Every seat count on this site is reported per Coalition. This page says what each of the five is and how it came to exist: founding dates, the parties inside it, and the splits and mergers that produced it. It is a structural account only: it records what was formed, when, and out of which parties, and it leaves the question of why to the sources it cites.
the unit this site counts Seats in
On this site, a Coalition means a group of parties that contests and governs together. The five Coalitions this site tracks are PH, BN, PN, GPS and GRS. A Coalition is not a single party. Each of the five below is an agreement among parties that keep their own names, memberships and officers, and the profiles on this page describe those parties and the agreements that bind them, not what any of them believes or wants.
Why there are five rather than three, and what separates two of them from the other three, is set out under Why five below.
formed 2015, to succeed an earlier coalition
Pakatan Harapan is a Malaysian political coalition which was formed in 2015 to succeed the Pakatan Rakyat coalition. Pakatan Harapan led a single-coalition government from May 2018 to February 2020. Pakatan Harapan has led a grand coalition government since November 2022.
formed 1974, out of a coalition two decades older
Barisan Nasional was founded in 1974 to succeed the Alliance Party, and first competed in the general election of that year. Unlike the other four Coalitions on this page, Barisan Nasional's source gives no registration date distinct from its founding. It continued on from the Alliance Party's own registration rather than registering fresh, the way GPS, PN and GRS each did. That is why its fact table above has no Registered row.
The Alliance Party's membership comprised UMNO, MCA and MIC. The Alliance Party originated in a temporary electoral arrangement between local branches of UMNO and MCA to contest the Kuala Lumpur municipal election in 1952. MIC joined the alliance of UMNO and MCA in 1954. The Alliance Party was informally founded in 1952 and formally registered as a political organisation on 30 October 1957.
Negotiations with former opposition parties began after the Malaysian Parliament reconvened in 1971. Gerakan and the People's Progressive Party both joined the Alliance Party in 1972, quickly followed by PMIP. The Alliance Party was the ruling coalition of Malaya from 1957 to 1963 and of Malaysia from 1963 to 1974, and became known as Barisan Nasional in 1974.
formed February 2020, registered that August
According to Wikipedia's account, and as an informal coalition, Perikatan Nasional was formed by BERSATU, PAS, Barisan Nasional, Gabungan Parti Sarawak and STAR at the beginning of the 2020–2022 Malaysian political crisis. Perikatan Nasional's de facto leader Muhyiddin Yassin was sworn in as the 8th Prime Minister of Malaysia on 1 March 2020. Perikatan Nasional formed a coalition government with Barisan Nasional, Gabungan Parti Sarawak, Gabungan Rakyat Sabah and other political parties, which ruled from 2020 to 2022.
Perikatan Nasional was expanded to include SAPP in August 2020, GERAKAN in February 2021, and the Malaysian Indian People's Party in April 2024. Those accessions are the ones the cited source records; PN's formal membership has continued to change since. A reader checking which parties sit inside PN today should read the cited source directly rather than treat this page as current on that point.
formed 2018, when four parties left BN
GPS was formed on 12 June 2018, consisting of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu, the Progressive Democratic Party, the Sarawak United Peoples' Party and Parti Rakyat Sarawak. According to Wikipedia's account, Gabungan Parti Sarawak was established in 2018 by four former Barisan Nasional component parties operating solely in Sarawak, following the federal coalition's defeat in the 2018 Malaysian general election. Gabungan Parti Sarawak forms the government in the state of Sarawak.
formed 2020 as an alliance, registered as a coalition in 2022
Gabungan Rakyat Sabah is a Malaysian coalition of Sabah-based parties. Gabungan Rakyat Sabah was established in 2020 and then registered in 2022 by former component parties of the United Alliance of Sabah and the United Borneo Alliance, operating solely in Sabah. According to Wikipedia's account, Gabungan Rakyat Sabah was formed inspired by the formula of the Sarawak-based coalition Gabungan Parti Sarawak.
Malay Mail reported that on 18 June 2026 Gabungan Rakyat Sabah officially accepted the United Progressive Kinabalu Organisation as its newest component party, expanding the Sabah ruling coalition to six parties. That accession is why the component-party list above runs to six.
three federal Coalitions, two Borneo ones
The count is five because two of the Coalitions are constituted for a single state each. Gabungan Parti Sarawak is a Sarawak-based political alliance whose four founding parties operated solely in Sarawak. Gabungan Rakyat Sabah is a Malaysian coalition of Sabah-based parties. Each is recorded above with the date it was formed and the parties that formed it.
That is a structural distinction, not a claim about what any of these parties want. GPS is constituted for Sarawak and GRS for Sabah; the other three are not constituted for a single state. The Dewan Rakyat has 222 Seats. Sarawak and Sabah each return their own share of those 222. A projection that ignored the two Borneo Coalitions would be projecting a chamber that does not exist, which is why this site counts five rather than three.