DAP Votes to Remain in Malaysia’s Unity Government, Stabilising Anwar’s Coalition

A Party at a Crossroads

The Democratic Action Party (DAP) entered its August 2025 congress carrying the weight of three consecutive electoral setbacks and a membership restless enough to demand an extraordinary internal reckoning. The question before its delegates was stark: should the party’s ministers remain in Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s unity government, or withdraw from a Cabinet that had, in the eyes of many grassroots members, cost DAP its credibility without delivering sufficient reform?

The answer, delivered through secret ballot on Sunday, 16 August, was unambiguous. Of 2,106 votes cast, 1,857 — or 88.2 per cent — backed the ministers staying on. Only 242 delegates, representing 11.5 per cent, voted for a withdrawal. Seven ballots were spoilt.

How the Party Arrived Here

The origins of this internal crisis stretch back to November 2024, when DAP was shut out entirely from the Sabah state election, losing all eight seats it contested. The defeat was significant not merely in numerical terms but as a signal that the party’s multiracial positioning was failing to translate into votes even in a state where it had historically maintained a footprint.

Party leadership responded by scheduling an emergency congress for 12 July 2025 to put the question of Cabinet participation directly to delegates. That date was then pushed back as the Johor and Negeri Sembilan state elections intervened — and those contests compounded the damage. DAP’s seat count in Johor fell from ten to six; in Negeri Sembilan, from eleven to nine. By the time delegates gathered in Putrajaya in August, the party had absorbed three successive blows in less than a year.

What Was at Stake for Anwar’s Government

DAP is not a minor coalition partner. It holds 40 of the 222 seats in Malaysia’s lower house, making it the largest bloc within the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, ahead of Anwar’s own Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) with 29 seats and Parti Amanah Negara with eight. A DAP withdrawal from Cabinet would have destabilised the unity government structurally, not merely symbolically.

Analysts had previously warned that such a move could force Anwar to call a snap general election — a prospect that would have introduced significant uncertainty into Malaysia’s political economy at a moment when the government is navigating cost-of-living pressures, subsidy rationalisation, and ongoing governance reform commitments. The vote, in that sense, carried consequences well beyond the party itself.

The Congress Floor: Accountability and Resolve

Before delegates voted, DAP secretary-general and Transport Minister Anthony Loke set the tone with an address that combined candour with conviction. He apologised publicly for losing the Chennah seat — a constituency he had held for three consecutive terms — in the Negeri Sembilan polls, acknowledging that winning over Malay voters remained the party’s most persistent structural challenge. “Our biggest challenge is how to overcome this wall,” he said, noting that this difficulty predated the current government and had accompanied the party since its founding.

Loke framed the electoral losses not as a repudiation of governance participation but as the inevitable cost of being in power. “Being in government meant bearing all unpopular decisions collectively,” he told the congress, “which ultimately led the party to face various challenges, criticism and protest votes.” His remarks were careful to acknowledge failure without conceding that withdrawal was the correct response to it.

The fourteen state delegates who followed each made the case for remaining in Cabinet, though their arguments varied in emphasis. DAP Selangor’s Shakir Ameer Mohideen framed the setbacks as temporary, reminding delegates that the party had “gone through much worse in the past.” DAP Sarawak’s Soo Tien Ren described a Cabinet exit as political “suicide” — an abandonment of the millions of Malaysians who had placed their trust in the party and of the reform agenda DAP had championed from the opposition benches for decades.

The sharpest intervention came from Kuala Lumpur delegate Sangeet Kaur Deo, who did not spare the party’s leadership from criticism even as she ultimately argued for staying in government. She cited the discharge not amounting to an acquittal granted to Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi over 47 corruption charges, and media reports alleging collusion between the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and a group of businessmen — allegations that former MACC chief Azam Baki has denied. “On too many issues, we have remained silent because we didn’t want to rock the boat,” she said, adding that voters had noticed and penalised the party for it.

Sangeet was equally direct about the difficulties of governing alongside UMNO, the Barisan Nasional anchor party, which she said had “openly attacked DAP despite being part of the same federal government.” Her prescription was not exit but assertiveness: “Stay in government and speak up while we are there. And if we must become opposition again, at least we have laid the basis and regained credibility.”

The Racial Politics Backdrop

The congress unfolded against a broader shift in Malaysia’s political landscape. The Barisan Nasional and Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalitions have increasingly leaned into identity politics, forging a tactical pact to consolidate the Malay vote — a strategy that bore results in both the Johor and Negeri Sembilan contests. DAP’s multiracial positioning, while philosophically consistent, faces structural headwinds in an environment where ethnic bloc voting is intensifying.

Loke reaffirmed the party’s foundational philosophy at the congress: “DAP will remain as a multiracial party. We are not fighting for any one race, but for the success of Malaysians and for the country to be progressive.” At a parallel PKR congress held over the same weekend in Melaka, vice-president Amirudin Shari struck a complementary note, calling on PKR to defend a fair political approach to all sections of society while respecting the constitutional position of Islam and the Malay community. Together, the two statements represented PH’s attempt to hold a multiracial coalition together in a political climate pulling sharply in the opposite direction.

After the Vote: Mandate and Expectations

In the press conference following the result, Loke thanked delegates for their confidence and pushed back against the interpretation that the vote was designed to pressure Anwar with a DAP-driven agenda. The reforms DAP was committed to pursuing, he said, were not unilateral demands but commitments “collectively agreed upon by PH” under the coalition’s electoral manifesto.

On the timeline for those reforms, Loke was deliberately measured, saying both Anwar and the government needed time to implement them and that not every discussion could be conducted through the media. “We are part of the government. We are part of the cabinet. We will bring all our aspirations and the feedback from our grassroots back to the government through our cabinet channel,” he said.

Among the specific concerns delegates raised were cost-of-living pressures and calls to review petrol and diesel quota arrangements, particularly for Sabah and Sarawak. Loke acknowledged that much of the congress feedback had been heavily critical, demanding a more decisive and assertive posture from both the party and the government going forward.

The Road to 2028

Malaysia’s next general election is constitutionally due by February 2028, though it may be called earlier depending on the political calculus of the coalition. DAP’s five full ministers — Loke at Transport, Gobind Singh Deo at Digital, Hannah Yeoh at Federal Territories, Steven Sim at Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives, and Nga Kor Ming at Housing and Local Government — will remain at the Cabinet table, alongside the party’s seven deputy ministers.

The congress vote stabilises Anwar’s administration in the near term, but the underlying tensions it surfaced are structural rather than circumstantial. DAP must rebuild credibility with urban voters who feel the party has been too deferential in government, while simultaneously making inroads with Malay voters who have shown little appetite for the party’s multiracial pitch. Those are not easily reconcilable demands, and the next eighteen months will test whether remaining in Cabinet was a platform for influence or merely a postponement of a harder reckoning.