Is Zahid playing a long game while Anwar looks the other way?

There is an old saying: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is a sign of madness. In politics, you reap what you sow.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has made political missteps that stretch back well before the 2022 general election. His ‘Madani’ government has paid the price in the Sabah, Johor and Negeri Sembilan state elections.

Commentators have offered many theories for Madani’s troubles. This piece argues something simpler: the mess is largely of the PM’s own making.

The roots of a deal?

The story did not begin with Umno’s push to free former prime minister Najib Razak. It began with Umno president Zahid Hamidi’s own quest to clear his corruption, criminal breach of trust and money-laundering charges.

Zahid first approached two former prime ministers, Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Mahiaddin Yasin. Both turned him down. Zahid may have also explored options with Perikatan Nasional before the 2022 general election, but no deal materialised.

Desperate and out of options, Zahid placed a calculated bet on Anwar, another man desperate to become a PM. Remember Anwar’s repeated claims, before he took office, that he had secured “a strong, formidable and convincing majority” to form a government?

The break came when no single party won an outright majority. The Agong proposed a unity government. PN refused to join, clearing the way for Pakatan Harapan and Umno – later joined by Sabah and Sarawak parties – to form the government. For both Anwar and Zahid, it was a dream come true.

Subsequent events indicate that Zahid had long planned his cards and strategy minutely well.

Anwar may have assumed Zahid would feel grateful, since Anwar’s camp did not force a recount after Zahid’s slim win in Bagan Datuk by a mere 348 votes.

Had Anwar’s ally Shamsul Iskandar, Zahid’s opponent in Bagan Datuk, pushed for a recount, Zahid could have lost his seat – and Anwar’s own path to the top post might have gone with it. As the French proverb goes: gratitude is the least of virtues, ingratitude the worst of vices.

Senior Umno figures who challenged Zahid’s pact with Anwar were swiftly sidelined. Just as swiftly, they were welcomed back once Zahid needed them to help win back Johor and Negeri Sembilan.

Building the comeback

Zahid took the deputy PM’s post. Other Umno leaders picked up senior ministries, agencies and government-linked companies.

By design or by luck, Zahid also secured the rural and regional development portfolio – which Umno would later use to rebuild support in the kampungs.

This was Anwar’s second miscalculation. Largely unnoticed by Anwar, Zahid appeared to build Umno’s return to power from within government – piece by piece, under the PM’s radar.

Anwar, meanwhile, spent a lot of his time travelling abroad, while Zahid focused on rebuilding support in rural seats.

A prime minister has access to intelligence briefings from multiple agencies, which makes it a fair question why Anwar did not act sooner on the shifts described above – if this reading of events is correct.

The masterstroke

Zahid’s next move was to clear his own name through a discharge not amounting to an acquittal after the prosecution applied to discontinue the trial. This was later followed, in January 2026, by a decision from the Attorney General’s Chambers not to pursue the charges further.

This was despite the High Court having found in 2022 that a prima facie case existed against Zahid on all 47 charges linked to Yayasan Akalbudi funds, after a lengthy trial involving numerous prosecution witnesses.

Popular belief holds that had Anwar pushed back, Barisan Nasional might have pulled its support from Madani, risking the government’s collapse. This would have opened the door to an Umno-Pas alliance – a prospect many in Pakatan Harapan dread. Anwar has repeatedly denied interfering in the attorney general’s decision, stating he only requested the attorney general to clarify the reasons behind the discharge.

Two elections, one script

With his position as Umno president secure, and the party’s rank and file back on side, Zahid played his next card: a state election in Johor, contested largely on Umno’s own terms, with an informal understanding with the opposition Pas-led Perikatan Nasional coalition.

The Electoral Commission chose not to have simultaneous state elections for both states. Citing logistical constraints and the need for training of election personnel and operational readiness, it held the Johor election on 11 July and the Negeri Sembilan poll on 1 August.

This worked in BN’s favour, letting the Umno-led coalition focus its grassroots machinery on one state at a time.

PH parties saw this as a betrayal by their federal unity government partner. The DAP found itself the target of much of the frustration.

Many voters, confused by the infighting, fell back on voting along ethnic and religious lines. They said they were tired of the PM’s familiar arguments and complaints, with little visible reform to show for them.

Umno, by contrast, offered a clearer message: stability, jobs, affordable housing, and support for young people. It landed well.

The result was telling. In the July state election, BN’s vote share in Johor rose from around 43% in 2022 to about 60% in 2026. The coalition won 48 of 56 seats, up from 40 in 2022. The MCA and the MIC also gained from BN’s wave.

PH’s share increased from roughly 26% to about 33% even as it lost seats from 12 to eight.

In Negeri Sembilan, BN won 18 seats, PH 11 and PN seven – a similar pattern, where BN’s seat count outstripped its vote share, a first-past-the-post effect.

PH won the most votes statewide – 256,386 votes (40.2%) – but only 11 of 36 seats.

BN won 18 seats with 227,067 votes (35.6%), while PN won seven seats with about 20% of the vote.

Together, the BN-PN alliance commanded around 56% of the vote and 25 seats, giving them a two-thirds majority.

Since taking office, Anwar has continued to share power Umno, a party many people in Malaysia spent six decades trying to unseat over corruption scandals.

Umno now finds itself back in a strong position within Madani.

Meanwhile, Anwar has also yet to deliver on long-standing reform promises:

• Separating the roles of prime minister and finance minister (a promise he notably broke by appointing himself finance minister)
• Splitting the attorney general and public prosecutor roles
• Reforming the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission
• Giving Parliament oversight of the Attorney General’s Chambers, the MACC and the Electoral Commission
• Repealing laws such as the Sedition Act, the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma), and other legislation that curtails free speech, including section 233(1)(a) of the Communications and Multimedia Act, which criminalises transmitting online content that is “offensive” with the “intent to annoy”
• Resolving citizenship issues – critics have pointed to the quick granting of citizenship to foreign footballers, even as ordinary applicants wait years

What the seats don’t show

It is worth noting how far BN’s seat wins outstripped its vote share.

With around 60% of the popular vote in Johor, BN might have expected around 33 seats on a proportional basis. It won 48 – a bonus of 15 seats.

PH’s 33% of votes produced only eight seats, when proportionally, it should have won around 18 seats, or even 24 seats – half of Umno’s seats.

[The seat bonus comes from Malaysia’s first-past-the-post system amplifying any vote swing into a bigger seat swing, layered on pre-existing malapportionment (uneven seat sizes) dating back to the last boundary review in 2018].

All this raises a fair question: how did Anwar, as Prime Minister, not see that coming? Some blame the departure of experienced strategists from his inner circle, replaced – critics say – by less capable advisers. Several MPs have left PKR in recent months.

This trend suggests the BN-PN alliance could go on to win Malacca and Pahang, hold Terengganu, Kelantan, Kedah and Perlis and possibly take federal power at the next general election. On this reading, PH could be left holding only three states – Penang, Perak and Selangor.

Whatever the outcome, Anwar’s legacy on this front looks troubled. While Zahid worked steadily to rebuild Umno’s base, Anwar spent much of his energy elsewhere – like Nero, it’s been said, fiddling while Rome burned.

Much of this, ultimately, traces back to choices Anwar made himself.

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