Loke's Delayed Resignation Gives Anwar Breathing Room Amid Najib Pardon Fallout

Anthony Loke, Malaysia's transport minister, announced his resignation in protest of the royal pardon granted to former prime minister Najib Razak. But on Tuesday, September 29, he and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim agreed to a crucial modification: the resignation would not take effect immediately. Instead, it would come into force only once Najib begins serving his house arrest as a condition of the pardon.

The adjustment was strategic. Analysts saw it as a way to shield the Cabinet from sudden disruption while major transport infrastructure projects continued their momentum. It also bought Anwar time as his coalition partner, the United Malays National Organisation, worked to crowdfund the RM50 million fine that Najib's court case had imposed. For Anwar, losing a transport minister mid-term would have meant finding a replacement, managing speculation about a broader Cabinet reshuffle, and potentially weakening the coalition ahead of elections due by February 2028. The delay solved that problem, at least temporarily.

Yet Loke's shift in position created its own complications. His Democratic Action Party had announced the resignation on September 19, just a day after the king's decision, as a statement of principle against corruption. The party's central executive committee had decided that Loke would step down while the other four DAP Cabinet ministers remained to preserve stability. But the initial announcement had felt rushed to some observers. Hisommudin Bakar, executive director of the Ilham Centre research firm, suggested the party may have been reacting to recent electoral losses in Sabah, Johor, and Negeri Sembilan—including Loke's own defeat in the Chennah seat he had held for three terms. The resignation, Bakar said, appeared designed to signal to DAP's core Chinese voters that the party remained committed to anti-corruption principles. By attaching conditions to the resignation after the fact, however, DAP risked looking inconsistent, as though the whole episode had been political theater rather than genuine conviction.

Loke now faced a bind. Constitutional lawyers agreed that a minister could resign without the prime minister's formal approval, though convention required a formal letter and response. But Loke could not easily walk back his commitment without damaging DAP's credibility on corruption—the issue that had driven the resignation in the first place. If Najib's house arrest began and Loke failed to follow through, the party would face accusations of hypocrisy. Yet by delaying, he had already invited public mockery from political opponents and given the impression of hesitation.

Anwar, for his part, moved to redirect attention. On Tuesday, he questioned why Loke's resignation dominated the conversation when corruption itself remained the real issue. "The problem is corruption. The problem is robbery and stealing public funds," he said, according to reporting from The Star. "Those issues are not being raised but people keep asking why this person resigned."

For Malaysia's transport infrastructure, experts saw limited immediate risk. The Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System Link and the East Coast Rail Link—a 665-kilometer megaproject connecting Selangor to Pahang, Terengganu, and Kelantan—were both nearing completion and expected to begin commercial operations in January 2027. The RTS Link had been in development since 2010, with a binding agreement signed in 2018. The ECRL's groundbreaking had occurred in 2017 under Najib's administration. Timothy Wong, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore's Department of Economics, noted that projects at this stage of completion were unlikely to be derailed by a change in minister. Nor Aziati Abdul Hamid, a researcher at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn's Centre of Excellence for Rail Industry, agreed that the RTS Link in particular was "past the stage where a minister's personal drive matters," governed as it was by treaty-level arrangements with Singapore rather than by any single politician's will.

But smaller projects still awaiting approval or funding faced greater vulnerability. Johor's proposed Autonomous Rapid Transit system, designed to ease congestion in anticipation of the RTS Link's opening, had been tabled to Cabinet in 2024 but had not yet begun construction. The Mutiara LRT Line in Penang, described by Wong as a flagship project for DAP's state government, could lose priority without Loke's advocacy at the national level. Projects without contracts or momentum, Nor Aziati explained, depended most on a minister's political will to champion them and press for budget allocations. When that champion departed, the projects did not die, but they could slip down the queue indefinitely.

As for Loke's successor, analysts expected Anwar to either leave the transport portfolio vacant temporarily or fill it with another DAP member to maintain the coalition's balance. Potential candidates included Steven Sim, currently minister for entrepreneur development and cooperatives, and Nga Kor Ming, the housing and local government minister. Whoever took the role would have limited time to build relationships with Singapore before the RTS Link's opening—an event that would be one of the government's most visible achievements before the next general election. That timing, Nor Aziati noted, gave both Anwar and DAP a stake in how and when the handover occurred.