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By Mihar Dias August 2025
Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, UMNO president and Deputy Prime Minister, must have felt the heat when his own Youth Chief, Datuk Muhamad Akmal Saleh, decided to flex his populist muscles against DAP. What began as a street-level protest in Kepala Batas now risks becoming a full-blown fissure within the already brittle Unity Government.
It is telling that Zahid himself had to step in with a carefully worded reminder: keep politics and legal matters apart. https://newswav.com/A2508_gRzPua?s=A_Dcp6g4h&language=en
On paper, it is a noble appeal—let political disputes be settled politically, and legal violations handled in court. But the timing of his message betrays the real anxiety: that the Madani government’s eighteen-party coalition is hanging by more than just shared slogans.
Zahid’s statement was as much a lecture to DAP as it was to UMNO Youth. To Akmal, he is saying: stop picking fights just to look heroic in the eyes of the grassroots. To DAP, he is signalling: don’t drag police reports into the mix when political management could suffice. It’s a delicate balancing act, but one that exposes just how easily fragile alliances can unravel.
Yet, Zahid’s call for discipline and reconciliation rang hollow in parts. He peppered his speech with a local example of reconciling old foes in Pasir Salak - Tajuddin Abdul Rahman and Khairul Azwan Harun—like a father telling quarreling children to shake hands and move on.
But the national political theatre is far more combustible than village feuds. Akmal is not just any hot-blooded youth leader; he represents the party’s restive grassroots who resent UMNO’s embrace of DAP in the first place.
DAP’s response, meanwhile, was equally performative. Mobilising its youth wing to lodge police reports nationwide only fuels the impression that they too prefer confrontation over quiet diplomacy.
In the court of public perception, both sides look less like coalition partners and more like awkward housemates fighting over who left the lights on.
The bigger implication is this: Zahid knows very well that every skirmish between UMNO Youth and DAP chips away at the credibility of the Madani government.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim may preach inclusivity, but if the two main pillars of his coalition cannot stop jabbing at each other, the public will see less “unity” and more “convenience.”
As Zahid said with a quip, “look at my face—I’m also a son of Perak.” https://newswav.com/A2508_gRzPua?s=A_Dcp6g4h&language=en
A lighter note, perhaps, but it underscores his role as the reluctant mediator, forced to patch quarrels rather than push forward policy.
Therein lies the danger: when leaders spend more time fire-fighting internal drama than governing, voters eventually notice.
The Madani government was born out of necessity, not love.
Zahid’s statement reveals just how thin that glue is. If UMNO Youth keeps fanning flames for populism, and DAP insists on policing every provocation, Anwar’s “unity” will look less like a governing philosophy and more like a political hostage situation.
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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