Malaysian politics has entered a bewildering era where former bitter rivals sit together in Cabinet, only to savage each other during state election campaigns. This phenomenon—where political parties function simultaneously as partners and competitors—reveals a fundamental shift in how coalitions operate across the country. The unity government arrangement between Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Harapan exemplifies this strange new reality, where members occupy adjacent seats in federal Cabinet while their colleagues wage war at the state level, creating confusion among voters trying to understand where loyalties actually lie.
The Barisan-Pakatan partnership demonstrates the frenemy dynamic in its most acute form. At the federal level, ministers from both coalitions work side by side managing national affairs and enforcing Cabinet discipline as unified colleagues. Yet in state contests like Johor and Negri Sembilan, these same ministers emerge on campaign platforms to criticise their federal counterparts, launching fierce attacks that would be unthinkable if directed at genuine opposition rivals. This jarring contradiction has left ordinary Malaysians struggling to determine whether the partnership represents genuine cooperation or elaborate political theatre designed to confuse the electorate.
The historically volatile relationship between Umno and PAS offers another textbook example of how political necessity can overcome ideological differences. Before 2018, these two parties engaged in fierce competition for dominance within the Malay-Muslim voter base, with Umno anchoring the federal government while PAS maintained strongholds in northern states. During GE14, they fought head-to-head across numerous constituencies, each attempting to prove superior claims to represent Malay interests and Islamic principles. This raw antagonism seemed destined to persist indefinitely, reflecting deep organisational rivalries and competing visions for the Islamic state's role in Malaysian governance.
The Sheraton Move in 2020 fundamentally altered this trajectory. When that dramatic political manoeuvre dismantled the Pakatan Harapan administration, Umno and PAS unexpectedly found themselves governing together under Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, then later Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob. This forced alliance, born entirely from arithmetic necessity, demonstrated how quickly sworn adversaries can become governing partners when circumstances change. Yet the partnership remained fragile, with disputes over seat allocations and power-sharing quickly resurging as GE15 approached, prompting both parties to resume public hostilities on the campaign trail.
GE15's outcome in 2022 produced the most perplexing configuration yet. Umno, having lost that general election, joined the unity government alongside the victorious Pakatan—the very coalition that had defeated it five years earlier in GE14. Meanwhile, PAS moved to the opposition benches under the Perikatan Nasional banner. Yet this seemingly clear federal division failed to establish any lasting clarity at the state level. During the Johor state elections, PAS instructed supporters to vote for Barisan candidates in seats where PAS itself was not contesting, demonstrating willingness to defeat their federal rivals to block Pakatan's state-level ambitions. In Negri Sembilan, pragmatic electoral calculations led Barisan and Perikatan to negotiate seat arrangements designed to prevent vote-splitting that might benefit Pakatan—a striking act of cooperation between parties occupying opposite sides of the federal government-opposition divide.
This pervasive ambiguity generates legitimate confusion among voters attempting to discern authentic political positions from strategic manoeuvring. When politicians tear each other apart during campaign season but subsequently share tables in Parliament cafeterias, discussing matters over tea and laughter, the public reasonably questions whether these displays represent genuine conviction or calculated theatre. The inconsistency between formal enmity and informal collegiality undermines democratic accountability, as voters cannot confidently assess which statements reflect genuine policy positions and which represent temporary tactical posturing designed to achieve specific electoral outcomes.
Former Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad has articulated a crucial insight: Pakatan and Barisan should have explicitly established from the outset that their partnership constitutes a temporary arrangement of necessity rather than a permanent alliance. By failing to establish clear temporal and ideological boundaries, both coalitions have created cascading confusion reflected in contradictory state-level arrangements that appear to contradict federal partnerships. Voters struggle to understand whether the unity government represents a fundamental realignment or merely a transactional convenience that could dissolve suddenly if circumstances change, leaving them uncertain how to evaluate politicians' trustworthiness and parties' underlying commitments.
The Umno-PAS relationship remains particularly volatile precisely because both parties compete for identical voter demographics. Nik Nazmi observed that periodic cooperation between them invariably founders upon fundamental electoral competition—when one party perceives strength, the temptation to dominate the other becomes irresistible. GE15 starkly illustrated this dynamic, with Perikatan capturing 71 seats while Umno's representation collapsed to merely 26, a dramatic reversal that created immediate incentives for cooperation born entirely from Umno's vulnerability. Such arithmetic-driven alignments cannot provide stable foundations for long-term political arrangements, as they shift constantly in response to electoral outcomes and perceived advantage.
Bersatu now finds itself trapped in an increasingly untenable position that crystallises the broader frenemy problem. Originally designed as a vehicle for Mahathir Mohamad's political comeback, Bersatu joined Pakatan in 2017 specifically to defeat Barisan in GE14. Yet the party has never developed sufficient independent organisational capacity or voter loyalty to sustain itself as an autonomous political force. Following its migration to Perikatan, Bersatu has experienced steady marginalisation as PAS's dominance within the coalition grows, leaving the party struggling to justify its continued existence. Simultaneously, Bersatu cannot comfortably return to Pakatan without acknowledging fundamental failure, yet remaining in Perikatan offers increasingly diminishing returns as the larger party reduces it to irrelevance.
Bersatu's predicament encapsulates a broader pattern: parties align during periods of perceived vulnerability but immediately attempt to reassert dominance once conditions permit. Nik Nazmi's observation captures this dynamic perfectly—when one partner weakens, cooperation becomes attractive; when one partner strengthens, betrayal becomes tempting. This creates perpetual instability within Malaysian coalitions, as trust remains permanently suspended and strategic calculations constantly shift. The possibility that Bersatu might eventually return to Pakatan after demonstrating its inability to function independently within Perikatan illustrates how Malaysian political alignments lack genuine permanence or principled foundations.
Alternatively, Bersatu might evolve into a spoiler party, fragmenting Malay votes across multiple contestants and thereby preventing any single party from achieving the dominance required to implement coherent policy directions. Early Negri Sembilan polling suggested this trajectory, with Bersatu potentially drawing votes from both Perikatan and Barisan while achieving minimal electoral success itself. Such an outcome would reflect Malaysian politics' current fragmentation, where numerous parties survive by preventing others from achieving clarity rather than by building substantial constituencies themselves, creating governmental paralysis that prevents decisive action on substantive challenges facing the nation.
As Malaysia approaches GE16, voters must fundamentally recalibrate their expectations regarding political alignments and party behaviour. The traditional distinction between government and opposition has become meaningless when components of the governing coalition campaign more vigorously against their federal partners than against their formal opposition. Voters cannot responsibly evaluate parties' competence or trustworthiness when determining which statements represent genuine principles versus tactical positioning designed for temporary electoral advantage. This ambiguity corrodes democratic accountability, as citizens cannot confidently reward or punish parties based on promised performance.
The frenemy era ultimately reflects a political system lacking any organising principle beyond immediate tactical advantage. The old cliché that politics contains no permanent friends, only permanent interests, has become literal truth—yet Malaysian parties increasingly struggle even to identify stable interests transcending current electoral cycles. As fragmentation deepens before GE16, voters should expect continued blurring of governmental and oppositional lines, further proliferation of contradictory alliances at different governmental levels, and mounting difficulty distinguishing genuine policy disagreements from theatrical competition designed to confuse and manipulate. Malaysian democracy's credibility depends urgently upon establishing clearer principles governing coalition formation and maintenance.
