Pkr Polls Part 1 Hard Choices For The Party

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The 2025 PKR election campaign has showcased long-standing features of Anwar Ibrahim’s party - his dominance and the power of personality.
The inevitable conflict between the two main camps in the party - those aligned to Anwar and those aligned to his deputy, Rafizi Ramli, has come to a head.
This was a matter of time. For some, this battle came sooner than expected; those aligned with Rafizi seem to be caught off guard.
Power consolidation
ADSThe result of the senior leadership competition this week will likely be the same as it has always been across the seven previous party elections: a victory for the Anwar family and the continued endorsement of his leadership.
Fundamentally, PKR has always been Anwar’s party. Across the party’s history, space for alternative factions has opened up, but when alternative leaders pose a challenge to the Anwar core, it is narrowed.
This has been evident from the 2014 Kajang Move to the purges after the 2020 defection of the Azmin Ali camp.
As prime minister, Anwar’s control has become even more so as the office has given him even greater leverage over the party’s direction.
As the incumbent deputy president Rafizi said in his campaign, Anwar’s leadership would suffer if his daughter did not win.
Thus, it is no surprise that the campaign’s last week has seen the rally-around-the-Anwar effect.
A deputy choice: Loyalty or check
Much has been written about the deputy president contest. Both Rafizi and Nurul Izzah Anwar offer long and brave personal histories of fighting for reform and have made considerable personal sacrifices along the way.
They have shaped political and policy narratives for over two decades, from calls for an independent judiciary, anti-corruption, and greater equality.
Rafizi Ramli and Nurul Izzah AnwarWhen one looks at the calibre of party leadership across Malaysia, both candidates stand tall.
They are both political leaders in their own right, outside of their family ties.
The campaign has centred on personality campaign personas - the hero agitator versus the peacemaker, hiruk vs damai - rather than on their records as leaders.
ADSThis has been a disservice, especially as the deputy president position is critical for leadership succession and direction.
At the deputy president level, individual PKR delegates are deciding on leadership style and access, with concerns about the risks of not being on the winning side.
The appeals of being more inclusive, with PKR fielding Malaysia’s first woman candidate for leadership in a viable contested competition, and the ability to concretely speak to policy are also quietly having traction.
Collectively, the delegates are fundamentally deciding the configuration of power within the party.
Loyalty and power consolidation are battling calls for checks on power and differing views on diversity.
When the results are in, the contenders’ contributions should not be overshadowed by some of the low points of the campaign, which include refusing to open party congresses and inadequate recognition of the many complaints about the integrity of the divisional elections.
Rather, it should begin with a recognition that PKR’s 2025 party election has given its delegates choices and raised hard questions about the party, a process that is never easy.
Most important contests
Arguably, the deputy president contest is not the most important election in the PKR 2025 polls.
The future of the party will be determined at the vice-president and supreme council levels.
It is in these contests that the delegates will decide on the calibre and range of voices to check the ongoing power consolidation.
It will be important to evaluate whether genuine reformers are rewarded, or if new blood comes into the leadership, especially leaders grounded in the reform movement and with technocratic credentials, or those just seeking power and spoils for themselves.
Of the 251 individuals competing for the support of the 30,000-plus delegates (with over two-thirds voting online), the vice-president contest, where 12 individuals are running for four positions, and 104 candidates contesting the central leadership council for 20 positions are the ones to watch.
These contests are comprised of three groups of individuals - those closely tied to Rafizi and Anwar, as well as those who are able to bridge the two groups and represent a middle ground in the party.
The middle-grounders are the critical peacemakers that will shape the cohesion of the party moving forward.
The real tests
In these two beyond-the-deputy leadership contests, there are three things to watch:
1) Power of camps
The “cai” lists of the different camps are circulating. It will be important to see whether Rafizi can hold onto the level of support his ground maintained at the divisional level.
Those aligned to Rafizi’s camp won an estimated third, up to 40 percent of the divisions as a whole (looking not just at division heads, but other positions).
Whether camp loyalties remain intact in other leadership contests will be important to assess, as to whether middle grounders win or are swept up in divisive loyalties.
This will shape the depth of division in the party and the concentration of power.
2) Body without the head phenomenon
The divisional results will impact the central leadership positions, as this previous contest influences the ability of the winner at the division level to control a higher share of delegates in the central leadership polls.
As such, the concerns raised during the campaign about the multiple differences between the team members who won lower-level division positions but lost the top (body without the head dynamic) could be significant in the outcome.
The results will point to the scope of this factor’s impact on the outcome and be a measure of the polls themselves.
3) Reform commitment
The election will showcase the commitment of delegates to the reform principles for party governance.
A win for individuals who have serious allegations of vote buying could seriously undercut the standing of the party moving ahead.
PKR is already facing negative public assessments about an inability to bring about political reform in government, a cornerstone of the party’s identity.
If tainted individuals are elected, this will cast another shadow.
For now, however, the cast that matters most in this party election will be the votes of the delegates.
The groups that will be especially important are the youth and women delegates, who comprise nearly a third and a quarter of the overall delegates, respectively.
As with the Umno party polls when the party held the office of prime minister, the 2025 PKR polls matter for Malaysia.
They both reflect and set the path for reform and democratic governance ahead. - Mkini
BRIDGET WELSH is an honorary research associate of the University of Nottingham’s Asia Research Institute, a senior research associate at Hu Fu Centre for East Asia Democratic Studies, and a senior associate fellow at The Habibie Centre. Her writings can be found at bridgetwelsh.com.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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