Three Prime Ministers in Three Years: From Muhyiddin to Ismail Sabri
A Weak Prime Minister, A Bipartisan Memorandum, and the Anti-Hopping Law Accidentally Spawned by the Sheraton Move
From May 2018 to August 2021, Malaysia changed its prime minister three times.
Mahathir, Muhyiddin, Ismail Sabri.
Not through three general elections.
It was one general election, one coalition collapse, and two instances of finding a new majority within the existing Parliament. 1,2
UMNO Returned, But Not the Same Way#
After Muhyiddin resigned, the King once again verified MP support. In August 2021, UMNO Vice President Ismail Sabri was appointed as the ninth Prime Minister. 1,2
Barisan Nasional lost the government in 2018, and three years later, an UMNO leader returned to the prime ministership.
But Ismail Sabri was not the party president, his government's majority remained fragile, and there was both cooperation and competition among Bersatu, PAS, GPS, and UMNO. He could not rely solely on party whips to stabilize everything like in the old Barisan Nasional's heyday. 3,2
Weakness forced him to do something rarely seen in the past: negotiate with the largest opposition coalition.
On September 13, the government and Pakatan Harapan signed the "Memorandum of Understanding on Transformation and Political Stability," covering strengthening the COVID-19 plan, administrative and parliamentary transformation, judicial independence, the Malaysia Agreement 1963, and a steering committee. 3,2
A Law Left Behind by the Sheraton Move#
Having experienced MPs hopping parties, state governments falling, and federal regime reshuffling, the government and opposition finally pushed for an anti-hopping constitutional amendment. In 2022, Parliament passed a new provision that, in principle, required MPs who voluntarily left their party to vacate their seats; it took effect in October. 4,5
It closed some doors, but not all of them.
If a whole party leaves a coalition, or if an MP is expelled by the party, the legal effects differ; parties can still use internal discipline and coalition reshuffling to bypass voters' original understanding. The anti-hopping law reduced individual arbitrary party-switching but cannot replace intra-party democracy and the rules of confidence votes. 4,5
The most memorable takeaway from this period should not just be "politics is very messy."
It is that chaos forced institutional repair; and a weak government, compelled to negotiate, might complete reforms that strong governments were unwilling to do for years.
By 2022, the pandemic gradually shifted to endemic management. Ismail Sabri dissolved Parliament early, hoping a general election would end years of instability.
However, voters did not give any single coalition an outright majority.
Next: "2022 General Election: No One Got One Hundred and Twelve Seats". The ballot did not pick a sole winner; the Palace and the coalitions had to answer: Can former enemies form a government together?
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