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When the Smallest Brother (Bersatu) Wants Veto Power
By Mihar Dias June 2026
If Malaysian politics were a family gathering, the opposition bloc today resembles that awkward Hari Raya reunion where everyone insists they are the head of the family despite the inheritance documents saying otherwise.
The latest drama concerns who gets to announce the Opposition Leader.
Apparently, some people are upset that PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang declared Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin would continue as Opposition Leader. https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2026/06/13/hadi-says-hamzah-zainudin-to-resume-role-as-opposition-leader/223661
Now, one may agree or disagree with Hamzah. One may think he is a brilliant strategist or merely a politician surviving on sheer persistence. But the more amusing question is why certain quarters in Bersatu are behaving as if PAS needed written permission from them before making the announcement.
Politics, unlike kindergarten, is usually determined by numbers.
PAS has 43 MPs.
Parti Wawasan Negara has 19.
Bersatu has six.
Six.
That is not a typo.
In football, the team with six players does not tell the team with forty-three players who should captain the side.
Yet somehow in Malaysian opposition politics, arithmetic appears to be regarded as a colonial invention that can be ignored whenever feelings are hurt.
The loudest protests seem to come from people who have recently witnessed a sizeable migration of political talent out of Bersatu.
Like a jilted ex-partner scrolling through social media, they seem unable to accept that the relationship status has changed.
The political reversal is difficult to ignore.
For years, PAS was often accused of being the junior partner in opposition alliances. Today PAS is clearly the largest opposition bloc in Parliament, and suddenly some former allies have discovered a deep passion for constitutional theory.
Apparently, they now believe leadership announcements require consultations, negotiations, workshops, retreats, stakeholder engagement exercises, public hearings and perhaps a three-day seminar in Langkawi.
One suspects what they really mean is this:
“Why didn't you ask us first?”
That is a very different constitutional principle.
The mathematics remains stubbornly inconvenient.
Forty-three MPs versus six MPs is not a debate.
It is a population census.
Yet the reaction from some quarters resembles a multinational corporation being overruled by a neighbourhood sundry shop.
The smaller the numbers become, the larger the ego seems to grow.
It is one of the great mysteries of Malaysian politics.
Perhaps there should be a new index developed by economists:
Political Ego = 1 ÷ Number of Seats.
The fewer seats you possess, the bigger the ego becomes.
By that formula, some politicians are approaching infinity.
Meanwhile, ordinary Malaysians are probably wondering whether any of this matters.
The country faces economic challenges, rising living costs and global uncertainty.
The opposition, however, appears occupied with determining who gets to hold the remote control.
This is the political equivalent of arguing over seating arrangements on the Titanic.
What makes the episode even more entertaining is that some of the loudest objections come from individuals who are not even MPs.
Watching them debate parliamentary leadership is a bit like watching spectators at a football match demanding to decide the starting eleven.
Passion is admirable.
Voting rights are another matter.
Ultimately, the issue is simple.
In parliamentary politics, numbers matter.
The largest bloc naturally carries the greatest influence.
If PAS wants Hamzah to remain Opposition Leader and PAS possesses the largest number of opposition MPs, then that is hardly revolutionary thinking.
It is called counting.
The real question is whether certain politicians are upset about the announcement itself—or upset because it reminds them how much the opposition landscape has changed.
Sometimes the most painful political reality is not losing power.
It is discovering that everyone else has moved on.
And in politics, as in life, nothing hurts quite as much as being left out in the wilderness.
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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