Five Malay parties, one electorate. Strip away ‘the logos and personalities’ and is there really any difference between them?
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenIman Muttaqin YusofPublished: 2:42pm, 15 Jun 2026For much of Malaysia’s post-independence history, Malay voters largely faced a binary choice: Umno, the oldest Malay nationalist political party that governed the country for more than six decades until 2018, or the Islamist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS).But with two state elections fast approaching, a bevy of breakaway parties flying variations of the same nationalist flag are all chasing those same 13 million or so Malay votes.
Once we strip away the logos and personalities, there is not much difference between themSyaza Shukri, political scientist“Once we strip away the logos and personalities, there is not much difference between them,” Syaza Shukri, an associate professor of political science at the International Islamic University Malaysia, told This Week in Asia.
