“We’ll have to wait and see how things will unfold,” she added.

“Because everything looks to be so uncertain, so insecure, so fragile.”

Confidence Vote
The previous government fell out of power over a weekend that
followed Mahathir’s pronouncement that he had the coalition’s
mandate to continue ruling until around November. Even after that, he
said he would retain the right to decide whether to step down at all.
Sitting beside the 94-year-old, Anwar concurred and said he would
have to be patient, which is a sentiment he has repeated many times
since.

The following Monday, Mahathir abruptly resigned as he said he had

lost the support of his own Bersatu party, which saw a few of its
lawmakers joining hands with those on the other side of the aisle.

The next few days saw political parties shift allegiances between
Mahathir, Anwar and later Muhyiddin. For a time, the Pakatan Harapan
coalition rallied behind Anwar after Mahathir skipped out on an
emergency meeting. Yet as Muhyiddin garnered support, including
from the Barisan Nasional coalition that’s been linked to corruption
scandals, the alliance backing Anwar turned to Mahathir for help
gaining the number of seats needed to form a government.

Fresh Out of Power, 94-Year-Old Mahathir Plots Malaysia Comeback

That
 move turned out to be too late as the king soon announced 
Muhyiddin as the country’s new leader based on an earlier tally.

It was the people who “feel they didn’t have enough” that contributed
to her coalition’s downfall, Wan Azizah said. “They felt probably they
wanted more. And that I think brought us down.”

When asked if she would be open to receiving those who had

defected from the alliance, she said, “Betrayal is quite difficult to
accept in any circumstances. Betrayal is still betrayal.”

(Updates with more detail throughout.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Anisah Shukry in Kuala Lumpur

at ashukry2@bloomberg.net;Haslinda Amin in Singapore at
hamin1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at
dtenkate@bloomberg.net, ;Yudith Ho at yho35@bloomberg.net, Chan
Tien Hin

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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