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The Final Term (Again)
By Mihar Dias October 2026
Every Malaysian politician has a favourite number, and it is always "one more term." Pakatan's final term. Perikatan's final term as Opposition. Somewhere a UMNO veteran is also announcing that this is the last time he will ever be the kingmaker, right before he becomes the kingmaker.
This week the prophet is Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor, who told a Muslim unity gathering at Stadium Sultan Muhammad IV on 23 October that Pakatan Harapan is serving its last term in Putrajaya and that after GE16, Perikatan Nasional will form the federal government. The new approach, he says, is "developing together with Islam." https://newswav.com/A2610_E3ozX0?s=A_OQumNto&language=en
Developing together with Islam. Lovely. Nobody has ever tried that in a country where Islam is the official religion, the Ministry of Religious Affairs has a budget the size of a small nation's GDP, and every incoming government announces its Islamic credentials within the first hundred days. Truly, a bold frontier.
Now, I am not here to doubt the prediction. Why would I? Prophecy is the only industry in Malaysia with zero regulatory oversight and a perfect record of never being audited. If Sanusi is right, I will happily eat my songkok. If he is wrong, he will say the timing was misread and the principle stands. Everybody wins, except the voter, who is used to it.
But here is the uncomfortable part, and I say it as one who has watched this circus from the cheap seats for decades: there is a real mood out there. The feeling is not "we love them." The feeling is "we have tried everyone else." We tried the old guard and they gave us scandals with a national flag draped over them. We tried the reformists and they gave us reform, mostly in the sense of reforming their own explanations. We tried the unity government and discovered that unity means everyone gets a seat and nobody gets blamed. So the voter shrugs and says, why not give the other lot a turn? It is not romance. It is the political equivalent of ordering the dish you have not tried because the other four made you sick.
To my non-Muslim brothers and sisters, now reaching for the panic button: put the button down. If this prediction comes true, you and I will still queue at the same mamak at midnight. We will still argue about the roti canai price and the traffic on the Federal Highway. Your lifestyle will not be repossessed on the first Monday after the swearing-in. Governments in this country change the letterhead far faster than they change the way people live. Your life is not as fragile as the speeches suggest, nor, I might add, as protected as the other side's speeches promise.
And yet, a gentle word to the optimists and pessimists alike. The reassurance that "nothing will change" is also what every government says right before something changes. Watch the budget lines, not the banners. Watch the appointments, not the sermons. Watch whether "developing together" means together, or merely developing, with a few of us invited to watch from the car park.
In the end the real prophecy is simpler than Sanusi's. Whoever governs after GE16 will promise to fix the cost of living, the corruption, the schools and the hospitals. They will fix some of them, take credit for all of them, and by 2032 someone will stand at another stadium and announce that this, finally, is their last term.
I will be there, with my songkok and my appetite, ready to eat either one.
Mihar Dias (mihardias@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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