Was it Derhaka? The Question Malaysia's Most Experienced Journalist Asked about the Empty Chairs of Negeri Sembilan
Can the word derhaka — treason, disloyalty, rebellion — be used to describe what the undangs have done in Negeri Sembilan?
On the morning of 23 April 2026, Tuanku Muhriz ibni Almarhum Tuanku Munawir opened the first sitting of the fourth session of the 15th Negeri Sembilan State Legislative Assembly at Wisma Negeri, Seremban.
The ceremony proceeded as scheduled. The guard of honour was inspected. The royal address was delivered — calmly, clearly, and without any visible sign of disturbance despite the crisis swirling around it.
But five chairs were empty.
The four Undang Yang Empat — Datuk Mubarak Dohak (Sungei Ujong), Datuk Maarof Mat Rashad (Jelebu), Datuk Muhammed Abdullah (Johol) and Datuk Abdul Rahim Yasin (Rembau) — were not present. Neither was Tunku Besar Tampin Tunku Syed Razman. Together they had issued a joint statement the night before advising the ceremony be postponed.
It was the first time in 17 years that the Undang had failed to attend the DUN opening alongside the ruler they had elected.
What Kalimullah Hassan Said
Veteran journalist and former Chief Executive Officer of the New Straits Times Group, Kalimullah Hassan, was watching the Facebook livestream of the ceremony from his screen. He posted on Instagram to his 4,077 followers what he saw — and what he felt.
“Never have I seen in any official Royal function — be it in Malaysia where we have nine monarchs — or anywhere else in the world of monarchy such a sight of palace chieftains who abandoned their ruler like at the opening of the Negri Sembilan legislative assembly.
I wonder — is this what is termed derhaka (treason, disobedience, disloyalty, or rebellion)? It’s a tragedy that this is what it has come to. Especially in Negri Sembilan, a federation stretching back a few hundred years. The empty chairs, in my view, are a burden of shame on those who chose to indignify the occasion.”
Source: @kalimullah
The word he used — derhaka — is not a word a Malaysian journalist uses lightly. It carries the full weight of Malay royal tradition, Islamic obligation and constitutional law. In the Malay world, derhaka to a ruler is among the gravest acts a subject can commit.
What Does Derhaka Mean?
Derhaka in its fullest sense means treason, disloyalty, disobedience or rebellion against one’s ruler. It is a concept embedded in Malay adat, Islamic tradition and Malaysian law.
Historically, derhaka was punishable by death. In the modern constitutional framework, it finds expression in several legal provisions:
The Sedition Act 1948 defines seditious tendency to include anything that brings into hatred or contempt, or excites disaffection against any Ruler, or questions the constitutional position of any Ruler. A public declaration — broadcast on Facebook Live — purporting to remove a sitting ruler without following a single constitutional requirement could arguably meet this definition.
Chapter VII of the Penal Code criminalises conduct aimed at wrongful deposition of a ruler, his heirs or successors. Senior constitutional lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar specifically flagged this provision in his Free Malaysia Today article of 23 April 2026, noting it exists precisely to guard against interference with the royal institution.
The Negeri Sembilan Constitution 1959 itself establishes the relationship of loyalty and obligation between the Undang and the Yang di-Pertuan Besar — a relationship the Undang’s boycott of the DUN openly and publicly repudiated.
Is Boycotting a Royal Ceremony Derhaka?
This is where the legal picture becomes genuinely complex.
The Undang would argue — and their lawyers have argued — that they were exercising a legitimate constitutional power under Article X of the Negeri Sembilan Constitution. Under this argument, their absence from the DUN was not derhaka but a principled assertion of their constitutional authority.
The counter-argument is equally powerful. Former Court of Appeal judge Datuk Seri Mohd Hishamudin Yunus, writing in The Edge on 23 April 2026, identified three grounds on which the declaration was constitutionally invalid: no due process, a biased participant, and the absence of the Menteri Besar’s signature. If the declaration was invalid — and the weight of legal opinion holds that it was — then the Undang were not exercising a legitimate constitutional power. They were simply refusing to attend a royal ceremony while publicly claiming to have removed the ruler who presided over it.
That, Kalimullah suggested, looks very much like derhaka.
The Sedition Question Revisited
No charges have been filed. But the legal questions raised by the events of April 2026 have not gone away.
The declaration of 19 April — made on Facebook Live without naming a single specific offence against Tuanku Muhriz, without the Menteri Besar’s signature, without gazettal, and by a man who had already been stripped of his authority — sits in a legal grey zone that Malaysian authorities have not yet chosen to act upon.
The boycott of the DUN opening sits in a similar grey zone. It is not technically illegal to absent yourself from a royal ceremony. But when that absence is accompanied by a public declaration that the ruler presiding over the ceremony has already been removed — a declaration that the state government has rejected as having no legal standing — the line between political protest and institutional derhaka becomes very thin indeed.
Malik Imtiaz Sarwar noted in FMT that the Federal Court, in Dhinesh Tanaphll v Lembaga Pencegahan Jenayah & Ors (2022), affirmed that the Malay Rulers’ functions are “central and fundamental to the peace and stability of the nation” and that they must be allowed to fulfil their role without undue obstruction. A coordinated boycott of a constitutional ceremony by the very chiefs who elected the ruler could — depending on how a court interpreted it — constitute exactly such obstruction.
Why No Charges Have Been Filed
The absence of any sedition or criminal charges in connection with the April 19 declaration or the April 23 boycott is itself significant — and likely deliberate.
Charging traditional chiefs under the Sedition Act or the Penal Code would be constitutionally explosive. It would elevate a state-level dispute into a national constitutional crisis of a different order entirely. It would make martyrs of the Undang and potentially generate sympathy, especially among those who believe they had genuine grievances.
The government’s strategy appears to be one of deliberate suffocation rather than confrontation — treating the declaration as a legal nullity, proceeding with business as usual, and allowing the weight of legal opinion and public sentiment to do the work that criminal charges would be too politically costly to achieve.
Whether that strategy succeeds in resolving the crisis — or merely delays a reckoning — remains to be seen.
What the Empty Chairs Left Behind
Kalimullah Hassan described the empty chairs as “a burden of shame on those who chose to indignify the occasion.”
In Malay royal tradition, the act of publicly withdrawing from a ruler’s presence — of leaving his chair empty at the moment of his greatest ceremonial authority — carries a symbolic weight that no legal argument can fully capture. It is a statement. It is a gesture. And in a culture where form and ceremony carry as much meaning as substance, it is a statement that many Malaysians read as derhaka — whatever the law ultimately decides.
The crisis is ongoing. The declaration remains legally void. Tuanku Muhriz continues as the recognised Yang di-Pertuan Besar. The Undang continue to maintain their position.
And five chairs remain, in the memory of everyone who watched the Facebook livestream that morning, conspicuously, shamefully empty.
Sources:
Kalimullah Hassan, Instagram, 23 April 2026: instagram.com/kalimullah
Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, Free Malaysia Today, 23 April 2026: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2026/04/23/why-negeri-sembilan-is-not-in-a-constitutional-crisis
Datuk Seri Mohd Hishamudin Yunus, The Edge, 23 April 2026: https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/800970
Malay Mail, 23 April 2026: https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2026/04/23/four-undangs-skip-negeri-sembilan-assembly-opening-as-royal-row-lingers/217334
Sedition Act 1948, Section 3(1): https://www.agc.gov.my
Penal Code, Chapter VII: https://www.agc.gov.my
Negeri Sembilan Constitution 1959: https://www.agc.gov.my
