By M Santhananaban
Last Saturday, 25 March, marked the conclusion of four fraught and formidable months of Anwar Ibrahim’s able but rather anxious administration.
Anwar’s ascent represents a positive development because it signals a definite break from the system that had placed Najib Razak in the highest political office.
With Anwar in power, simmering challenges like rabid racism, religious extremism and corruption are no longer issues that are on the back burner. They are being more openly acknowledged and talked about.
Anwar’s government is also driven a lot less by the usual top-down hectoring and management ethos: it is a lot more responsive and sympathetic towards the grievances and misgivings affecting the masses and the marginalised lower strata.
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In these past four months, Malaysia has experienced its coolest yet the most besieged prime minister operating in a most hostile situation.
This inhospitable environment was the creation by design or default of the nation’s most powerful political officeholders of the recent past. They bequeathed to Anwar a baleful legacy while consistently maintaining they were working on the most beautiful, bountiful and brilliant blueprint for Malaysia.
Anwar has survived four challenging months, which may hopefully prove to be of much long-term significance to the fundamental reforms he is attempting.
For the idealists, purists, inveterate Perikatan Nasional-led opposition supporters and diehard unreconstructed Mahathiristas, Anwar is plain evil, unacceptable and unsuitable.
Some of these idealists, including identifiable individuals of the intelligentsia, speak of Anwar as an irresponsible ultra- Malay firebrand and as a controversial Islamic extremist. We are being asked to believe that the prime minister has only rebranded himself at 75, but is the same rabble-rouser he was at 25 or 45.
We are also being told Anwar should not be in a unity government with Zahid Hamidi, who is facing charges in court for various offences.
But Anwar does not have the luxury of some of his notorious autocratic predecessors of the bygone overwhelmingly predominant Umno era when the party led an asymmetrical political alliance.
It is a radically changed environment today, but there seems to exist an intense, deep-seated distrust of all of Anwar’s actions. His political opposition, by constantly harping on selective or political persecution, seems to be ambiguous about corruption.
Little thought is given to the constraints that Anwar has to work with. He is easily the most clear-thinking, people-prioritising and transparent prime minister since the ouster of the Najib regime.
Issues relating to the application of public funds, the award of contracts, the unshakeable position of monopolies, sweetheart deals and the efforts to combat corruption are of centre-stage significance.
It is clear these issues are not being played up for dramatic or histrionic effect but to achieve a more accountable and just equilibrium in good governance in a realistic manner.
The people should generally feel more empowered and encouraged that after 25 years of being subject to the worst kind of harassment, humiliation, disgrace and deception, Anwar has risen like a phoenix.
The PM has an insight into our horrid prison conditions that convicted Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker Roger Ng sought to highlight in recent proceedings in a New York courtroom. He knows what it is to be in state-enforced wilderness, to be assaulted and deprived of basic human dignity despite his extensive range of influential friends both at home and especially abroad.
He is the quintessential Benigno Aquino Jr of Malaysia who is still being targeted despite holding the highest political office.
A respected former finance minister of Malaysia has recently spoken of billions of ringgit from the earnings of Petronas being splurged on projects of dubious value. It would seem that this is only part of the story. The more alarming feature of some of these projects was the borrowings and government outlays made to launch them.
Well-heeled and politically connected entrepreneurs in Malaysia seemed to have profited from these kinds of sweetheart deals. If or when they failed, their personal fortunes were unaffected because the state underwrote or absorbed the losses. Only their projects failed to yield results. They were unscathed, their personal assets were intact because they had no skin in the game.
Robert Kuok in his Memoir (2017) wrote (on page 271): “Capitalism is a ruthless animal. For every successful businessman, there are at least 10,000 bleached skeletons of those who failed.”
Here in our country, we allowed favoured cronies to borrow from banks on attractive terms, provided seed money and set them up in business and, when they failed, they walked away with their dignity and assets intact.
Scratch the surface, and you would be able to identify hundreds of such failed projects which were entrusted to selected individuals based on their connections and not their competence.
The finance ministers of the first 25 years of the country’s existence were prudent men who were conservative about financial commitments and dicey outlays. Both Lee Hau Shik (HS Lee) and Tan Siew Sin were men of impeccable character and integrity. Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah was a worthy upholder of that tradition, but he was let down by some of his friends.
Anwar seems to know the kind of hard and unpalatable corrective actions Malaysia needs to take to get back on a proper footing.
He must be given time, understanding and the civil service talent to achieve this goal. Four months cannot correct four decades of ‘poisoning’.
Patience is essential.
M Santhananaban is a retired ambassador with 45 years of public sector experience
AGENDA RAKYAT - Lima perkara utama
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
- Galakkan pembangunan saksama, lestari serta tangani krisis alam sekitar
- Raikan kerencaman dan keterangkuman
- Selamatkan demokrasi dan angkatkan keluhuran undang-undang
- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme
