In politics, taking sides does not always require an endorsement, a joint press conference or an electoral pact. Sometimes, the decision not to enter a contest can be just as politically significant as choosing to fight in it. This is why Parti Bersama Malaysia’s decision to stay out of the Negeri Sembilan state election deserves more attention than it has received.
BERSAMA explained that it was sitting out the election because it needed to conserve its limited time and resources and focus on the Melaka polls instead. After its difficult outing in Johor, where it contested 15 seats and failed to win any, the argument was not unreasonable. A new party cannot contest everywhere simply to prove that it exists. Elections require money, machinery, candidates, volunteers and months of groundwork. From that perspective, withdrawing from Negeri Sembilan could easily be defended as political realism.
However, Negeri Sembilan was never going to be viewed as an ordinary state for BERSAMA. At the centre of the discussion was former Menteri Besar Aminuddin Harun, a senior PKR figure who has long had a close political and personal relationship with Rafizi Ramli. That relationship is not speculation. Both men have spoken publicly about their friendship, and Rafizi himself has acknowledged Aminuddin in warm personal terms. Aminuddin, for his part, did not respond aggressively when Rafizi left PKR and took a different political path. Instead, he said Rafizi had the democratic right to choose his own direction.
None of this proves that there was a secret arrangement between BERSAMA and Aminuddin. There is no public evidence showing that Aminuddin asked BERSAMA not to contest, or that Rafizi instructed the party to withdraw in order to protect his old friend. That distinction is important. Political analysis should not turn suspicion into fact.
Still, politics is not judged only by documents and formal agreements. It is also judged by consequences.
Had BERSAMA entered Negeri Sembilan, it was unlikely to take significant numbers of votes from PAS’ hardcore supporters or from UMNO’s most loyal rural base. Its most natural pool of voters would have been people who had previously supported PKR or Pakatan Harapan but had become disappointed with the party, particularly those who remained sympathetic to Rafizi’s reformist image. In other words, BERSAMA was more likely to split the PH vote than the BN or PN vote.
That makes its absence politically important.
BERSAMA did not have to win a single seat to influence the election. In a first-past-the-post system, a new party can have a major impact simply by taking several hundred or several thousand votes away from one side. In marginal constituencies, that is enough to change the winner. BERSAMA’s participation could therefore have created additional pressure on PH at a time when the coalition was already facing a difficult contest.
By staying out, BERSAMA removed that threat.
This does not mean that BERSAMA supported PH. It does not mean that Rafizi secretly campaigned for Aminuddin. It simply means that one potential source of vote-splitting disappeared from the battlefield. For PH candidates, particularly those who were politically close to Rafizi in the past, that was certainly not a disadvantage.
This is where the questions surrounding Aminuddin become unavoidable. Rafizi has built much of his political reputation around challenging old political arrangements, speaking openly about accountability and refusing to accept the traditional rules of Malaysian politics. BERSAMA is supposed to represent an extension of that independent political direction. If the party wants Malaysians to believe that it is truly separate from PH, BN and PN, then its choice of where to contest and where not to contest will naturally be examined.
Why was BERSAMA prepared to contest in Johor? Why is it interested in Melaka? Why was Negeri Sembilan the state it chose to avoid?
The official explanation is that the party lacked the resources and preparation time. That may well be true. BERSAMA’s Johor performance showed that enthusiasm alone does not create an election machinery. Losing all 15 seats was a clear warning that the party needed to be more selective.
But political decisions can have more than one motivation. Resource limitations and personal political relationships do not necessarily contradict each other. It is entirely possible that Negeri Sembilan was difficult from an organisational point of view and, at the same time, happened to be a state where Rafizi had little appetite to create unnecessary problems for an old ally.
That possibility is what makes the episode interesting.
Rafizi has already acknowledged that people were asking whether BERSAMA stayed out because of his friendship with Aminuddin. He rejected that suggestion and argued that political decisions should not be based on personal relationships. BERSAMA leaders have similarly denied that they were giving Aminuddin a free pass.
Those denials should be recorded fairly. But political parties also have to understand that perception is created by their actions, not merely by their explanations.
If BERSAMA had contested Negeri Sembilan aggressively, nobody would be asking whether it was protecting Aminuddin. The party would simply have been doing what an independent third force is expected to do: contest where it believes it has something to offer. Once it chose to withdraw, however, the friendship between Rafizi and Aminuddin naturally became part of the political conversation.
The irony is that Aminuddin ultimately lost anyway. BERSAMA’s absence did not rescue PH from a poor performance in the state. The coalition won only 11 of the 36 seats, while BN emerged as the largest bloc. Aminuddin himself failed to win Linggi. So anyone suggesting that BERSAMA successfully protected him would clearly be overstating the case.
But that does not erase the original political calculation. A decision can benefit somebody without ultimately changing the result.
For BERSAMA, the larger issue is credibility. A party seeking to position itself as an independent alternative has to be prepared for uncomfortable questions whenever it chooses not to fight. Independence cannot simply mean refusing to join PH, BN or PN. It must also mean demonstrating that personal friendships do not determine political battle lines.
Rafizi faces a particularly difficult version of this problem because he spent so many years inside PKR. He naturally has friends, former allies and political associates throughout the party. Some of them may still respect him. Some may even share many of his political views. There is nothing unusual about that.
But as BERSAMA grows, there will inevitably come a point when its interests clash with the interests of people Rafizi once stood beside.
What happens at that moment will tell Malaysians whether BERSAMA is truly a new political force or simply another extension of old political relationships.
That is why Negeri Sembilan matters beyond one state election. The question is not whether there was a secret deal. There is no evidence of one. The more relevant question is whether BERSAMA’s silence produced the same political effect as taking a side.
Perhaps the party genuinely stayed away because it was not ready. Perhaps it simply wanted to avoid another embarrassing electoral result so soon after Johor. Perhaps Melaka offered better opportunities.
Or perhaps, when all those calculations were being made, the fact that an old friend was standing on the other side of the battlefield made the decision a little easier.
In politics, support does not always come with a flag, a speech or a handshake.
Sometimes, the loudest political message is simply choosing not to show up.
