Having his daughter quit as deputy president of the party he founded is going to be a huge political setback for the prime minister, analysts say
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenUshar DanielePublished: 4:36pm, 7 Aug 2026Nurul Izzah Anwar, the daughter of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, has stepped back from the deputy presidency of his ruling People’s Justice Party (PKR), raising questions over his ability to hold together the political movement he built after a bruising run of electoral setbacks and defections by former allies.PKR’s leadership has sought to frame the move by Nurul Izzah, one of the party’s most recognisable reformist figures, not as a resignation but as a temporary break – exposing fresh strains within the party.
“When the same pattern repeats itself, the question becomes whether this is less a succession problem and increasingly an Anwar problem.”
The focus should not be who would succeed Anwar next, but whether PKR could develop and retain credible leaders around him without those relationships eventually becoming adversarial, he said.
