If, as the saying goes, a week is a long time in politics, then Pakatan Harapan's (PH) historic election victory in Malaysia in 2018 must seem an eternity ago. When it swept into power in May that year, the improbable coalition of opposition parties defied all odds and ushered in a season of hope and expectation.

Now it is painfully clear that winning an election is one thing, but transforming a system bred on decades of political patronage and racially charged narratives has proven quite a different prospect altogether.