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ACROSS January’s political conventions, three distinct strands of Malaysia’s politics were on display. Not rupture, not revolution, but something more restrained and perhaps more telling: Consolidation.

At its carefully choreographed grand general assembly, UMNO chose survival as its organising theme. Unity and recalibration were framed as the path forward. The party argued that relevance today no longer rests on nostalgia or inherited dominance, but on discipline, pragmatism and a tightly managed openness. It was a message less about renewal than endurance — staying power in a political environment that has become less forgiving.

DAP, another major partner in the federal government, struck a different register at its Selangor convention. Its emphasis was on reformist consistency: Institutional change, incumbency rights and organisational coherence. DAP leaned on its reformist DNA, signalling that stability can be built on principles as much as on pragmatism. If UMNO spoke the language of survival, DAP spoke that of continuity with purpose.

In the same period, the much smaller and long-fractured People’s Progressive Party (PPP) also held its annual convention. Once a Perak-based force of consequence, now emerging from prolonged internal warfare, PPP used its congress to underline continuity. By reaffirming its return to Barisan Nasional (BN), it reminded observers that coalition politics still has room for minor but symbolic partners.

Taken together, these meetings did not herald dramatic change. Instead, they reflected a collective instinct to shore up identity, reassure core supporters and prepare for the next electoral test. Malaysia’s political actors, for now, appear less interested in tearing down the house than in reinforcing their own rooms within it.

Reading the Signals

The most obvious pointer is that all parties are already preparing for the big show: The 16th General Election (GE16), due by February 2028. Some whispers suggest it could arrive earlier.

At UMNO, president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who also serves as deputy prime minister (DPM), continues to hold sway — albeit under sustained internal and external criticism.

This year, I did not do a turun padang at UMNO’s assembly, as I have in some previous years. Instead, I attended the PPP annual convention, held the day after UMNO concluded its own gathering at the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur.

The symbolism was clear. Long regarded as UMNO’s pride and joy, the complex remains a marker of the party’s institutional heft. Even as a junior partner in the Madani Government led by PM Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, UMNO is still able to convene in style.

Ahmad Zahid opened the PPP convention in his capacity as BN chairman. Inside and around the venue were familiar trappings of power: Large vehicles, party leaders in crisp uniforms or immaculate baju Melayu, aides

hovering nearby. For UMNO, being in government remains vital, almost existential. Power is oxygen. It sustains the machinery and pays for the theatre that surrounds it.

Despite years of drama, UMNO emerged from its assembly on slightly firmer footing than its immediate rival Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, now mired in internal fractures. UMNO was also buoyed by a respectable showing in Sabah, where Perikatan Nasional (PN) secured only a single state seat. Anwar-led Pakatan Harapan (PH) also performed poorly there as well.

With a foot in government and access to legacy resources, UMNO is no pauper. Its assembly, which concluded on Jan 17, was a well-staged affair. The party even underwrote PPP’s convention at the same venue the following day.

Still, UMNO’s strength pales in comparison to PAS, arguably the strongest party on the ground today. PAS remains the single largest party in the Dewan Rakyat, with 43 MPs drawn from 11 states.

Rumah Bangsa

At the UMNO assembly, Ahmad Zahid floated the idea of Rumah Bangsa, positioning UMNO as the central home to reunite fragmented Malay political forces. The proposition raises obvious questions: Does UMNO still command sufficient ground credibility to play this role, and will others listen? The answers remain open.

One notable development was UMNO’s women’s wing calling for the party to champion a Political Funding Act, underscoring the need for transparent financing rules as the country edges closer to GE16.

Yet UMNO remains tethered to a familiar burden: Its openly stated desire for a royal pardon for former PM Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Razak, who is serving a prison sentence linked to the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal. His original 12-year sentence, imposed in August 2022, was halved through royal clemency, and he now faces further jail term from another 1MDB-related case.

At UMNO General Assembly 2026, Najib was no longer front and centre. Time behind bars appears to have eroded some of his influence.

Former UMNO Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin, sacked from the party in 2023, attended the Youth wing opening. He later noted that UMNO’s current approach reflects caution. It is about seeking forgiveness without overt pressure, mindful of where the power to pardon ultimately lies.

PPP, too, has called for Najib to be pardoned, though it is unclear how this advances the party’s standing. DAP, unsurprisingly, has not.

Looking ahead, it is increasingly clear that BN and PH are likely to contest GE16 separately, albeit with some form of tacit seat arrangement.

January’s conventions indicate that even as alliances remain fluid, the overriding focus across parties is less on sweeping realignment and more on orderly, deliberate preparation.

• Habhajan Singh is the corporate editor of The Malaysian Reserve.

The post UMNO, DAP and PPP brace for the long game appeared first on The Malaysian Reserve.

Patients on crutches, in wheelchairs and clinical staff weave their way through the sick, the bereaved and the healthy alike 

DEAR prime minister (PM), Have you visited any of our public clinics lately?

There’s one in Section 7 Shah Alam. Notorious for patients parking their vehicles haphazardly along the main road.

There’s another in Bandar Tun Hussein Onn, just 22 kilometres (km) away from Seri Perdana. And a mere 7km from Sungai Long.

Be there at 8am on any weekday morning, and you will be greeted with a pitiful sight: Queuing makcik, pakcik, ahso, ahbak, aunties and uncles spilling over to the parking lobby.

It’s not that people are being disrespectful towards the elderly or anything. It is simply because the interiors of these clinics are continuously overflowing with patients, your rakyat. The staff have no choice but to put up plastic chairs in the porch area so these elders can sit while waiting for their turn.

Inside these clinics, you’ll see groups of patients sitting, standing or lining up in spaces barely fit to be a food court, let alone a healthcare facility hall.

Patients on crutches, in wheelchairs and clinical staff weave their way through the sick, the bereaved and the healthy alike. All sharing the air as if corralling Smoke on The Water at a Deep Purple gig. The minority who are conscious wear masks, but the rest look either oblivious or resigned to the cruel possibility of contracting viruses within these cramped spaces.

And we are not even in a pandemic. There is no dengue outbreak or flu contagion. As scary as it seems, this is the normal, “business-as-usual” situation for these clinics. Can you imagine what would happen if an epidemic or red-zone situation were declared?

We are sure you know exactly why this chock-a-block situation persists in our clinics. We are positive that your minister would have briefed you that the Health Ministry  (MOH) has declared a shortage of 10,798 specialist doctors in the public sector. The Malaysian Association of Medical Assistants has also reported that it is short of approximately 19,981 permanent and contract medical assistants nationwide.

We are also pretty sure that the officials would have informed you that the public healthcare facilities are falling behind the private ones. Based on MOH data in 2024, there were around 1,131 health clinics, 1,656 rural clinics, 77 maternal clinics and 205 community clinics, totalling approximately 3,069 public health clinics. Last year, industry data showed that there were around 9,343 private medical clinics nationwide, more than triple the numbers of public clinics.

Officials would have informed you that private hospitals outpace public hospitals, as well albeit by a smaller ratio. Based on official 2023 data there are 212 private hospitals compared to 160 public hospitals. In 2015, there were only 183 private hospitals against 152 public ones.

However, due to the profit-inclination nature of private hospitals, public hospitals carry the bulk of inpatient care and bed capacity. Public hospitals house the majority of beds, with approximately 45,964 beds versus 18,779 beds in private hospitals.

The same healthcare officers would have told you that the normalised gridlock at our public clinics is not asymptomatic. We are sure they would have added that a perpetually crowded public clinic alludes a healthcare system under extreme stress. We wouldn’t want a healthcare system to collapse under your watch now, would we?

An extremely stressed system generally signifies that the demand for public healthcare services has far outstripped the supply. Then why are we continuing to allow supply of our public medical resources to be blatantly sucked away from under our own noses?

We are also sure the healthcare officials would have advised you to watch for the private hospital malaise — that they are hitting public healthcare services, the rakyat and the country from multiple angles.

Firstly, by falsely creating the medical brain-drain situation. The more brutal term would be talent poaching. In the process of rapid expansion, the private healthcare sector has been continuously poaching the workforce from our public healthcare system. Your minister himself would have told you the same thing, as he was quoted in June 2025 saying that a total of 6,919 public healthcare personnel resigned and moved to the private sector between 2022 and 2024, including 2,141 nurses. He had also added that the shortage of public nurses is projected to reach almost 60% by 2030.

Secondly, by continuously driving healthcare cost ever higher, threatening not only the common folks but also the insurance industry. The frenetic pace of investment banks and private equity firms milking money from private hospital mergers and acquisitions (M&As) over the past decade or so heralds a potentially catastrophic end for public healthcare service.

We’re sure the Finance Ministry (MOF) or Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has briefed you on the cost and landscape implications of recent hospital M&As.

Two obvious examples are:

1. Purchase of Ramsay Sime Darby Health Care Sdn Bhd (RSDH) by Columbia Asia Healthcare Sdn Bhd from Sime Darby Bhd for RM5.7 billion cash in November 2023. With RSDH’s approximately 1,530 beds across seven hospitals, the implied cost per licensed bed would be around RM3.73 million.
2. A year later, in Nov 2024, the acquisition of Island Hospital Sdn Bhd by IHH Healthcare via its subsidiary Pantai Holdings Sdn Bhd for RM3.9 billion. With Island Hospital’s 600-bed facility, the implied cost per bed is an eye-watering RM6.5 million per existing bed.

The more commercially-centric officers would have told you that both deals are fairly valued, albeit a bit premium especially in the Island Hospital case. But others may would not have hesitated to point out that, unless the relevant private equity firms are able to coax other unsuspecting conglomerates to part with their money, the new owners would need to charge a super premium rates, even for those cotton earbuds, to eke out profits within our grandchildren’s lifetime.

The more grounded officers would have pointed out to you that those private health-for-profit deals, including the recent healthcare tourism focus, are operating within the same space and therefore, inherently detrimental to public hospitals. The situation will not get better — regardless of how many Reset measures or transparency lever introduced by the government — unless private healthcare deals are halted indefinitely.

The public hospital’s ceaseless overcrowding, long waiting times, inadequate beds, overworked personnel with insufficient doctors, nurses and health assistants, are the direct results of the gravitational resourcing pull towards private healthcare profits. The Malaysian Medical Association (MAA) would have pointed out to you that in 2024, only 5% of Malaysia’s public healthcare facilities had adequate manpower.

We are sure, confident, and are hopeful that you, mister prime minister, and your Madani administration, has the wellbeing of our rakyat and the dignity of our public healthcare in your foresight.

Ergo, do visit these clinics — there’s a nice roti kitab place near the clinic in Shah Alam too, within the Section 7 lake park. The local authority might want you to visit that premise, to showcase how they are “supporting” our local entrepreneurs.

• Asuki Abas is the editor of The Malaysian Reserve.

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