First, PAS declared its political cooperation with Bersatu dead. Then, Hamzah Zainudin announced he will launch a new party this Saturday in Kelantan, with attendance expected to exceed 10,000 supporters. A former deputy president walking out to build his own ship is not a small leak. It is a hull breach.

So the question that no one in Bersatu wants to answer: what is even left?

The cracks have been visible for months. Back in November 2025, the internal power struggle between Muhyiddin Yassin and his then‑deputy Hamzah Zainudin spilled into public view. By December, Muhyiddin stepped down as PN chairman, effective 1 January 2026, though he clung to his Bersatu presidency. A leader who gives up coalition leadership but refuses to let go of the party is not a captain steadying the ship. He is a man rearranging deck chairs.

Then came the axe. On 12 February 2026, Bersatu's disciplinary board formally expelled Hamzah Zainudin, along with several other MPs and assemblymen, citing alleged constitutional breaches. The message was clear: dissent would not be tolerated. But in politics, expelling your deputy is not a display of strength. It is an admission that you cannot control your own house.

And now? PAS has officially walked away. On 8 June, PAS president Hadi Awang announced that the party's political cooperation with Bersatu would end with immediate effect, after a special central working committee meeting. No more negotiation. No more "discussions." Just a door closed and locked.

Let us remember why Bersatu existed. It was founded in 2016 as a replacement for UMNO—a vehicle to channel Malay political discontent, a home for those who believed UMNO had become too corrupt, too arrogant, too comfortable. 

It was the vehicle that carried Mahathir Mohamad back to power in 2018. It was the engine that drove Perikatan Nasional into government after the Sheraton Move.

Bersatu was never supposed to be a small party. It was supposed to be the future of Malay politics.

But ambition is not the same as machinery. And Bersatu never built the grassroots infrastructure that PAS spent decades cultivating. 

It never developed the local branch networks, the religious schools, the community clinics, the weekly ceramah circuits that turn a party into a movement. Bersatu rode on personalities. And personalities have a shelf life.

What happens now? There are three paths, and none of them lead to Putrajaya.

First, Bersatu limps on as a Malay elite party without grassroots teeth. It survives. It contests a few seats. It wins a handful of parliamentary constituencies where Muhyiddin's personal brand still matters. But it no longer plays kingmaker. It becomes a footnote in coalition negotiations—a party that other parties call only when they need an extra logo on the ballot paper.

Second, Bersatu slowly bleeds back into UMNO. Is that possible? On 7 June, former Bersatu Supreme Council member Noh Omar announced his return to UMNO—a significant symbolic defection. More will follow. 

But a full‑scale merger remains unlikely. UMNO's leadership has shown little appetite to embrace former traitors. The wounds of 2016 are still fresh. And UMNO would demand full dominance; Bersatu would have no leverage to negotiate. The best Bersatu could hope for is a slow absorption, not a dignified merger.

Third, and most likely, the slow disbandment of Bersatu. This will not happen tomorrow. It may not happen this year. But it is no longer fantasy. With Hamzah and his "Reset" team launching a new party, with PAS gone, and with former members quietly returning to UMNO, what exactly is holding Bersatu together? 

The party still exists. But a party without resources, without PAS machinery, and with a leader whose best political days are behind him is a party running on fumes.

Bersatu was never supposed to end this way. It was supposed to be the great disruptor, the party that reshaped Malay politics for a generation. Instead, it has become a cautionary tale about what happens when you build a party on ambition without foundation, on personalities without institutions, on short‑term power without long‑term planning.

Malaysian politics has a way of humbling even the loudest ambitions. PAS, the party that Bersatu once relied on for grassroots muscle, has moved on. Hamzah, the man who was supposed to be Muhyiddin's heir, is building his own stage. 

And Muhyiddin himself, once the improbable prime minister, now presides over a shrinking tent with fewer and fewer guests.

So what is left of Bersatu?

A name. A logo. A handful of seats. And the quiet, creeping realisation that the party that ate its own deputy and lost its only real partner may soon find itself eaten by the very politics it tried to reshape.

Bersatu's loudest days are already in the rearview mirror. What lies ahead is not a comeback. It is a long, slow exit.