Anwar’s coalition is fracturing – and the Islamist opposition is waiting

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is facing a hot summer – his well-respected former economy minister has quit his People’s Justice Party (PKR) while cracks are appearing with a major coalition partner.

The friction has led Anwar to publicly float the idea of snap elections (Opens in new window) before the current term ends in February 2028.

“If this is the way we are slandered and fractious in the government, maybe we should choose to hold elections for the whole country?” Anwar said on 17 May at the national convention of his ruling coalition, known as Pakatan Harapan (PH).

His comments came in the wake of the biggest splintering in Anwar’s own party, when Rafizi Ramli, 49, who once served as Anwar’s economy minister and PKR’s deputy president, announced he was quitting the party and resigning his parliamentary seat. Rafizi was joined by another party stalwart, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, the former minister of natural resources and environmental sustainability.

Rafizi, a chartered accountant and engineer who graduated in the United Kingdom, said he was taking over a little-known party named Parti Bersama Malaysia (Bersama) which was established in 2016 in Penang and was handed to him without “asking for a single cent”, according to Rafizi (Opens in new window).

He described his move as a “kamikaze mission” to save voters – particularly younger citizens – from being forced to choose “the best among the bad”. He claimedBersama’s membership has since surpassed 20,000.

Rafizi has gravitas among reform-minded Malaysians. Bersama could take votes away from PKR’s traditional supporters in urban areas where significant numbers are disappointed with Anwar’s government’s unfulfilled promises on reforms.

Last week, a veteran MP Hassan Abdul Karim painted a grim picture of the future for the PKR, describing the party as “wounded, injured, severely battered, and losing a lot of blood”.

Rafizi is also seen as a “fighter”. He has faced threats and intimidation for his activism on several high-profile corruption cases, including leaking details of an audit report on the Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal which earned him (Opens in new window) an 18-month jail term in 2016, later set aside (Opens in new window) by the Court of Appeal in favour of a two-year good behaviour bond. In August 2025, his 12-year-old son was attacked and stabbed (Opens in new window) with a syringe containing an unknown substance by two men at a shopping centre, while his wife was also threatened with menacing phone messages. Rafizi blamed opponents to his anti-corruption efforts.

But for all the headaches that Rafizi’s Bersama party could pose for Anwar, the PM’s biggest challenge comes from the opposition Islamist Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS).

At the last election in 2022, PAS won the most seats – 43 in the 222-seat parliament (Opens in new window). Anwar’s PKR secured 31 seats and he became prime minister only after forming a coalition with multiple parties – the Democratic Action Party (DAP), Barisan Nasional (BN), Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) and Amanah.

PAS, whose goal is to replace Malaysia’s democratic system with shariah law, is unified and free from internal strife. The party’s stronghold, which traditionally lies in the east coast states of Kelantan and Terengganu, has now expanded to Kedah and Perlis states.

In a sign of PAS’ rising influence, foreign dignitaries and Western diplomats have been making courtesy calls to the party’s officials. Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Hsien Loong last month paid a working visit (Opens in new window) to the PAS-controlled Terengganu state and met with its chief minister Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar, in what Loong described as “deepening our relationship (Opens in new window)”. Samsuri is a PAS vice president whose name has been floated as a possible prime ministerial candidate from the party.

Malaysia’s changing demography also strengthens PAS as Malay voters become more conservative. Merdeka Centre polling in recent years has shown increasing numbers (Opens in new window) of Muslim youths agree the Quran should replace the country’s constitution – in 2022, the figure was 82% of 1,200 Muslim youths surveyed, up from 72% in 2010.

All this makes the outcome of the next general election difficult to predict – regardless of when parliament might be dissolved. It does appear likely that PAS with its Islamist agenda will play a much bigger role in government, perhaps as part of a ruling coalition. That’s an outcome which foreign investors – having poured billions of dollars into Malaysia in recent years to build up the semiconductor industry and data centres – must contemplate.