Malaysia's opposition alliance breaks up after bitter dispute over Islamic law

The Malaysian opposition political alliance, Pakatan Rakyat, which had threatened to unseat the country’s long-ruling regime is no more, one of its three component parties declared today, following bitter disputes over policy.

Democratic Action Party (DAP) chief Lim Guan Eng said his party would no longer work with its former partner, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), with which the DAP has clashed over the latter’s calls for strict Islamic law.

“Pakatan Rakyat [People’s Pact] therefore ceases to exist,” Lim said in a statement. Pakatan Rakyat was formed in 2008, uniting opposition parties that had long been pushed around by the governing coalition, dominated by the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) since independence in 1957.

Pakatan won 52 per cent of the popular vote in 2013 elections, tapping into growing resentment of Umno authoritarianism and recurring corruption scandals.

It failed to take power due to Umno gerrymandering, but its stunning performance under leader Anwar Ibrahim, jailed earlier this year on sodomy charges widely seen as trumped up by the government, had raised the spectre of a historic change of power.

Pakatan’s break-up follows increasing rancour between the secular DAP, which represents mostly ethnic Chinese, and PAS, which represents Malay Muslims - the majority group in the multiracial country.

Anwar’s diverse People’s Justice Party (PKR) was the other component.