Bersatu did not fracture by accident. The party that Mahathir Mohamad co-founded in 2016, built around the promise of a new Malay political vehicle, has spent the opening months of 2026 consuming itself: its leaders purged, its parliamentary bloc split, its chairman gone, and its position in Perikatan Nasional weakened to the point where PAS has stepped in to assume the coalition's leadership. The proximate cause was the bitter feud between Muhyiddin Yassin and his own deputy, Hamzah Zainudin. But the architecture of the collapse, the backroom manoeuvring, the competing loyalty claims, the toxic mixture of personal ambition and Malay unity rhetoric, bears the unmistakable hallmark of the man who built the party in the first place. Mahathir has not been a Bersatu member for years. He was expelled in 2020, formed Pejuang, lost everything at GE15, and has spent the time since in the role he has always performed best: the elder statesman with opinions and no accountability for the ...