.jpg)
Twenty-Two Years: A Tale of Two Resignations; Loke and Tun M
By Mihar Dias August 2026
There is a certain poetry to numbers, and DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke has just handed Malaysia a rather delicious one. Twenty-two years. That is how long Loke sat as Negeri Sembilan DAP chairman before Saturday's drubbing finally pried his fingers off the seat — the very same seat, incidentally, that voters in Chennah decided he no longer deserved after three terms. https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2026/08/04/loke-resigns-as-negeri-sembilan-dap-chairman-after-state-election-defeat-stays-on-as-party-sec-gen/230135
Twenty-two years. Where have we heard that number before?
Ah yes. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003 — twenty-two years almost to the month — a tenure that DAP, among many others in what would become the Pakatan Harapan coalition, spent the better part of two decades describing as an affront to democracy itself. Entrenchment. Cronyism. The dangers of one man calcifying into an institution. These were not fringe complaints; they were the moral spine of the reformasi-era opposition, DAP included, who built entire campaigns on the premise that no one — however capable, however electorally successful — should be allowed to outstay a healthy democracy's patience.
Somewhere in that twenty-two-year arithmetic, nobody in DAP seems to have paused and asked Loke the question they once hurled at Mahathir with such righteous fury: isn't it time to go?
Instead, the resignation came only after the voters of Negeri Sembilan did what internal party democracy apparently could not — they removed him. Loke did not step aside as a matter of principle after two decades atop a state chapter. He stepped aside because Chennah, a seat he had held for three consecutive terms, decided BN's candidate deserved it more, and the optics of clinging to a chairmanship while having just lost your own seat would have been indefensible even by Malaysian political standards.
And here is the part that should make even sympathetic readers wince: Loke did not actually resign from power. He resigned from the smaller job. As Negeri Sembilan chairman he oversees one state committee; as DAP secretary-general — the position that actually runs the party machinery nationally — he received, in the same breath as his so-called act of accountability, a unanimous vote of confidence from the CEC to stay exactly where he is. The résumé shrinks by one line. The grip on the party does not loosen by a single finger.
This is not humility. This is triage. When you can no longer defend the state chairmanship, you sacrifice the state chairmanship — and keep the crown jewel. Loke called it "a personal decision... without any pressure from anyone." Perhaps. But there is a difference between a decision made freely and a decision made because the alternative — staying on as a two-term-losing, twenty-two-year incumbent — had become politically radioactive.
None of this is to relitigate Mahathir's record, which has its own long ledger of sins and achievements that Malaysians will argue about for another generation. It is simply to note that the standard DAP once wielded like a scalpel against a strongman — twenty-two years is too long for anyone to hold power — has apparently developed a rather convenient blind spot when the twenty-two years in question belongs to one of their own.
If Loke genuinely believes, as he told reporters, that "the time has come" to step down after two decades in a post, the honest follow-up question is not about Negeri Sembilan. https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2026/08/04/loke-resigns-as-negeri-sembilan-dap-chairman-after-state-election-defeat-stays-on-as-party-sec-gen/230135
It is about the desk he still sits behind in DAP's national headquarters, drafting strategy for GE16 with the full weight of the CEC's unanimous backing. Two decades is two decades, whether it is measured in a state chapter or a Prime Minister's Office. DAP taught Malaysia that lesson once. It might not enjoy being graded on its own curriculum.
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!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.
