Is PKR Losing Its Passion?

Murray Hunter’s recent essay on the collapse of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) reads less like speculative commentary and more like a post-mortem report. What was once Malaysia’s most potent symbol of political reform now resembles a relic from a different era — like an old Reformasi rally poster beaten in the rain, half-forgotten. 

Anwar Ibrahim’s personal odyssey from jailed dissident to prime minister was once sold as Malaysia’s great political redemption arc. It promised not just power for its protagonist, but structural reforms. Today, the party and the coalition he stitched together through royal intervention — is haemorrhaging credibility, support and belief.

 

 

The political implications of this are far-reaching. PKR was meant to be the conscience of Pakatan Harapan. It carried the burden of hope, of idealism, of unfulfilled promises. Its weakening signals not just the end of a party, but the erosion of a reform project many Malaysians hung their futures on. When PKR withers, it leaves behind a vacuum. 

 

The economic pressures — spiralling costs of living, stagnant wages, hollow job growth — only deepened public disenchantment. The government has neither the populist touch of Najib’s BR1M era nor the moral high ground of his pre-2022 campaign. What’s left is a Madani administration that speaks of inclusion while presiding over rising ethnic insecurities, legal regressions, and elite impunity.

 

The Sabah state elections later this year could be an early warning siren. Deputy president Nurul Izzah’s claim that PKR will win 13 seats rings more desperate than defiant. And if PMX’s pending legal entanglements resurface, it would add fuel to an already combustible political climate.

 

The downward spiral of PKR would also leave Pakatan Harapan badly exposed. The DAP, still solid in urban Chinese-majority seats, has little appetite to lead a multiethnic coalition alone. Amanah is too minor, and the professional-class Malay voters are unlikely to rally behind UMNO or PAS in a post-PKR scenario.

 

This is how political vacuums birth reactionary populism. If the reformasi generation leaves the field disillusioned, who takes their place? In Malaysia, where politics abhors both an honest man and an empty chair, the answer is rarely good.

 

For years, critics have argued PMX wants to be prime minister more than to govern. The events of the past year suggest they were right. Look at several instances of dithering and blundering – no CJ, no reshuffle of Cabinet or filling of vacancies; no meaningful reforms; no action on so-called “rebels”. The tragedy is that a generation’s hope for a better Malaysia may well be the collateral damage of that ambition.

 

We are, perhaps, watching a political fable unravel. The consequences will not be limited to PKR or PMX’s legacy, it will reverberate through the country’s social fabric, its economy, and frayed sense of national purpose.  Malaysia doesn’t just need a new leader. It needs a committed movement for change!

 

Reference:

Opinion: Anwar’s PKR Is Crumbling — And It Matters for All of Us, Mihar Dias, https://newswav.com, 12 July 2025