Schrödinger's Mangkuk Politics

The Negeri Sembilan crisis explained through a thought experiment: what happens when a declaration is made but the law says it does not count?

May 03, 2026

In 1935, the physicist Erwin Schrödinger proposed a thought experiment. Quantum physics is very strange. It says that atoms do not have a fixed, definite reality until the moment they are measured. Before that moment, they exist in multiple possible states at once. According to quantum mechanics the radioactive atom is literally in two states at once: decayed and not decayed.

Schrödinger wanted to test where this strangeness ends. He imagined a sealed box containing three things: a radioactive atom, a vial of poison, and a cat. The atom follows quantum rules, which means at any given moment it may or may not have decayed. There is no way to know until you look. But here is the catch: if the atom has decayed, it shatters the vial, releases the poison, and kills the cat.

So before you open the box, what is the cat’s state? If the atom is genuinely in both states at once, decayed and not decayed, then the cat must also be in both states at once. Alive and dead, simultaneously. Schrödinger did not think this paradox was acceptable.

To make this easier to understand: imagine you flip a coin and cover it with your hand before you look. Common sense says it is definitely one thing, heads or tails, you just do not know which yet. The answer exists. You are simply ignorant of it. Quantum mechanics says something far stranger. Before you look, the coin is not secretly one thing waiting to be discovered. It is genuinely, physically, both at the same time. The act of looking is what forces the universe to pick one. Schrödinger found this as absurd as you do. His cat experiment exposes the paradox as something that needs to be resolved, not accepted.

The Negeri Sembilan Analogy

Now here is the crucial thing to understand before we get to Negeri Sembilan: in Schrödinger’s experiment, the innocent party is the one inside the box. It did not create the paradox. It did not put itself there. It simply exists in its actual state while the people outside argue about what that state is. The paradox belongs to those making claims about the box, not to whatever is inside it.

The analogy to Negeri Sembilan is almost uncomfortably apt. The “Undang Yang Empat”¹ placed the Yang di-Pertuan Besar in a box. They then stood outside it and declared his removal, without conducting the inquiry the constitution requires to make that declaration valid. They announced that the “cat” was dead without opening the lid. But in this case, the Undangs were not running a Schrödinger experiment. They were trying to kill the cat.

The people outside the box are arguing that he was removed before anyone looked inside. Yet no one with the authority to formally open the box and force a resolution has done so yet.

This is Schrödinger’s Mangkuk Politics.

Schrödinger’s Mangkuk Politics

Sang Kancil Guru 🏴🏴🇺🇦🌻😷@sangkancilguru

@anaknogori_n9 Schrodinger Mangkuk Politics of Malaysia

9:33 AM · May 2, 2026 · 17 Views

1 Reply · 1 Like

Mangkuk is the Malay word for bowl. In Malaysian political slang, mangkuk is shorthand for someone who does not quite know what they are doing. A container that looks like it should hold something, and does not.

The Negeri Sembilan crisis has produced a remarkable abundance of mangkuk-adjacent behaviour across multiple institutions at once, which is what makes it so analytically rich, and so nationally significant.

Let us open the box, carefully, and see what is inside.

How We Got Here

On 17 April 2026, the Dewan Keadilan dan Undang (DKU), the highest customary authority in Negeri Sembilan, convened a special sitting at Istana Besar Seri Menanti, presided over by Tuanku Muhriz himself. The DKU was presented with 33 grounds for the removal of Mubarak Dohak as the Undang of Luak Sungei Ujong. The DKU advised acceptance of his removal under Article 14(3) of the Negeri Sembilan Constitution 1959. Menteri Besar Aminuddin Harun confirmed this publicly the same day. Under Article 16 of the same constitution, DKU decisions are final and unchallengeable in any court.

Two days later, on 19 April, Mubarak appeared at the Balai Undang Luak Sungei Ujong, joined by the three other Undang. They livestreamed a declaration on Facebook. They announced the removal of Tuanku Muhriz as Yang di-Pertuan Besar and named Tunku Nadzaruddin ibni Almarhum Tuanku Ja’afar as the proposed replacement.

The state government rejected the declaration immediately. Aminuddin said it had no legal or customary standing because, among other reasons, Mubarak “no longer holds any authority or position as Undang Luak Sungei Ujong.”

This is the box. Inside it: a declaration signed by a man who had been constitutionally removed from office two days earlier, purporting to remove the ruler who presided over his removal.

The Three Problems with the Declaration

Senior constitutional lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, writing in Free Malaysia Today, identified the procedural failures precisely. The Negeri Sembilan Constitution’s Article X requires a “full and complete enquiry” before any move to suspend or remove the Yang di-Pertuan Besar. That enquiry must establish objectively that the ruler has developed a “great and serious defect.” The ruler must be notified of specific allegations and given a genuine right to be heard. Only then can the Undang call on the ruler to withdraw from duties or abdicate.

None of these steps have been followed. No evidence of a formal enquiry has been produced. No allegation was formally communicated to Tuanku Muhriz. No right of reply was offered. And crucially, the proclamation was never signed by the Menteri Besar, which constitutional expert Bastian Pius Vendargon confirmed is a requirement for valid action under Article X.

Malik Imtiaz’s conclusion is that there is no constitutional crisis. What happened was a constitutionally defective act that failed to satisfy the conditions for its own validity.

But here is where the mangkuk element enters.

The Schrödinger Problem

The declaration was made. It was public. It was livestreamed. Three sitting Undang signed it alongside the removed one. And in Malaysian political culture, a public declaration, however procedurally flawed, generates its own momentum. Once the box is shaken, people start arguing about the state of the “cat”.

Constitutional expert Aziz Bari told FMT that the absence of the Undang from the State Legislative Assembly opening on 23 April raised questions about the legality of the sitting itself. The state constitution requires the assembly to meet within six months. Failure to do so would trigger dissolution and by-elections. The postponement was not trivial.

Constitutional expert Dr Ikmal Hisham Md Tah of Universiti Teknologi MARA acknowledged the procedural complexity: the Menteri Besar’s refusal to sign the proclamation was correct but triggered a further escalation, with the Undang declaring Aminuddin unfit to lead. The crisis compounded itself.

And then the political layer arrived.

The UMNO Moment

On 27 April 2026, all 14 UMNO/Barisan Nasional state assemblymen declared they had lost confidence in Menteri Besar Aminuddin Harun. Combined with Perikatan Nasional’s five seats, BN claimed a simple majority of 19 in the 36-seat assembly. Aminuddin’s Pakatan Harapan coalition was left with 17, one short of the numbers needed to govern. UMNO state chairman Datuk Seri Jalaluddin Alias said the withdrawal stemmed from Aminuddin’s failure to manage the crisis.

More significantly, the timing of the withdrawal is notable. The DKU removed Mubarak on 17 April. The Undang made their declaration on 19 April. The state assembly was boycotted on 23 April. UMNO withdrew support on 27 April. Each step arrived within days of the last. The sequence suggests coordination, or at minimum, opportunism.

By 30 April, UMNO president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had walked back the withdrawal. After discussions with all 14 assemblymen, he confirmed they would continue supporting the unity government. He clarified their intent was never to form a new government through undemocratic means. Tuanku Muhriz had already decreed that Aminuddin should remain as MB to ensure administrative continuity.

The box, briefly opened by political ambition, was quietly closed again.

What Is Actually Being Fought Over

At the surface level, this appears to be a dispute about royal succession and customary law. At a deeper level, it is a dispute about who controls Negeri Sembilan’s institutional architecture, and who benefits from that control. Constitutional legitimacy and political manoeuvre are running in parallel.

Tuanku Muhriz, for his part, remains constitutionally the lawful ruler. He opened the State Legislative Assembly on 23 April. He decreed the MB’s continuity.

Why This Matters Beyond Negeri Sembilan

Malaysia has nine rulers. Seven are hereditary sultans. Two, Negeri Sembilan and Perlis, have elective or near-elective systems. The idea that a ruler can be removed through a public declaration, however procedurally defective, is a precedent no other royal house in Malaysia would regard without concern.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim met with Tuanku Muhriz on 28 April and publicly stated his support for the ruler and for Aminuddin’s continuity as MB. The federal government’s position aligned clearly with constitutional process.

Dr Ikmal said the crisis “would lead to what extent the role of every state actor in Negeri Sembilan understanding the complexity between the modern constitution and customary law.” This is, in academic register, a way of saying: nobody has had to answer this question before, and the answer will matter.

The Orang Asli roots of the luak system, the Minangkabau adat perpatih that overlaid them, the British-written 1959 constitution, and the post-independence federal structure are all, simultaneously, being tested by a declaration made on Facebook Live.

Closing the Box

Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment was designed to expose a paradox. Unlike atoms in quantum mechanics, quantum superposition cannot persist at the human scale. Observation collapses the wavefunction. Reality resolves. In simpler terms, his point was that things cannot genuinely be in two states at once. Someone has to open the box. And when they do, only one reality remains.

In Negeri Sembilan, the resolution has not yet formally arrived. But the evidence is clear.

A constitutionally invalid act by a constitutionally removed official, unsupported by the Menteri Besar’s signature, without documented inquiry, without notice to the ruler, and without a right of reply, does not satisfy the requirements of Article X. Senior lawyers say so. The state government says so. The PM says so. Tuanku Muhriz governs as if it never happened, because constitutionally, it may not have.

The “cat” is alive. The ruler is still governing.

But in Negeri Sembilan’s peculiar Schrödinger box, somebody will need to open it officially, close it properly, and make very sure everyone can see what is inside. Because the longer the superposition persists, the more political actors will treat the ambiguity as opportunity.

And that is what mangkuk politics has always been: not just incompetence, but the deliberate exploitation of everyone else's uncertainty, creating just enough chaos to benefit from the confusion.

Footnote:

¹ This publication uses the term “Undang Yang Empat” to refer to the four chieftains who signed the 19 April declaration. However, Mubarak Dohak of Luak Sungei Ujong was removed from his position by the Dewan Keadilan dan Undang on 17 April 2026 under Article 14(3) of the Negeri Sembilan Constitution 1959, two days before the declaration was signed. Under Article 16, DKU decisions are final and unchallengeable in any court.