The anti-hop law
Malaysia’s anti-hop law explains when an elected representative can lose their seat for changing party membership—and why it does not stop every form of political realignment.
The anti-hop law is a constitutional rule, in force since 5 October 2022, that focuses on party membership rather than every political disagreement or alliance change. It was passed with cross-party support in 2022 after Parliament amended the Federal Constitution to insert Article 49A.
For an MP elected under a party, leaving or ceasing to belong to that party normally makes the seat vacant. An independent MP who joins a party also triggers the rule. The Speaker establishes a vacancy after written notice, then the Election Commission is to hold an election for the seat within the constitutional timetable.
There are important limits. An MP does not lose the seat solely because the party expels them, is dissolved or deregistered, or because the MP becomes Speaker. The official Bill material also says that MPs do not automatically lose seats when their whole party leaves one coalition for another — though that example does not appear in the text of Article 49A(2) itself, which lists only those three exceptions.
The law is closely associated with the Sheraton Move of February 2020. Bersatu left the PH coalition, Mahathir Mohamad resigned on 24 February, and Muhyiddin Yassin was sworn in as Prime Minister on 1 March. The period showed how changes in party alignment could change the federal government without a general election, and it helped create the political conditions for the 2022 amendment.
Its practical reach remains debated. Azalina Othman Said said MPs could support a Prime Minister without triggering Article 49A if they remained in their parties, while Dr Oh Ei Sun said party-level alliance changes meant the law could not guarantee stability. Disputes over Bersatu MPs’ seats, and the Federal Court’s January 2026 decision concerning the Speaker’s powers in the Sabah case, show that questions of interpretation and enforcement remain significant.
That is the answer. Everything below is the working: each claim the explanation rests on, labelled with how certain it is and linked to where it came from. You can stop here.
The working
What the sources say
23 claims, 23 of them carrying a linked source. Each one shows how certain it is — that label is written in the knowledge base alongside the claim, not decided here.
How to read the labels
- established
- multiple independent reliable sources, and uncontested.
- contested
- reliable sources disagree, or official and independent accounts differ.
- uncertain
- genuinely unknown at the time of writing.
The constitutional change
established
Malaysia’s “anti-hop law” is a constitutional amendment, the Constitution (Amendment) (No. 3) Act 2022 (Act A1663), rather than a separate ordinary Act of Parliament.
established
Act A1663 inserted Article 49A into the Federal Constitution, amended Articles 10, 48 and 160, and added Section 7A to the Eighth Schedule.
Constitution (Amendment) (No. 3) Bill 2022Journal of the Malaysian Parliament
established
The Dewan Rakyat passed the Bill on 28 July 2022, with 209 of the 220 MPs present voting in favour and 11 absent.
established
The Dewan Negara approved the amendment on 9 August 2022, and it came into force on 5 October 2022.
established
The earlier 1992 Nordin Salleh decision had struck down a Kelantan anti-hopping provision as inconsistent with constitutional freedom of association; the later constitutional amendment provided the basis for the 2022 federal provisions.
Malaysian BarFederal Court ruling on Penang’s anti-hopping law reported by The Edge Malaysia
What Article 49A does
established
Under Article 49A, an MP elected as a member of a political party ceases to be an MP if the MP resigns from, or ceases to be, a member of that party; an independent MP also loses the seat if they later join a political party.
established
Article 49A does not make an MP lose their seat solely because their party is dissolved or deregistered, because the MP resigns on becoming Speaker, or because the party expels the MP.
established
Act A1663 added a definition of “political party” to Article 160(2), and that definition expressly includes a coalition of societies registered under federal law.
established
The Bill’s official explanatory material gives the example that MPs do not lose their seats merely because their party leaves one coalition, whether or not it joins or forms another coalition. The enacted text of Article 49A(2) does not itself list a coalition change among its three exceptions, so this rests on the explanatory statement rather than on the words of the Article.
established
A casual vacancy under Article 49A is established by the Dewan Rakyat Speaker after written notice; the Speaker must notify the Election Commission within 21 days, and the Commission must hold an election within 60 days of receiving that notification.
established
The amendment removed the former five-year disqualification for an MP who resigns from the House, allowing an MP who vacates a seat to contest again.
established
Section 7A of the Eighth Schedule introduced corresponding constitutional provisions on changes of party membership for state assembly members.
Constitution (Amendment) (No. 3) Bill 2022Journal of the Malaysian Parliament
The Sheraton context
established
The events commonly called the “Sheraton Move” began on 23 February 2020 and involved political realignments that ended the Pakatan Harapan (PH) federal government.
established
Mahathir Mohamad resigned as Prime Minister on 24 February 2020 and was appointed interim Prime Minister later that day.
established
Muhyiddin Yassin was sworn in as Malaysia’s eighth Prime Minister on 1 March 2020.
established
Reporting at the time and later accounts described the 2022 amendment as a bipartisan response to the 2020 political crisis and party defections.
Malay MailAttorney General’s speech on constitutional reforms
Later application
established
In December 2023, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Azalina Othman Said said that opposition MPs who pledged support for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had not breached the anti-hop provisions because they had not left their parties.
Bernama report republished by MalaysiakiniThe Malaysian Insight
established
In July 2024, Dewan Rakyat Speaker Johari Abdul decided that six former Bersatu MPs’ seats were not vacant; Bersatu had sought vacancies after their memberships were revoked.
established
On 9 January 2026, the Federal Court, by a 2–1 majority, refused Bersatu leave to appeal a Speaker’s refusal to declare four Sabah parliamentary seats vacant; the majority said the Speaker’s constitutional powers in that case were non-justiciable unless exercised outside those powers.
uncertain
Article 49A has not operated across multiple parliamentary terms, so its long-term effect on party switching and government stability remains uncertain.
established
In 2024 the Speaker declined to declare a Bersatu MP’s seat vacant while litigation concerning party membership was pending; a 2023 High Court decision concerning an earlier Speaker ruling treated that determination as protected by parliamentary privilege.
uncertain
No enacted amendment has been located that addresses coalition-wide changes or an MP supporting a different prime minister while remaining in the party.
Parliament and Attorney General’s Chambers legislative records searched; no responsive enacted amendment located
What is still argued over
Where reliable sources disagree
These are set out side by side, with each position attributed to whoever holds it. No winner is picked.
contested
Dr Oh Ei Sun of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs said in 2022 that the law would not guarantee short-term political stability because it does not prevent an entire party from changing alliances.
contested
Ibrahim Suffian of Merdeka Center said the provisions could improve prospects for government stability and respond to voters’ dissatisfaction with individual representatives changing parties.
contested
Bersih said Speaker Johari Abdul had misunderstood the law when he did not declare the six former Bersatu MPs’ seats vacant, while the Speaker’s decision remained that the seats were not vacant.
contested
In the January 2026 Sabah case, Federal Court Justice Azizah Nawawi dissented, saying the case raised novel and important questions about interpreting Article 49A.
Still being researched
What this page does not yet know
Open questions the research has not closed. They are published rather than hidden, so you can see the edge of what is checked.
- How Article 49A will apply to future disputed party-membership cases with different party rules or facts.