?
The 1MDB financial scandal gripped the nation. The rally was a roar against corruption, demanding Najib’s resignation as prime minister and institutional reform. While Anwar remained behind bars, his Reformasi spirit loomed large as his former nemesis, Dr Mahathir, donned the iconic yellow shirt to lead a burgeoning opposition alliance through the streets of Kuala Lumpur.
That was before the 14th General Election (GE14) in 2018. After that, Pakatan delivered a knockout blow against Barisan.
Now, the ring in Malaysian politics doesn’t feature heavyweights. Instead, it offers a “stalemate of weakness”. The theory describes a specific, stagnant equilibrium where two opposing forces are so riddled with internal fractures that their capacity to threaten one another is completely neutralised.
We are witnessing a stalemate of weakness in which Pakatan and Perikatan Nasional stay upright in the political ring by leaning on each other’s instability, too exhausted to punch and too fractured to move. The two coalitions are the biggest: Pakatan won 81 parliamentary seats and Perikatan 74 in GE15, held in 2022.
In the red corner, Anwar’s Pakatan is acting as its own opposition.
In November 2025, Upko, with its two MPs, quit the coalition and its president, Datuk Ewon Benedick, resigned from the federal Cabinet in protest over the Attorney General’s Chambers’ (AGC) stance on Sabah’s 40% revenue entitlement. The withdrawal was driven by a “Sabah First” agenda ahead of the 17th Sabah Election.
Bitter internal divisions within PKR had already shaken the coalition. The Team Anwar versus Team Rafizi conflict escalated after former PKR deputy president Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli and Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad resigned from the federal Cabinet following party poll losses. Now, Team Rafizi and his bloc of roughly eight MPs are regularly sniping at the Prime Minister and PKR deputy president and Anwar’s daughter, Nurul Izzah Anwar.
The PKR civil war was laid bare during recent protests against Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief Tan Sri Azam Baki. While such street protests are usually the forte of the opposition – reminiscent of Bersih V – the “stars” of this protest were actually Rafizi and his MP loyalists attacking their own administration’s record.
Notably missing was the DAP, the party once known as the nation’s most vehement crusader against corruption. Ironically, before it was part of the government, Pakatan protested against Azam, asking him to step down and face an independent inquiry into his shareholdings.
Unlike Upko, which threw in the towel and exited the arena early, the DAP is opting for a long, lingering clinch. Having been knocked senseless in the Sabah polls – where it was swept out of all eight seats it contested – the party is no longer the aggressive power-puncher of the Pakatan corner.
Rattled and bruised, the Rocket has now signalled for a “time out,” issuing a July 12 ultimatum that looks less like a strategy and more like a search for the nearest exit. While it frames the upcoming special congress as a demand for reform, the party is essentially deciding whether to unlace its gloves and walk away from Anwar to avoid a technical knockout in GE16.
The “referendum” is a public weighing-in: stay in a losing fight for the sake of the stable, or go solo before the final bell tolls on their credibility.
It is likely DAP might go solo in GE16.
Across the canvas, the blue corner is in even worse repair. Perikatan has become an opposition with only one disciplined fighter left standing: PAS. The Islamist party remains the heavyweight anchor of the coalition, maintaining its stance even after the freak upset in which it lost Perlis to its own “sparring partner” Bersatu.
Bersatu is now the punch-drunk contender of the ring. After seeing its ranks thinned by earlier defections (when six MPs threw their support behind the PM), party president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin decided to clear his own corner rather than face the opponent. In a desperate attempt to regain control of the stool, he threw his own stablemates out of the arena. This internal purge began by disqualifying key cornermen like Tasek Gelugor MP Datuk Wan Saiful Wan Jan and Indera Mahkota MP Datuk Seri Saifuddin Abdullah, before the referee’s axe fell on the man standing directly behind him: his own deputy and Leader of the Opposition, Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin.
The party’s disciplinary board didn’t just stop the fight; it cleared the bench, ejecting Larut MP Hamzah alongside three other MPs, a move that has left Bersatu’s front bench hollowed out. The remaining camp is in a state of ringside shock, staggering towards a technical knockout. With Team Hamzah poised to take 19 MPs with him, Muhyiddin, with about six MPs, is left shadowing boxing in an empty corner, holding onto a fraction of the power he once wielded.
With the coalition unable to find a successor for Muhyiddin as chairman and PAS forced to choose between a dying party or Hamzah’s rebels, Perikatan has been too distracted to function as an opposition. Their absence from the Azam Baki protest was the ultimate proof of their paralysis.
This is the paradox of Malaysia’s current political fight.
The Madani government remains in power not through a show of strength, but because the opposition is too busy fighting itself (ie, Bersatu vs Bersatu and Perikatan vs Perikatan) to mount a challenge.
Conversely, the opposition is surviving because the government is too distracted by internal “ultimatums” and PKR sniping to deliver a finishing blow.
Both sides are locked in a static, clumsy embrace, held together by a mutual fragility. The tragedy of this stalemate of weakness is that while the two coalitions clinch to avoid falling, the country has been left stranded outside the ropes.
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