Three years ago, amid a post-election deadlock between Pakatan Harapan, BN, and Perikatan Nasional that plunged the country into its first hung Parliament since independence, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi emerged as an unlikely figure to chart Malaysia's political future.

The Umno president and BN chairperson, after discovering PN had netted a group of BN MPs and was on the cusp of power, hit the brakes on the insubordinate parliamentarians.

Zahid instead...