Pakatan Rakyat (PR)
PKR-DAP-PAS pact born of the GE12 "political tsunami"; governed five states at its peak; collapsed 2015 over hudud, splitting into PAS (which stayed out) and the PKR-DAP-Amanah successor coalition, Pakatan Harapan.
Who was in it
In it at the end: PKR, DAP, PAS.
Party membership of a coalition changes over time. The dates behind this are the same ones the Coalition River on the home page is drawn from.
The account
If you're trying to understand Malaysian politics today, the single most important thing to know about Pakatan Rakyat is this: it is not the same coalition as today's Pakatan Harapan, even though the two names sound alike, share the word "Pakatan," and shared two of three founding parties.
PR was born in April 2008, weeks after voters delivered BN its worst result since independence — an event often called the "political tsunami" of GE12. Three parties came together:
- PKR
- Anwar Ibrahim's multiracial reformist party.
- DAP
- a secular, historically Chinese-Malaysian-based party of the centre-left.
- PAS
- an Islamist party whose long-term goal includes implementing Islamic law.
This was always an unusual marriage — a secular party and an Islamist party sharing a coalition — and it was never made official. PR was never registered as a coalition with the government; it operated purely as an agreement between three separately-registered parties, held together by a shared interest in beating BN and, from 2010, a joint policy document called the Common Policy Framework.
For a while, it worked strikingly well. PR governed five states after the 2008 election (later four, after Perak's government fell to defections in 2009).
In 2013 it won more of the popular vote than BN nationally — the first time that had happened — but won 89 of 222 parliamentary seats to BN's 133. The difference between votes and seats has been variously explained through first-past-the-post elections, constituency apportionment and boundary delineation, and disputed by reform advocates.
The coalition's end followed a dispute about PAS's hudud initiative and the parties' authority within the pact. DAP said PAS had acted without the consultation required by PR's Common Policy Framework. PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang, meanwhile, maintained that DAP could not unilaterally dissolve a three-party pact.
Around the same time, a leadership contest inside PAS removed the faction later associated with Amanah from its central leadership. By June 2015, PAS's general assembly voted to sever ties with DAP, and DAP then declared PR no longer existed. Regardless of the parties' competing accounts of responsibility, the three-party pact no longer functioned.
What happened next is the part that resolves the confusion for a new voter. The PAS politicians who had been pushed out founded a new party, Amanah, later in 2015. Then PKR, DAP, and Amanah — not PAS — came together in September 2015 to form Pakatan Harapan, PR's actual successor. PAS did not join.
So when you see PAS today positioned as an opponent of PH (allied instead with Bersatu and others in Perikatan Nasional), that is not some strange reversal or contradiction — PAS was never part of PH in the first place. It was part of PH's predecessor, PR, and that predecessor broke apart specifically because PAS and DAP could not agree on the role of Islamic law. The "opposition" of 2008–2015 and the "opposition" (or, later, government) of 2018 onward share a lineage and two overlapping parties, but they are not the same coalition, and PAS's current alignment is consistent with — not a departure from — the reason PR ended.
What the sources say
1 July 2015
Penang’s state executive council decided on 1 July 2015 to drop “Pakatan Rakyat” from the state administration’s name, and the decision was publicly announced on 2 July.
November 2011
In November 2011, PR said Kamaruddin Jaafar had submitted a new registration application after Zaid Ibrahim’s departure, while the Registrar of Societies said it had not received a new application; the available record shows a disputed later attempt, not a documented withdrawal or final determination.
PR’s core parties were PKR, DAP and PAS, but the Sarawak National Party (SNAP) also participated in the Sarawak PR arrangement in 2010–11 before leaving after the 2011 state election.
1 April 2008
Pakatan Rakyat (PR) was formed on 1 April 2008 by three parties — the People's Justice Party (PKR), the Democratic Action Party (DAP), and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) — in the aftermath of the 8 March 2008 general election (GE12), in which the opposition denied the Barisan Nasional (BN) government its two-thirds parliamentary majority for the first time since 1969.
Unlike BN, which is a registered entity, PR operated throughout its existence as an informal electoral and governing pact between three separately-registered parties. Officials submitted a formal application to Malaysia's Registrar of Societies (ROS) to register PR in November 2009, but registration was never completed; after PKR figure Zaid Ibrahim's departure from the party in November 2010, PR continued on as an informal coalition. This is a structural fact with real consequences: without a registered coalition entity, there was no formal instrument binding the three parties, and no formal process was legally required to dissolve it — which is part of why PR's 2015 end was announced by press statement (see below) rather than through any legal or institutional act.
8 March 2008
In the state elections held alongside GE12 on 8 March 2008, PR's component parties (contesting under their own or shared symbols, since PR itself was not a registered ballot entity) won control of five state governments: Kedah, Kelantan, Penang, Perak, and Selangor. In Penang, PR won 29 of 40 state assembly seats and DAP's Lim Guan Eng became Chief Minister.
In early 2009, three PR state assemblypersons (Hee Yit Foong, Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi, and Mohd Osman Mohd Jailu) declared support for BN, handing BN a working majority in the Perak state assembly without a new election. The Sultan of Perak declined the incumbent Menteri Besar Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin's request to dissolve the assembly and call fresh elections, and BN's Zambry Abdul Kadir was installed as Menteri Besar instead. Nizar contested the legitimacy of this switch in court; the Federal Court ultimately ruled on 9 February 2010 that Zambry's government was lawful. This left PR governing four states after 2009 rather than five.
19 December 2010
On 19 December 2010, at PR's Second Convention in Penang, the three component parties agreed a joint policy platform known as Buku Jingga (Orange Book), covering areas such as anti-corruption governance, a shift from race-based to needs-based affirmative action, expanded education/healthcare/housing welfare spending, phased toll removal, and higher oil royalties for Sabah and Sarawak. This was PR's closest equivalent to a common manifesto and governing framework, later invoked repeatedly by DAP and PKR as the standard PAS was accused of breaching in 2015.
Across all parliamentary contests, PR received approximately 50.87% of the popular vote against BN's approximately 47.38%, and took 89 of 222 Dewan Rakyat seats against BN's 133. This was the first time in Malaysia's history that BN failed to win the popular vote nationally, while nonetheless retaining a 133–89 seat majority and forming the federal government. An ISEAS analysis attributed the disproportion between votes and seats to the interaction of first-past-the-post elections with constituency apportionment and boundary delineation; BERSIH and opposition figures separately disputed the fairness of that outcome.
19 March 2015
On 19 March 2015, the PAS-controlled Kelantan State Legislative Assembly passed amendments to its Syariah Criminal Code II 1993, a step intended to enable implementation of hudud (Islamic criminal law) punishments in the state, an area constitutionally reserved to the federal Parliament to actually enact. DAP publicly accused PAS of tabling this without first consulting PR partners as required under the Common Policy Framework. On 6 May 2015, PAS's own internal party election ousted the party's progressive faction — including Mohamad Sabu ("Mat Sabu") and a group of allies later called the "G18" — from PAS's central leadership, strengthening the position of PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang and conservative figures within the party.
8 February 2015
On 8 February 2015, PR's Leadership Council (Majlis Pimpinan) met and agreed to hold a special meeting to resolve the hudud issue; that special meeting was scheduled for 10 May 2015. On 6 June 2015, PAS's 61st Muktamar (general assembly) passed, without debate, a motion to sever the party's ties with DAP. On 15 June 2015, DAP's Central Executive Committee met and resolved to accept the severance; on 16 June 2015, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng issued a public statement declaring "Pakatan Rakyat therefore ceases to exist". PKR president Wan Azizah Wan Ismail subsequently stated that the coalition "no longer functions formally," while expressing regret at how both PAS's and DAP's unilateral moves had been handled.
The Rocket (DAP-affiliated)dapmalaysia.orgdapmalaysia.orgLim Guan EngmStar
1 September 2015
The ousted PAS progressive faction launched a new movement, Gerakan Harapan Baru (GHB), in mid-2015; it was rebranded and formally registered as Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah), officially named on 1 September 2015 and nationally launched on 16 September 2015, with Mat Sabu as its first president. On 22 September 2015, PKR, DAP, and the newly formed Amanah jointly announced a new coalition, Pakatan Harapan (PH), as PR's successor. PAS itself did not join PH and has remained outside it since.
Where accounts differ
Why the coalition actually collapsed
No single account is uncontested; reliable sources report at least three distinct framings, each attributable to a different party (all contested — attributed characterisations, not established fact): - DAP's account: PAS, under Hadi Awang, repeatedly breached the Common Policy Framework's requirement to consult PR partners before acting unilaterally — most visibly on the Kelantan hudud enactment — and DAP characterised the push as, in part, a deliberate attempt (encouraged by UMNO/BN) to split the opposition rather than a good-faith religious commitment. - PAS's account (Hadi Awang): Hadi maintained that DAP had no unilateral right to declare PR dissolved, calling DAP's 16 June statement "a personal statement" and arguing that "one party only cannot be called Pakatan (pact)," implying PR still existed in his view even after DAP's declaration and after PAS's own Muktamar had voted to cut ties with DAP specifically. - PKR's account (Wan Azizah): PKR expressed regret at both PAS's Muktamar motion (passed "without debate") and DAP's subsequent declaration, describing both as hasty, while stating that the coalition "no longer functions formally" at the federal level — a more procedural, less blame-assigning framing than either PAS's or DAP's. - Some retrospective analyses frame the hudud dispute as the proximate trigger for a rupture whose underlying causes were older and broader — including long-standing PKR-internal tensions in Selangor and PAS's resentment at not leading the coalition despite its parliamentary weight — but such framing is interpretive scholarship rather than an uncontested account of intent.
Malay MailMalaysia Today (reporting Hadi's remarks)mStarEurasia Review
Whether "PR" persisted informally at state level after June 2015
Some contemporaneous reporting suggests PKR and DAP continued cooperating under a PR-like arrangement in Selangor and Penang state governments even after the federal-level coalition was declared over, though this is not consistently or precisely dated in sources reviewed so far.
Common questions
Which parties were in Pakatan Rakyat?
Pakatan Rakyat's core parties were PKR, DAP and PAS. It was formed by those three parties on 1 April 2008 after the general election that year. SNAP also took part in the Sarawak PR arrangement in 2010–11, before leaving after the 2011 Sarawak state election.
ISEAS – Yusof Ishak InstituteDAP MalaysiaMalaysiakini / BernamamStar
Was Pakatan Rakyat a registered coalition?
No. PR operated as an informal electoral and governing pact between separately registered parties, rather than as a registered coalition entity. Its officials applied to register it with the Registrar of Societies in November 2009, but the registration was not completed. A later registration attempt was also described differently by PR and the Registrar of Societies.
Why did Pakatan Rakyat break up?
PR stopped functioning as a three-party pact after PAS's June 2015 assembly voted to sever ties with DAP, followed by DAP's declaration that PR had ceased to exist. DAP said PAS had acted without the consultation required by the Common Policy Framework over the Kelantan hudud initiative; PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang said DAP could not unilaterally dissolve the pact. PKR criticised both moves as hasty.
dapmalaysia.orgMalay MailMalaysia Today (reporting Hadi's remarks)mStar
Is Pakatan Rakyat the same as Pakatan Harapan?
No. Pakatan Harapan was formed in September 2015 after PR's breakup by PKR, DAP and the newly formed Amanah. Amanah emerged from the PAS progressive faction that had been removed from PAS's central leadership in 2015. PAS did not join PH.
How did PR win more votes in 2013 but not form the federal government?
PR received about 50.87% of the popular vote in GE13, but it won 89 of 222 Dewan Rakyat seats; BN won 133 seats and formed the federal government. An ISEAS analysis attributed the difference between votes and seats to first-past-the-post elections, constituency apportionment and boundary delineation, while BERSIH and opposition figures disputed the fairness of the outcome.
Still open
- How long did PKR–DAP cooperation continue under the PR name in Selangor after July 2015?
- Was PR’s registration application formally withdrawn or finally determined after the disputed 2011 attempt?