SEPTEMBER 20 — The decision of DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke to offer his resignation as Transport Minister should be understood for what it is: a serious political signal.

However, one deliberately calibrated not to become a constitutional confrontation.

This distinction matters.

Why?

Following the conditional pardon granted to former prime minister Najib Razak – allowing him to serve the remainder of his SRC International sentence under house arrest until August 23, 2028 – DAP faced an obvious dilemma.

It had to demonstrate that its long-standing position on corruption had not disappeared merely because it was now part of the Federal Government.

Yet it also had to recognise that Malaysia remains a constitutional monarchy operating through institutions, conventions and carefully delineated powers.

The pardon was granted through the constitutional pardons process chaired by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

Loke’s response therefore carries considerable significance.

It was measured and principled.

As the Secretary General of DAP, Loke has offered to relinquish his Cabinet position while the other DAP ministers and deputy ministers remain in government.

Loke said explicitly that this was intended to register the party’s position without producing political instability.

DAP also reiterated that it respects the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s constitutional authority over pardons.

That is sufficient.

A mass resignation would convey something fundamentally different.

If every DAP minister and deputy minister were to leave simultaneously, especially if such action threatened the survival of the government, the political meaning could easily move beyond disagreement with the treatment of Najib.

It could be perceived as a direct and frontal political challenge arising from the exercise of the monarchy’s constitutional prerogative.

This would be unwise.

Malaysia’s constitutional system was never designed to resolve every disagreement through institutional escalation.

Its genius, when functioning properly, lies precisely in the opposite direction: checks and balances, parliamentary accountability, Cabinet responsibility, judicial independence and constitutional restraint.

These are mechanisms for containing disagreement, not multiplying it.

Malaysia also inherited important conventions from the Westminster and Whitehall traditions of government.

Ministers can disagree.

Ministers can resign.

Parliament can scrutinise.

Political parties can protest.

Courts can adjudicate matters properly before them.

But the responsible government also depends upon restraint.

Not every disagreement requires the maximum constitutional weapon available.

Indeed, parliamentary decorum becomes particularly important at moments such as this.

Parliament is not merely a numerical battlefield where one coalition attempts to bring another down whenever an objection arises.

It is an institution whose durability depends upon members understanding the distinction between opposition, dissent and systemic confrontation.

Loke’s resignation occupies precisely that middle ground.

One resignation says: we disagree profoundly.

A mass Cabinet walkout could be interpreted as saying: the political arrangement itself can no longer continue because of this constitutional decision.

Those are very different messages.

DAP therefore does not need multiple ministers resigning together.

As and when appropriate, Nga Kok Ming can be the second Minister to resign in due course at some point in future.

Why?

Nga once affirmed that if Najib is released, although to be fair, Nga did not anticipate the concept of conditional house arrest, he would resign.

Thus if Najib is released, Nga has to resign too.

As it is, due to the need not to trigger any extreme political turbulence, Pakatan Harapan does not need an avalanche of ministerial resignations merely to demonstrate moral seriousness.

Tantrums are imbecilic in statecraft.

They don’t and must not be allowed to co-exist.

Malaysia is a trading nation and a hub of Asean that others would like to look up too.

Therefore, other office bearers in DAP can retain the option to resign as and when Najib is pardoned time and again in other corruption trials.

That option itself constitutes political leverage guided by maturity.

To be sure, Loke said other DAP leaders had been prepared to relinquish their positions.

But the party’s Central Executive Body, composed of 30 members, decided they should remain to protect political stability.

This is not necessarily a weakness.

It is constitutional proportionality.

Malaysia has already experienced extraordinary political instability since the 2020 Sheraton Move.

Governments changed.

Parliamentary majorities shifted.

Political alignments were repeatedly reconstructed.

The key lesson from 2020 should not be that every controversy must produce another political earthquake.

The opposite lesson is more useful.

A mature parliamentary democracy should possess gradations of response.

A minister can protest.

A party can issue a dissenting position.

Parliamentarians can demand explanations.

Civil society can criticise.

The media can investigate.

Lawyers can debate constitutional implications.

And voters ultimately retain their judgment at the ballot box.

These constitute the ordinary checks and balances of parliamentary government.

They are deliberately less spectacular than a political counter-offensive.

That does not make them less important.

There is another reason why restraint matters.

Najib’s legal position has not simply vanished.

The conditional pardon concerns the remaining sentence arising from the SRC International conviction.

Separately, Najib was convicted in December 2025 in another 1MDB-related case and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment; he is appealing that conviction.

In other words, Najib could be convicted yet again on his ongoing 1MDB trial.

There has been no total and absolute miscarriage of justice or due process writ large.

Malaysia therefore should not confuse clemency with the disappearance of the judicial process.

The latter remains.

The judiciary has its role.

The monarchy has its constitutional role too.

Parliament has its parameters to continue to convene accordingly.

The Cabinet has its collective responsibilities as well.

Political parties have every right to express disagreement within this elaborate but judicious architecture.

The danger begins when these separate roles are compressed into one enormous political confrontation.

This is why Loke’s single resignation can suffice.

It registers DAP’s discomfort without requiring DAP to abandon the government.

It demonstrates political accountability without automatically destabilising Parliament.

Most importantly, it allows disagreement to exist without turning disagreement into an institutional collision involving the Cabinet, Parliament and the constitutional monarchy.

There is wisdom in knowing when enough is enough.

Besides, the Westminster and Whitehall traditions that influenced Malaysia’s parliamentary institutions were built not merely upon written rules but upon conventions of restraint.

Constitutional government survives because political actors possess powers they sometimes deliberately choose not to exercise to their fullest extent.

Malaysia needs more of this instinct, not less.

Loke can resign.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim shall consider, ideally, approve the resignation with utmost care, invariably, speed.

* Phar Kim Beng is professor of Asean Studies, and director at the Institute of International and Asean Studies, International Islamic University Malaysia.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.