When Hadi says Bersatu is out but Samsuri says it is in: Wawasan’s balancing act gets harder by the day — Phar Kim Beng

When Hadi says Bersatu is out but Samsuri says it is in: Wawasan’s balancing act gets harder by the day — Phar Kim Beng



Summary

• The article discusses the internal contradictions within the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition in Malaysia, particularly concerning Bersatu's status and political authority among its components, especially with PAS.
• While the PN chairman claims Bersatu remains part of the coalition, conflicting statements from PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang expose competing centers of authority.
• This results in challenges for Parti Wawasan Negara as it attempts to mediate among PN, BN, and PAS.
• The issues highlight the broader complexities facing these parties in maintaining effective and cohesive political strategies.

First Published: Monday, 10 Aug 2026 10:00 AM MYT


AUGUST 10 — The latest confusion over whether Bersatu remains inside Perikatan Nasional (PN) may appear to be another episode in Malaysia’s endlessly fluid coalition politics. It is more serious than that.

PN chairman Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar’s clarification that Bersatu remains a component of PN exposes a fundamental problem of authority within the coalition: who actually decides what PN is?


This matters because PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang has repeatedly spoken as though PAS’s political divorce from Bersatu can determine Bersatu’s status in PN.


Yet the distinction between PAS terminating its cooperation with Bersatu and PN formally removing Bersatu is crucial.


Indeed, Hadi himself acknowledged in June that although PAS had ended political cooperation with Bersatu, Bersatu remained a member of PN because the coalition had not formally expelled it.


Now the contradiction has become even harder to disguise.

If the chairman of PN says Bersatu remains a component while the president of PN’s largest party suggests otherwise, this is not merely semantic confusion. It reveals competing centres of political authority.


For Parti Wawasan Negara and its president, Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin, this creates an increasingly difficult balancing act.

Wawasan has positioned itself as a bridge — first within the fractured opposition and increasingly between PN and Barisan Nasional (BN).

Hamzah even coined the term “PBN” during the Negeri Sembilan election to describe the electoral understanding between PN and BN, arguing that what mattered was their common political purpose rather than the label itself.



Parti Wawasan Negara’s president Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin



That formula worked electorally in Negeri Sembilan.

But what works in one election does not necessarily constitute a sustainable national architecture.

There are five reasons why Wawasan’s balancing role will become progressively harder.

This concern is valid as cooperation between BN and PN moves towards Malacca, potentially Perlis and eventually even the PAS heartlands of Kedah and elsewhere.

First, PN has an unresolved constitutional problem within itself.

Coalitions cannot operate indefinitely according to competing interpretations of membership.

If Bersatu has not formally withdrawn and has not been formally expelled, its status cannot simply depend on what one component president declares publicly.

Muhyiddin Yassin previously argued precisely this point: Bersatu helped establish PN and could not simply be expelled unilaterally by another component.

This creates what might be called a political cancellation culture inside PN: a component can be treated politically as though it has disappeared even when institutionally it has not.

For Wawasan, this is dangerous.

A bridge cannot be stable when nobody agrees where one side of the bridge begins.

Second, Wawasan increasingly occupies political territory once associated with Bersatu.

This is perhaps the most sensitive contradiction.

Wawasan has already been accepted as a PN component and participated directly in the Negeri Sembilan arrangement.

Yet Bersatu’s continued formal membership means PN potentially contains two political vehicles competing for substantially overlapping Malay constituencies, leadership networks and political space.

Hamzah himself emerged from Bersatu.

Thus, Wawasan cannot simply mediate between PAS and Bersatu as an entirely disinterested third party.

Its rise inevitably affects Bersatu’s political relevance.

The stronger Wawasan becomes inside PN, the more existential the question becomes for Bersatu: what exactly is Bersatu’s remaining function inside the coalition?

Third, the contradictions become much larger once BN enters the equation.

Negeri Sembilan offered favourable terrain for cooperation because both PN and BN had a powerful incentive to avoid splitting votes.

The arrangement was remarkably disciplined: BN contested 25 seats while PN fielded candidates in the remaining 11, which Hamzah himself described as a possible indication of a new political alignment.

But electoral arithmetic becomes more difficult when this model travels.

In Malacca, BN will naturally regard itself as the senior partner.

In Perlis and especially Kedah, PAS and PN have much stronger claims.

The central question then becomes unavoidable:

Who gives way to whom?

Every constituency surrendered to an ally is also a constituency in which a party sacrifices patronage, grassroots organisation, potential office and its future claim to political relevance.

Wawasan can negotiate compromises. It cannot abolish these structural interests.

Fourth, PAS and Umno ultimately compete for much of the same political market.

This is the paradox at the heart of any durable PN-BN arrangement.

PAS and Umno can cooperate against Pakatan Harapan. They can coordinate candidates.

They can share stages. They can even describe their cooperation through the language of Malay-Muslim unity.

But electoral cooperation does not erase political competition.

Both parties ultimately seek leadership of the Malay political centre of gravity.

Umno cannot indefinitely surrender Malay-majority constituencies to PAS without weakening its claim to be the principal Malay party within BN.

PAS, conversely, cannot accept permanent junior status when its organisational machinery and electoral strength give it reason to demand more.

The contradiction will become particularly acute if cooperation reaches Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu.

In such states, seat negotiations cease being merely tactical. They become questions of political survival.

Fifth, Hadi’s expansive interpretation of political authority makes Wawasan’s mediation harder, not easier.

This is where the Samsuri clarification matters most.

Samsuri is not merely another PAS leader. He is the chairman of PN.

If even the PN chairman must clarify the institutional position after statements by the PAS president, the coalition has a problem of political hierarchy.

Who has the final word — the chairman of PN, the PN Supreme Council, the presidents of the component parties, or Hadi as president of PAS?

Earlier tensions already demonstrated this difficulty. Reports in June described criticism from Bersatu figures that Hadi had effectively overridden collective PN decision-making on the opposition leadership.

This is precisely why Wawasan’s apparent success in bringing different forces together should not be confused with having resolved their contradictions.

Hamzah is an experienced political operator. Wawasan may indeed function as political adhesive between PAS, PN and BN.

The Negeri Sembilan experiment demonstrated that coordinated machinery and disciplined seat allocation can produce formidable electoral results.

Hamzah had already said during that campaign that successful cooperation could potentially be continued towards the general election.

But political glue works only when the objects being joined are structurally compatible.

At present, they are not.

PAS wants leadership of PN. Bersatu insists it remains inside PN. Wawasan is expanding into political terrain previously occupied by Bersatu.

BN wants to rebuild its own dominance. Umno cannot permanently concede the Malay heartlands to PAS.

And all of them must eventually negotiate constituencies, leadership positions and ultimately the question of who leads any future federal government.

The Samsuri-Hadi contradiction therefore says much more than whether Bersatu is technically inside or outside PN.

It exposes the deeper paradox of the emerging opposition architecture.

The further the BN-PN formula travels from Negeri Sembilan towards Malacca, Perlis, Kedah and ultimately GE16, the less sufficient electoral arithmetic will become.

Wawasan may be able to connect the competing parties.

It may even keep them sitting at the same table.

But unless PN first establishes who possesses institutional authority within its own coalition, Wawasan will increasingly be asked to reconcile the irreconcilable.

And no political bridge, however skilfully constructed, can indefinitely carry the weight of contradictions that the parties themselves refuse to resolve.