Coalitions vs parties vs pacts
Registered coalitions, electoral pacts, component parties - the PN/PH confusion killer.
The short answer
Think of Malaysian politics less like a fixed list of teams and more like football clubs that occasionally merge, split, or form temporary tournament alliances. Three terms matter:
- Party
- a club (UMNO, DAP, PAS, PKR, Bersatu) with its own membership, elections, and constitution, registered on its own with the Registrar of Societies (RoS).
- Coalition
- a formally registered league table that clubs join together under one badge, one manifesto, and, crucially, one legal identity that can contest elections and hold power.
- Pact
- looser still: a handshake agreement between clubs to cooperate on specific things (usually not contesting against each other, sometimes a shared political platform) without merging into one legal entity.
This distinction matters for a very concrete reason: Article 49A concerns an MP’s relationship with the political party under whose ticket the MP was elected. A change in cooperation between parties is not automatically the same thing as an MP changing party.
Malaysia has national and state-rooted coalitions whose memberships and electoral arrangements can change between elections.
- PH
- comprises PKR, DAP and Amanah.
- BN’s current components
- UMNO, MCA, MIC, PBRS and PPP.
- GPS and GRS
- Sarawak- and Sabah-rooted coalitions respectively.
PN needs special care: as at 14 August 2026, Bersatu’s membership was disputed by the parties themselves, so voters should check an election’s candidate list and logo rather than assume an older PN roster remains settled.
The July–August 2026 state elections illustrate why this distinction matters.
- Johor, 11 July
- official results recorded BN winning 48 seats and PH eight.
- Negeri Sembilan, 1 August
- Bersatu contested 24 seats under its own logo while PAS-led PN and BN had an electoral arrangement.
These election-specific arrangements do not by themselves resolve PN’s legal membership dispute.
Here's why the "PN vs PH" question confuses so many new voters: today's line-ups are the product of three big divorces.
- PAS
- spent years allied with DAP and PKR inside Pakatan Rakyat, split from them in 2015 over hudud, and later contested GE15 as a major PN party, opposite its former partners.
- Bersatu
- helped PH win power in 2018; then in February 2020 walked out in the "Sheraton Move," toppling the PH government it had just helped elect, and co-founded PN as PH's rival within days.
- UMNO and BN
- in the strangest twist, spent GE15 in November 2022 campaigning against both PH and PN, only to join Anwar's PH-led unity government less than a week after the votes were counted, becoming coalition partners with the party they'd just run against.
None of this means the parties are unprincipled or that any side is "worse": alliances that cut across older rivalries have formed, dissolved and re-formed in every direction, and the pages here record them without ranking them.
Knowing the difference between a registered coalition (which carries legal weight for defection rules), a component party (which keeps its own identity inside that coalition), and an informal pact (a handshake with no RoS registration, like Muafakat Nasional) is the single fastest way to stop being confused by Malaysian political headlines.
| Coalition | Current component parties | Since (coalition formed/registered) | |---|---|---| | Pakatan Harapan (PH) | PKR, DAP, Amanah | Formed 22 Sep 2015; RoS-registered 16 May 2018 | | Perikatan Nasional (PN) | Bersatu’s membership is disputed; do not treat a component list as settled | RoS-registered 7 Aug 2020; membership dispute recorded above | | Barisan Nasional (BN) | UMNO, MCA, MIC, PBRS, PPP | Alliance renamed BN 1973–74 | | Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) | PBB, SUPP, PRS, PDP | Formed 12 Jun 2018 | | Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) | PGRS, PBS, STAR, SAPP, LDP, UPKO, others | Formed 2020; UPKO joined 18 Jun 2026 | | Muafakat Nasional (MN) — pact, not a registered coalition | UMNO, PAS (2019–c.2022, largely defunct) | Charter signed 14 Sep 2019 |
What the sources say
The three legal/organisational tiers
Under Malaysian law, every political party must register as a "political association" with the Registrar of Societies (RoS) under the Societies Act 1966. Political parties automatically enjoy national status once registered.
A registered coalition is itself a political association: for example, RoS registered Perikatan Nasional as Parti Perikatan Nasional in August 2020. An electoral pact is cooperation between separately registered parties and need not itself be a registered political association.
Article 49A of the Federal Constitution provides for a Dewan Rakyat seat to become vacant in specified circumstances when an MP elected as a member of a political party leaves that party, or when an independent joins one. The constitutional definition of “political party” includes a coalition of political parties. It does not make every change in cooperation between parties equivalent to an MP changing party.
Pakatan Rakyat (2008–2015), the precursor to today's opposition alignment, was never registered with RoS as a coalition — it operated as an informal pact between PKR, DAP and PAS.
Pakatan Harapan (PH) applied for RoS registration in July 2017 and was formally approved as a registered coalition on 16 May 2018 — after years of delay partly attributed to disputes over PPBM's (Bersatu's) status.
Perikatan Nasional (PN) was registered with RoS as "Parti Perikatan Nasional" (certificate PPM-019-14-07082020) under the political category, approved and coming into force on 7 August 2020, and RoS confirmed this in September 2020 after some PKR figures disputed it.
Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) was formed 12 June 2018 by four former BN-Sarawak parties and was registered by RoS, becoming a legal entity around 19–23 August/November 2018.
An electoral pact / charter, by contrast, is a cooperation agreement between parties that keeps their separate identities and does not need RoS registration as a single entity. Muafakat Nasional (MN) — the UMNO–PAS unity charter signed 14 September 2019, framed around Malay-Muslim solidarity ("perpaduan ummah") — is the clearest example: UMNO and PAS agreed in October 2020 to pursue formal registration, but this never materialised, and MN was never registered as a political entity. It is now widely regarded as defunct after PAS aligned with Bersatu inside PN for GE15.
Current coalition composition (as of 14 August 2026)
Pakatan Harapan (PH)
PKR, DAP, Amanah are the current component parties. UPKO (Sabah) had formally joined PH in August 2021 and contested under PH in GE15 (2022) and the 2025 Sabah state election, but UPKO quit PH in November 2025, citing disagreements with national PH partners over Sabah's constitutional rights (including the 40% revenue entitlement under the Malaysia Agreement 1963), and formally joined the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) as its sixth component party on 18 June 2026.
Perikatan Nasional (PN)
Bersatu’s status is openly disputed. PAS ended political cooperation with Bersatu on 8 June. On 17 July, Muhyiddin said Bersatu would form a new coalition with Putra, Urimai and other IPR parties, and maintained that PN’s constitution requires the consensus of all members to remove a component. Hadi’s 7 August position was that Bersatu was “automatically out.” These are competing party readings.
Barisan Nasional (BN) founded as the Alliance Party's successor, originally built around UMNO, MCA and MIC (MIC having joined the earlier Alliance in 1954). UMNO's official party history records that component parties met on 17 January 1974 to work out the Barisan Nasional concept and that BN was officially registered on 1 June 1974. Current BN components (2026) are UMNO, MCA, MIC, Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS), and the People's Progressive Party (PPP), which was formally re-admitted as a BN component party on 21 January 2026.
Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) four parties — Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), Sarawak United Peoples' Party (SUPP), Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), and Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) — all former BN-Sarawak components, formed GPS on 12 June 2018 and registered as an independent coalition later that year.
Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) formed in 2020 around the 16th Sabah state election, initially bringing together PN, BN, Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and allied local parties under Hajiji Noor as Chief Minister. By 2026 its components had reshuffled around Sabah-based parties: Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah (PGRS), Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (STAR), Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), Parti Harapan Rakyat Sabah, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and — as of 18 June 2026 — UPKO as the sixth/ninth listed component depending on count (sources vary on whether inactive parties like USNO and PCS are counted).
The three membership changes that cause the most confusion
1. PAS was in the multi-ethnic opposition pact Pakatan Rakyat (with PKR and DAP) until it split from DAP in 2015 over ideological differences, including PAS’s push for hudud. Pakatan Rakyat then dissolved; PKR, DAP and Amanah formed Pakatan Harapan later that year. PAS did not join PH, and MUDA was not a PH founder. 2. Bersatu (then PPBM) was a founding member of Pakatan Harapan for GE14 (2018) and helped it win government, then left PH in the "Sheraton Move" of 23–24 February 2020 when Bersatu MPs and an Azmin Ali-led PKR faction defected, collapsing the PH government; Bersatu then co-founded Perikatan Nasional with PAS, UMNO defectors, and GPS support, and Muhyiddin Yassin (Bersatu president) became PM on 1 March 2020. 3. UMNO and BN contested GE15 (19 November 2022) as opponents of both PH and PN, then joined a PH-led unity government within days. GE15 produced Malaysia's first hung parliament; the Yang di-Pertuan Agong met both Anwar Ibrahim (PH) and Muhyiddin Yassin (PN) on 22 November 2022 and urged cooperation, Muhyiddin declined to work with PH, and UMNO's Supreme Council said it would back a unity government not led by PN. A coalition-of-coalitions — PH, BN, GPS, GRS and Warisan — was sworn in under PM Anwar Ibrahim by 24 November 2022.
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Where accounts differ
No winner is picked.
Whether Muafakat Nasional still has any operative meaning is disputed by the parties themselves — PAS's deputy president said in March 2022 there was "no change in status quo" and MN was "still around," even though it was never registered and PAS had by then also allied with Bersatu under PN.
Bersatu’s current PN status is disputed. Muhyiddin’s side says the PN constitution requires all members’ consensus to remove a component; Hadi’s side says Bersatu is automatically out.
Exact GRS component-party count for 2026 varies between reports (six "active" vs eight/nine including dormant local parties) — treat any specific number as approximate pending a single authoritative GRS statement.
Common questions
What is the difference between a party, a coalition and a pact in Malaysia?
A party is a single organisation registered on its own with the Registrar of Societies under the Societies Act 1966. A registered coalition is itself a political association — several parties joined under one badge and one legal identity, as Perikatan Nasional was when RoS registered it as Parti Perikatan Nasional on 7 August 2020. A pact is looser: cooperation between separately registered parties that need not be registered as a single entity, which is what Muafakat Nasional was between UMNO and PAS from September 2019.
The distinction is not academic. Article 49A of the Federal Constitution concerns an MP's relationship with the party under whose ticket the MP was elected, and its definition of "political party" includes a coalition of parties.