As expected, Kedah Menteri Besar Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor has emerged as the first name to be publicly floated as PAS’s preferred replacement for Muhyiddin Yassin as chairman of Perikatan Nasional (PN). The signalling has now become explicit: PAS ulama council chief Ahmad Yahaya has openly given his blessing for Sanusi to assume the role.
In a Facebook post, Ahmad said many within the party had proposed Sanusi—who is also PAS’s election director—as Muhyiddin’s successor. When contacted, he went further, describing Sanusi as a leader “feared by rivals”, politically astute, approachable, and capable of attracting youth voters, whom he described as the “kingmakers” of the next general election.
On paper, this endorsement appears significant. In PAS, the ulama council’s approval and endorsement is important and meaningful. To the least, it is a deliberate act of political signalling, meant to shape internal momentum and test public reaction. But precisely because of this, Sanusi’s elevation should be read with caution.
If I were a betting man, I would still wager that after a period of promotion and praise, Sanusi’s name will be quietly dropped before a final decision is made.
The reason has little to do with Sanusi’s personal qualities, many of which even his critics would concede. Rather, it lies in one decisive structural weakness: under Sanusi’s leadership, the opposition coalition is unlikely to win more than it already has.
Sanusi can energise the base. He can sharpen rhetoric. He can make the opposition fight harder and fiercer. But none of this necessarily translates into expanding PN’s support. And if fighting harder does not yield additional victories, then the entire exercise becomes politically futile. What is the point of greater intensity if it produces no extra gains?
This distinction matters because PAS’s dissatisfaction with Muhyiddin was not merely about leadership style or charisma. The core grievance was that Muhyiddin failed to win. He lost repeatedly—and, worse, appeared incapable of mounting a convincing fight.
Having now forced Muhyiddin to vacate the PN chairmanship on Dec 30, PAS’s overriding objective should be to find someone who can reverse that trend. The next leader must not only mobilise the opposition to fight, but mobilise it to fight to win.
Sanusi’s limitation is precisely here. He excels at rallying supporters to fight for the sake of fighting. But the harder and fiercer that fight becomes under his leadership, the less likely it is that new supporters will be drawn in. His confrontational appeal consolidates existing backing rather than expanding it.
This is why claims that Sanusi is “feared by rivals” or popular among youth, while not necessarily untrue, are politically incomplete. Fear does not equal electability. Visibility does not automatically convert into broader acceptance. A leader who can fight and win is one whose intensity enlarges the coalition’s reach, not one who hardens its boundaries.
Another name that may soon be floated is Terengganu Menteri Besar Dr Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar. Unlike Sanusi, Dr Samsuri potentially offers a different dynamic: the possibility that the opposition’s support base could grow the more disciplined and issue-focused its campaign becomes. Yet doubts remain over whether he possesses either the temperament or the inclination to rally the opposition aggressively enough to capitalise on that potential.
There is also a deeper issue that neither Sanusi nor Dr Samsuri can escape. If either were to lead PN, real authority would almost certainly rest with PAS’s clerical elite—the Hadi Awangs and the Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Mans—rather than with the nominal chairman himself.
To the wider electorate, this risks projecting an “Iran-style” leadership model: a civilian figure at the front, with unelected religious authorities exercising decisive influence behind the scenes. Such a structure is unlikely to appeal not only to non-Malays and the bumiputera communities of Sabah and Sarawak, but even to a substantial segment of Malay voters.
PAS may be the largest party within PN, but size alone does not confer leadership viability. Much like DAP within the ruling coalition, PAS faces a structural constraint: if it dominates the coalition, the coalition cannot win.
The irony is that PAS and DAP, despite being ideologically opposed, share the same strategic weakness. Both are off-centre parties that command intense loyalty from a narrow base while provoking resistance beyond it.
Core PAS and core DAP supporters—often highly ideological Malays and Chinese respectively—likely constitute no more than a small fraction of their broader communities. On their own, such parties may secure 20 to 30 per cent of their respective identity groups, while alienating the remaining majority with rigid and exclusionary political narratives.
Coalitions mitigate this weakness. When PAS partners with Bersatu, or when DAP partners with PKR, the combination pulls the alliance toward the political centre. This broadens appeal, making the coalition palatable not only to a wider segment of the dominant identity group, but also to voters outside it.
But once PAS or DAP is perceived to dominate rather than balance the coalition, the effect reverses. Instead of being pulled toward the centre, the coalition is dragged away from it—shrinking its appeal and repelling voters who do not share the dominant party’s ideological outlook.
This is why PAS cannot afford to dominate PN if it hopes to win federal power. And if PAS installs one of its own—Sanusi or Dr Samsuri—as PN chairman while also remaining the largest party controlling the most states, domination becomes inevitable.
That would render Muhyiddin’s removal self-defeating.
PAS toppled Muhyiddin because he could not win. If it now replaces him with a leader who also cannot expand PN’s electoral reach, the unavoidable question arises: why go through all that trouble in the first place?
Why replace a leader who cannot win with another who also cannot?
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