How Is The KL Mayor Chosen & Why Is There A Study On Mayoral Elections Now?
There have been differing views regarding the study on the feasibility of holding a KL mayoral election.
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The Mayor of Kuala Lumpur is the chief executive for the local government of Kuala Lumpur, the capital and largest city in Malaysia.
The role of the mayor is to oversee the urban planning, infrastructure management, public health, and sanitation of the city. The mayor also manages the city’s budget, oversees municipal services, and implements development policies.
Unlike most leadership roles, the mayor of Kuala Lumpur is appointed every three years by the Minister of Federal Territories, instead of being elected by the people. In short, the residents of Kuala Lumpur have no say who gets to be their mayor and the mayor answers to Putrajaya, and not necessarily to the citizens.
This system of appointing the KL mayor has been in place since local government elections were suspended in 1970.
As of 2026, there have been 16 mayors of Kuala Lumpur. The current KL mayor is Dato Haji Fadlun Mak Ujud, who clocked in on the first day of work on 17 November 2025.
Fadlun, 58, was formerly the Putrajaya Corporation president since 2022 and took over as the 16th mayor from Datuk Seri Maimunah Mohd Sharif.
Maimunah’s tenure as a mayor was shortened by nine months; her tenure ending on 14 November 2025 instead of 14 August 2026. This was because she was appointed to a strategic role at Petronas to work on landmark projects, utilising her expertise in sustainable urban planning.
READ MORE: Maimunah Mohd Sharif: Meet KL’s First Female Mayor Who’s Shaping a People-First City
Her early departure has sparked calls from stakeholders for increased accountability and to bring back local council elections.
This leads to the study on the feasibility of holding a KL mayoral election. The study will be conducted by the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). Not DAP, yo.
Responses regarding the study on KL mayoral elections
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Federal Territories) Hannah Yeoh clarified that the exercise was still at the research stage and had begun in December during Dr Zaliha Mustafa’s tenure as the federal territories minister.
Former Umno youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin also suggested the idea of the study at a recent forum, saying it encourages accountability.
However, Perikatan Nasional urged Yeoh and her office to reconsider the focus of the study. PN’s secretary-general Datuk Seri Takiyuddin Hassan said framing such elections as a primary instrument to strengthen the role and efficiency of Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) was overly simplistic, naive, and misguided.
He said a more realistic and practical approach would be to focus the study on its core administrative and governance issues.
This would include DBKL’s organisational structure, leadership quality, human resource management, coordination among units, agencies, and the federal government, integrity and enforcement mechanisms, and quality, speed and consistency of decision-making.
In other words, he believes solving the mayoral election will not automatically bring about better service delivery or governance.
Takiyuddin said it might introduce additional problems like politicisation of city administration, electoral populism, conflicts between an elected mayor and the federal government, and policy instability driven by election cycles.
In response to the criticisms, Yeoh defended the importance of the research and evidence-based policymaking. She added that leaders should not be afraid of in-depth studies when making decisions that affect the public.
She shared that accurate and convincing decision requires sound data and facts and her legal education had taught her how to assess the strengths and weaknesses of policies.
She added that weighing the pros and cons of a proposal allows decisions to be made more carefully.
Yeoh believes research plays a key role in sharpening judgement and is an essential process to arrive at better decisions.
Meanwhile, Transport Minister and DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke said it was merely a study to open room for discussion. He said there’s nothing controversial about conducting the study, adding that many developed and democratic countries also hold mayoral elections.
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