The public break between Anwar and Rafizi exposes that the so-called reformist project by PKR died in government, leaving BN the only party offering coherence.
The latest split in PKR should surprise no one who has been watching the party since 2018.
On Sunday (17 May 2026), Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli and Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad announced they are quitting PKR, vacating their parliamentary seats.
The duo declared taking over Parti Bersama Malaysia (Bersama) as their new political vehicle.
Six other PKR MPs appeared alongside them at the launch. More may follow.
The split is personal as well as political. Rafizi’s resignation is effectively a break with Prime Minister and PKR President Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the man he once helped bring back to power.
The PKR Strategist
For years Rafizi was seen as Anwar’s strategist and heir apparent.
Rafizi’s departure, alongside Nik Nazmi, signals that the working relationship at the heart of PKR has collapsed.
When the former deputy president publicly says the party has abandoned its purpose, it undermines Anwar’s authority directly.
What is striking is not that two former ministers have left, but the reasons they gave for leaving.
Both argued that PKR has abandoned the very principles it was founded upon.
For a party that built its brand on integrity, accountability and institutional reform, that is a damning indictment from within when it comes from two men who were, until recently, at the heart of PKR’s leadership.
Rafizi was deputy president and economy minister. Nik Nazmi was vice-president and minister for natural resources and environmental sustainability.
If even they no longer believe in PKR’s direction, why should the public?
The End Of The Reformist Pretence
When Pakatan Harapan (PH) won in 2018, it did so on the promise of a “New Malaysia”.
Eight years on, the language remains, but the practice has changed.
Rafizi and Nik Nazmi have been the most consistent internal critics of that shift.
Since losing their party posts in May 2025, they have warned that PKR is increasingly reliant on fear-based narratives and elite bargaining rather than structural change.
Their decision to leave, and to frame it as a return to “basics”, confirms what many voters already suspect: the reformist agenda has been shelved in favour of staying in power.
This is not simply about personalities or internal party elections.
It is about whether PKR still has a coherent purpose beyond managing the status quo.
The evidence suggests it does not.
A Coalition Held Together by Convenience
PH today is less a political movement than an arrangement held together by Anwar’s premiership.
Remove the glue of his leadership, and the contradictions between PKR, DAP, Amanah and Umno/Barisan Nasional (BN) become impossible to ignore.
PKR, DAP and Amanah govern alongside Umno, a party they once vowed to replace.
The ideological contradictions are obvious, and they are becoming harder to paper over.
The creation of Bersama under Rafizi and Nik Nazmi is a direct response to that contradiction.
They argue that the reformist space cannot be occupied by a coalition that has absorbed the very practices it once condemned.
Whether Bersama succeeds electorally is a separate question.
What matters is that it exposes PKR’s central weakness: it no longer represents a clear alternative.
For BN, this moment is an opportunity to restate what it stands for.
BN’s record is not without fault, but it has always been a coalition built on stability, continuity and a clear federal structure.
Voters know what BN is. They know its constituent parties, its track record in government, and its approach to national unity and economic management.
In contrast, PH now looks like a collection of factions with no shared direction.
The Cost Of Political Fragmentation
The immediate parliamentary impact of these resignations is limited.
PH retains a comfortable majority in the Dewan Rakyat, and the Speaker will decide whether by-elections are called in Pandan and Setiawangsa.
But the longer-term risk is fragmentation of the political centre.
If more PKR MPs follow suit, PH will be hollowed out.
That would leave the coalition weaker, more dependent on its partners, and less able to set policy.
For voters, it means more instability and more horse-trading after the next general election.
BN has always argued that Malaysia needs a government with the mandate and discipline to make difficult decisions.
Reform cannot be delivered by a coalition that spends its time managing internal dissent and negotiating with partners who have fundamentally different objectives.
What This Means For GE16
The next general election will be fought on trust as much as on policy.
Can voters trust PH to deliver reform when its own coalition leaders say it has abandoned that path?
Can they trust a new party built around two former ministers to build a national platform from scratch?
Or will they look back to the coalition that, for all its flaws, provided decades of political and economic stability?
BN should not assume that PH’s problems translate automatically into BN gains. It should recognise that the political ground is shifting.
Many Malaysians who supported PH in 2018 are now disillusioned.
They are looking for a platform that is consistent, experienced and not defined by infighting.
BN has that platform. It has the machinery, the local presence and the record in government.
What BN needs now is the discipline to present a clear, forward-looking agenda that speaks to those disillusioned voters without indulging in the same blame politics that has paralysed PH.
The Bottom Line
The departure of Rafizi and Nik Nazmi is not just another PKR internal crisis.
It is a public break with Anwar and a public admission that the reformist project within PH has failed.
BN’s role is not to gloat, but to offer a credible alternative. Stability, national unity and pragmatic governance are not outdated ideas.
In a political environment defined by fracture and uncertainty, they are precisely what many Malaysians are looking for again.
If BN can articulate that message clearly and avoid the distractions of personality politics, GE16 will be a contest between a leadership that has lost its original purpose and one that remembers why it was built in the first place. – NMH
The writer is the Vice-president of Parti Cinta Malaysia and a commentator on governance and public policy. The views expressed are his own.
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