Malaysian politics has entered a bewildering new phase where former bitter enemies govern together during the week, then campaign aggressively against one another at weekends. The Barisan Nasional government sitting alongside Pakatan Harapan in the federal unity administration, while simultaneously battling it in state contests, exemplifies a phenomenon that defies traditional political categorisation: the rise of the political frenemy. These are coalitions and parties that function simultaneously as strategic partners and rivals, bound together by arithmetic necessity rather than ideological alignment or shared vision.
The term captures something fundamental about contemporary Malaysian politics. Cabinet ministers from rival parties now share conference tables and coordinate policy, yet those same individuals campaign against their governmental colleagues when state elections arrive. The Johor and Negri Sembilan elections vividly demonstrated this duality. Ministers could openly criticise fellow Cabinet members from different parties during public ceramah, then return to Putrajaya to manage portfolios together. This contradiction—cooperation at the federal level, competition at the state level—reveals how Malaysian politics has abandoned the pretence of stable, coherent alliances in favour of transaction-based arrangements.
The Umno-PAS relationship exemplifies the frenemy dynamic at its most volatile. Before 2018, these two Malay-Muslim-focused parties battled fiercely for the same electoral base, with Umno anchoring federal government and PAS controlling opposition strongholds in the north. They contested directly against each other during the 14th General Election. However, the 2020 Sheraton Move fundamentally altered this calculus. When Muhyiddin Yassin assembled his backdoor administration, Umno and PAS suddenly found themselves sharing ministerial portfolios and coalition responsibilities. Yet this partnership remained purely instrumental, governed by numerical necessity rather than trust or common purpose.
By the 15th General Election in 2022, the facade collapsed entirely. Competition over seat allocations and leadership ambitions triggered open conflict between the two parties on the campaign trail. Perikatan Nasional's decisive victory, with 71 parliamentary seats to Umno's 26, established a new hierarchy within Malay-Muslim politics. The subsequent post-election configuration placed Umno within the federal unity government alongside Pakatan, while PAS anchored the opposition through Perikatan Nasional. Yet even this ostensibly clear separation failed to create stable boundaries. In Johor state elections, PAS instructed supporters to vote for Barisan in contests where PAS was not fielding candidates, specifically to block Pakatan's advance. In Negri Sembilan, pragmatic electoral pacts emerged between Barisan and Perikatan, with both parties negotiating seat divisions to prevent vote-splitting that might benefit Pakatan.
For ordinary Malaysians observing these shifting arrangements, the confusion is understandable and justified. Political leaders who assault each other's credibility and records during campaign season smile together in parliamentary cafeterias during recess. The distinction between genuine opposition and temporary rivalry becomes impossible for voters to parse. This manufactured ambiguity serves political elites by preserving maximum flexibility, but it erodes public trust and coherence in democratic governance. When political parties refuse to commit to permanent positions or clear ideological divides, they signal to voters that principles matter less than tactical advantage.
Former Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad has offered crucial insight into this dynamic. He observed that Pakatan's fundamental error was failing to communicate from the outset that its partnership with Umno constituted a temporary, one-term marriage of convenience rather than a permanent political realignment. By establishing that boundary early and transparently, the coalition could have managed expectations and prevented the confusing ground arrangements that now plague state-level politics. Instead, the ambiguity persists, with Umno insisting on testing its independent electoral strength in state contests to satisfy grassroots expectations, knowing full well that these same leaders must return to federal Cabinet cooperation regardless of state-level outcomes.
The Umno-PAS rivalry remains particularly explosive because both parties compete for identical voter constituencies. The dramatic swing in their relative fortunes—from rough parity before 2018 to PAS's commanding 71-seat advantage after 2022—created opportunity but also resentment. As Nik Nazmi noted, the parties will perpetually clash because they pursue the same electorate. Vulnerability drives their periodic cooperation: when either party weakens, mutual interest in collaboration emerges. Conversely, when one ascends while the other declines, the stronger party gravitates toward stabbing its former ally. This pattern reflects not occasional aberration but structural feature of Malaysia's fragmented Malay-Muslim political market.
Bersatu occupies a particularly precarious position within this architecture. Originally conceived as Mahathir's vehicle for defeating Barisan in 2018, the party has struggled to establish independent relevance. Within Perikatan Nasional, it has been relegated to junior partner status as PAS dominates the coalition. Simultaneously, its former allies in Pakatan have moved on to govern alongside Umno and Barisan. Trapped between a dominant PAS that views it as expendable and a Pakatan coalition already stable without it, Bersatu faces what amounts to existential crisis. The party confronts a crowded Malay political marketplace where establishing distinct identity proves nearly impossible. Observers increasingly predict that Bersatu may eventually return to Pakatan—ironically, the coalition it originally joined in 2017—or else shrink into inconsequence as a vote-spoiling minor player.
The trajectory toward the 16th General Election will likely intensify these frenemy dynamics rather than resolve them. Malaysia's political map has become increasingly fragmented, with five major political forces (Barisan, Pakatan, Perikatan, and various independent actors) competing for space and leverage. Clear government-opposition boundaries have dissolved into a complex grid of partial alignments, state-level variations, and shifting calculations. In this environment, the cardinal principle governing political behaviour is neither ideology nor principle but naked calculation of immediate advantage. The rakyat must adjust expectations accordingly, accepting that their elected representatives operate within a fluid system where today's Cabinet partner becomes tomorrow's campaign opponent, then reverts to governmental colleague thereafter.
Understanding this frenemy era requires abandoning romantic notions about Malaysian politics. The notion that serious enemies become serious partners requires explanation, yet the explanation is depressingly simple: absent permanent ideological divides or unshakeable voter loyalty, Malaysian politicians treat alliances as temporary expedients. The Umno-PAS dynamic illustrates this perfectly. When Umno weakened and PAS ascended, cooperation followed. Should Umno recover its Malay support base at PAS's expense, conflict would resume regardless of current Cabinet arrangements. The same logic applies to Pakatan's partnership with Umno: both parties view this arrangement as temporary, deployable only so long as electoral circumstances demand it. Once voter preferences shift sufficiently to make independent governance possible, these partners will revert to rivalry without hesitation.
The implications for Malaysian democracy remain unclear but potentially troubling. Frenemies create confusing signals to voters about what parties actually stand for and what governance choices represent. They undermine accountability by allowing parties to avoid clear responsibility for outcomes. They privilege short-term tactical manoeuvring over policy coherence and long-term institution-building. Yet Malaysia's fragmented political landscape and the absence of overwhelming single-party dominance may make such arrangements inevitable. Without clear partisan majorities, coalition-building becomes necessity rather than choice, and that imperative drives the frenemy model. Whether this system ultimately strengthens democratic competition through preventing monopolistic control, or instead weakens it through encouraging cynicism and strategic incoherence, remains an open question as the nation approaches its next general election.
