Pakatan Harapan


Pakatan Harapan is an opposition political coalition in Malaysia, a successor to Pakatan Rakyat . It was the ruling coalition of Malaysia from May 2018 to its fall in February 2020 for less than 2 years. It was established in September 2015 as the Opposition to the then-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition that had ruled the country since independence. The coalition is allied with the Sabah Heritage Party and the United Progressive Kinabalu Organisation in the state of Sabah. At the state level, the coalition is the largest party in five of thirteen state legislative assemblies and forms the government in the states of Penang, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, and Sabah. Pakatan Harapan also forms a government with a two-thirds majority in the states of Penang and Selangor.
The coalition was formed on 22 September 2015, consisting of the Democratic Action Party, People's Justice Party, National Trust Party and Malaysian United Indigenous Party. The coalition was formed as an alliance of centre-left to centre-right parties to contest the 2018 Malaysian general election. The coalition contested the election under the logo of a component party, the People's Justice Party, due to inability to register as an official coalition.
After the 2018 general elections, Pakatan Harapan chairman Mahathir Mohamad was appointed Prime Minister of Malaysia while its president, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, was appointed Deputy Prime Minister. Mahathir Mohamad became the first prime minister from Pakatan Harapan, and the first prime minister to have tenures with two different parties.
On 24 February 2020, Mahathir resigned as Prime Minister. Malaysian United Indigenous Party and 10 MPs from People's Justice Party subsequently withdrew from the Pakatan Harapan coalition, depriving the government of its majority in Parliament.

History

Formation

Pakatan Harapan is a direct successor to the three-party Pakatan Rakyat coalition that consisted of the People's Justice Party, the Democratic Action Party and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party. Pakatan Harapan was founded on 22 September 2015, two years after the 2013 general election, due to disagreements and conflicts between PAS and DAP mainly regarding the issue of the implementation of the sharia law, resulting in PAS splitting off from Pakatan Rakyat and the break-up of the coalition on 16 June 2015. The dissolution resulted in the formation of a new coalition named Pakatan Harapan, consisting the former Pakatan Rakyat parties, PKR and DAP, and a PAS split-off party, the National Trust Party.
On 12 November 2016, a United Malays National Organisation split-off party, the Malaysian United Indigenous Party, founded and led by former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, confirmed that the party was committed to joining the opposition bloc Pakatan Harapan. Later, on 13 December, the party formed an electoral pact with Pakatan Harapan, and finally on 14 March 2017, BERSATU officially joined Pakatan Harapan as a member party.

2018 general election

On 14 July 2017, the Presidential council line-up was confirmed. A common logo was also introduced with the word “Harapan” with the “A” shaped as a chevron in white on a red background. The logo was initially planned to be used by all participating candidates for the 2018 general election, but the use of the logo and registration of the coalition was denied by the Election Commission. To pursue the coalition's plan to contest under a common logo, Pakatan announced that the PKR logo will be used by all component parties of the coalition as its election symbol in the elections, excluding for DAP who chose to contest under their own party flag in Sabah and Sarawak.
The coalition secured an electoral pact with the Sabah-based Sabah Heritage Party for the 2018 general election. WARISAN's president, Shafie Apdal, promised that the party would be represented on the federal cabinet if the coalition came to power, adding that through the electoral pact they will only co-operate with Pakatan as an ally, and not joining the pact as a component party since they will only contest in Sabah, not in Peninsular Malaysia. Following the victory of Pakatan Harapan and WARISAN in the general election, the United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation announced that they have left Barisan Nasional and will form a new Sabah state government with WARISAN and Pakatan Harapan. UPKO and WARISAN are currently both the allies for Pakatan Harapan since both parties are also allied towards each others in Sabah.
At the state level, due to 2018 general election results that the coalition forms the government in the states of Kedah, Penang, Perak, Selangor, Melaka Negeri Sembilan, Johor and Sabah. Pakatan Harapan also forms a government with a two-thirds majority in the states of Penang, Selangor and Johor.

Post-election

On 16 May 2018, the coalition was officially registered.
On 24 February 2020, Mahathir resigned as the Prime Minister. PPBM, which had 26 MPs, withdrew from the ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition. In addition, 11 MPs from PKR resigned from the party to form an independent bloc. This leaves Pakatan Harapan 37 seats short of the 112 seats needed to form a government. The surprise announcement came amid speculation that Mahathir was attempting to form a new ruling coalition that would exclude his designated successor Anwar Ibrahim. However, Anwar later clarified to reporters that Mahathir did not orchestrate the act.
At the state level, Pakatan Harapan lost control of Johor, Melaka, Kedah and Perak. A few PKR, DAP and AMANAH representatives in the state legislative assemblies quit their party and expressed support for the new government Perikatan Nasional in those four states.

Member parties, allied parties and strategic partners

Leadership structure

Dewan Negara (Senate)

Senators

Members of Parliament of the 14th Malaysian Parliament

Pakatan Harapan has 103 members in the House of Representatives.

Dewan Undangan Negeri (State Legislative Assembly)

General election results

State election results


Pakatan Harapan state governments