Muafakat Nasional

The National Concord (; abbrev: MN) was a Malaysian political coalition that was formed between the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) and United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) against the then-ruling Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition which had come into power after the 2018 Malaysian general election (GE14). The political cooperation between the two largest Malay/Muslim-based parties was officialised with the signing of the Piagam Muafakat Nasional (National Cooperation Charter). The five-point charter was signed by PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang and UMNO president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in the Himpunan Penyatuan Ummah (Ummah Unity Rally) held at Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC), Kuala Lumpur on 14 September 2019. Its main aim is to unite the Malay/Muslim community or Ummah for electoral purposes. Despite calls for Muafakat Nasional to be institutionalised and become more inclusive towards Barisan Nasional (BN) and Gagasan Sejahtera (GS) where UMNO and PAS are major component parties respectively, there has been no formal agreement with the other parties in both coalitions to migrate to Muafakat Nasional. The new Muafakat Nasional coalition had planned to be formalised at its inaugural convention to be held by May 2020. A permanent secretariat of the pact was set-up at UMNO's headquarters located at PWTC in May 2020. Muafakat Nasional had extended an invitation to the Malaysian United Indigenous Party (BERSATU) led by its president and then-prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin to join the alliance in July 2020. On 15 August 2020, Muhyiddin reaffirmed that the party will join the alliance. However, BERSATU had also formed another coalition called Perikatan Nasional (PN) in the same period. On 3 April 2021, Wan Saiful Wan Jan the information chief of BERSATU revealed that the party had agreed to join the alliance but received no official response from either UMNO or PAS. On 30 January 2022, ahead of the 2022 Johor state election, former prime minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak disclosed that BERSATU was not included in the MN alliance as it had decided to contest against UMNO during the 2020 Sabah state election, in which BERSATU's newly formed PN coalition fielded candidates in all 17 seats.