He excelled as finance minister, was imprisoned for political reasons and denigrated as a CIA agent: Now Anwar Ibrahim has been tasked with forming a government.
Reached his goal after 25 dramatic years: Anwar Ibrahim, the new Prime Minister of Malaysia.
The die seemed to have been cast long ago and the unflattering political verdict had also been made: Anwar Ibrahim, the overambitious primeval talent of Malaysian politics, would go down in history as an eternal opposition politician and notorious loser. He, who was repeatedly imprisoned as a political prisoner and always stood in the long shadow of his former mentor Mahathir Mohamad, is – so everyone said – meanwhile too old for a comeback.
But now, after the confusion of the elections at the weekend, in a way in the late autumn of his career, Anwar’s hour has come, contrary to expectations: On Thursday, the 75-year-old was commissioned by the Malaysian king, Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Sha, to form a new government. Anwar is the 10th head of government since independence in 1957. It should be a “government of national unity”, as the royal palace was forced to say.
Shipwrecked Kleptocrats
The need is there, so is the conflict, and this time Anwar didn’t just fall into this responsibility. His opponents are still more numerous than his friends, the king hesitated with the order, the mandate of the voters is wafer-thin and the coalition partner UMNO is – it has to be said – a handful of shipwrecked kleptocrats who, after their biggest election defeat at the weekend now clinging to a lifeboat, so to speak.
Anwar’s delicate balancing act is reflected not least in the fact that this is the fourth cabinet in the last four and a half years. Malaysia is on the verge of an economic abyss, the country is politically more shattered than ever and due to creeping Islamization, the scope for social and cross-party compromises has become narrow. Today, the fact that religion was abused by a cynical elite for decades to racist exclusion and secure political power is taking its revenge. In his most recent book, former ambassador and political author Dennis Ignatius characterizes his country as “paradise lost” and “the end of hope”. One last hope remains: Anwar Ibrahim.
Can Anwar break this vicious circle and really give Malaysians back the hope they first expressed at the ballot box in May 2018? At that time, the old rulers around the corrupt Najib Razak were voted out and instead the triumvirate Mahathir Mohamad, Muhyddin Yassin and Anwar Ibrahim were entrusted with the affairs of state. However, as is well known, this alliance of convenience did not last long: Mahathir, who was already 92 at the time, stubbornly refused to step down in favor of Anwar. For his part, Muhyddin Yassin could not resist the temptation to break up the coalition and seize power.
Mahahtir is now exhausted; this time he didn’t even make it into Parliament. Muhyddin Yassin’s coalition came second in the elections with 73 out of 222 seats. So now it’s Anwar’s turn, whose party alliance Pakatan Harapan won 82 seats and thus unexpectedly became the election winner.
Sophisticated, educated, charming
A quarter of a century has passed since Anwar last sat in government. As finance minister and deputy prime minister until 1998, he was considered one of the most hopeful politicians in Southeast Asia. Rhetorically brilliant, culturally sophisticated, educated and unusually charming – Anwar embodied the new, aspiring Asia whose century seemed to be just dawning.
However, the talented Anwar reckoned without his boss at the time: the old fox Mahathir sensed competition, felt Anwar breathing down his neck and had his pupil arrested for alleged homosexuality. At the time, Anwar had to endure humiliation: in prison he was beaten until bloody, in the media he was denigrated as a CIA agent, in public he was pilloried as a sinful Muslim.
Anwar’s rebellious reputation of “Reformasi” back then sounds like a list of missed opportunities today. Corruption has become endemic, the Malay-Muslim identity politics has divided the country, the education system is outdated and the best qualified have been turning their backs on the country for years and emigrating, primarily to Singapore, Australia and Canada.
A bridge builder
With Anwar, a politician takes power who also grants ethnic minorities (mainly Chinese and Indians) and people of other faiths (mainly Christians) equal rights in Malaysia, as the constitution actually provides. Anwar was the first opposition leader who vehemently advocated participation by the Chinese-born DAP in government. For years, Anwar was regarded as a beacon of hope for the non-Malay minorities, who felt increasingly marginalized by the Malay-Muslim policies of the traditional rulers.
Anwar is still on unsteady feet. But his background, the humiliations, his advocacy for a more open Malaysia and his unshakable belief in himself could serve as a basis for success: As a Malay, he can win the trust of the majority of the population. As a Muslim, he is aware of the religious sensibilities of his compatriots. As a pragmatist who knows all the depths of denunciation and yet never held grudges, he also knows how to deal with political opponents. And finally, one is tempted to say, with Mahathir the Machiavelli resigned who systematically prevented what is probably Malaysia’s most shrewd politician from rising to power.