“I like to say that we run like a budget airline, so our costs are low,” Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad told CNA. Established parties, he said, run more like a premium airline, “but both of us can actually get to the destination just as good.”
Nik Nazmi, 44, co-leads Parti Bersama Malaysia with Rafizi Ramli, 48. The party was a minor outfit until two former federal ministers joined it. Both men trace their political roots to Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), and both left the Cabinet last year after losing internal PKR elections. Rafizi had been economy minister, Nik Nazmi minister of natural resources and environmental sustainability.
Recruiting like an employer
Bersama has set up a “digital-first” hunt for candidates that works like a job drive. Applicants file online, then do a video interview. The party’s election committee weighs professional and academic records, among other things, and those who pass face background checks before the final list is drawn up and constituencies are assigned. Asset disclosure is required.
Applications have come from corporate professionals, activists, academics, former civil servants and entrepreneurs, Nik Nazmi said. “Using traditional selection methods, we likely never would have discovered many of these individuals,” he said. First priority is filling the slate for the state elections in Johor on Jul 11 and Negeri Sembilan on Aug 1. His modest benchmark there is to avoid losing deposits. A candidate forfeits RM10,000 (US$2,400) for a parliament seat, or RM5,000 for a state seat, by winning under 12.5 per cent of the votes cast.
About 27,000 people have signed up since the mid-May relaunch. Some 47 per cent had belonged to no party, 27 per cent were ex-PKR members, and 15 per cent came from Malay-based parties such as Parti Islam Se-Malaysia and UMNO.
Where it came from
Bersama was registered 10 years ago. It ran in the 2018 elections and lost all five parliamentary and 20 state seats it contested in Penang. On May 17, founder and then-president Tan Gin Theam handed the registration certificate to Rafizi and Nik Nazmi at an event in Petaling Jaya, the same day Pakatan Harapan (PH) held its convention in Johor Bahru.
Nik Nazmi says the party grew out of what he sees as PKR’s drift from its reformist roots toward securing Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s next term. He accepts that the 2022 unity government was a needed compromise after the first hung parliament in Malaysian history, but argues PH and BN should have competed separately in later polls. “The thinking to reform becomes blinkered because it is all about how I get re-elected,” he said. He also raised alleged political influence over judicial appointments, “corporate mafia” networks and the need for independent anti-corruption investigations.
Six PKR MPs attended the May launch, and observers expect them to join once parliament is dissolved and the 16th general election is called. Nik Nazmi said politicians from other parties, DAP among them, have also approached Bersama. His advice: resign only after dissolution.
Spoiler or alternative?
Analysts told CNA that the party’s support rests more on frustration with PKR and PH than on its platform. Former DAP parliamentarian Charles Santiago said PH “has not delivered on its promises” and that voters see Bersama as a way to send a message.
Hisommudin Bakar of the Ilham Centre said PH is most exposed because Bersama is targeting urban and semi-urban areas that have been PH strongholds. He pointed to Warisan, which took all six urban seats DAP had held in the 2025 Sabah election, and said Bersama need not win many seats to alter results. Some observers compare Rafizi with Hungary’s Péter Magyar, who beat Viktor Orbán in April, but Hisommudin called that too early to judge. If Bersama only collects unhappy PKR supporters, he said, its growth will be limited.
Awang Azman Awang Pawi of Universiti Malaya noted that in multi-cornered races, 3 to 8 per cent of the vote in marginal seats can swing the outcome. Syaza Shukri of the International Islamic University Malaysia called Bersama a “spoiler” and said PH could lose heavily in Selangor if urban votes split. PKR’s William Leong agreed it would take votes from PH.
Nik Nazmi rejects the label. “We are working hard for our support, and I hope PH does the same,” he said. For the general election, he said Bersama wants a “sizable number of seats”, not to form a government but to build a base, and it plans to contest mainly in multi-racial seats.
