By P. Gunasegaram
In the third of our series on who will be PM, we take a look at Anwar Ibrahim, going back to the time he was in Umno, his ascend to nearly the top, the fall and the comeback trail. His past conduct has not been particularly exemplary, but there is no denying he has the experience. Plus, his ever-wary coalition partners will help to make sure that he does not stray much from the straight and narrow.
He was going to announce PKR’s slate of candidates for Selangor on that day, over two weeks ago. A big rally was planned in Gombak, and people numbering in the thousands, probably more than ten thousand came that day. Anwar Ibrahim still pulls in the crowds.
At around 9.30 pm, PKR deputy president Azmin Ali kicked off the rally, railing against among others, the prime minister’s wife, interspersing his fiery oratory against the evils of Barisan Nasional and Umno in particular, with the promise that Anwar was going to speak later that night.
He swore that PKR would destroy (musnahkan) Umno. It was his constituency after all but five years earlier, even if he had said that, it would have been written off as so much rhetoric. Now, the crowd roared along with him, following his every cue to berate and belittle Umno, something which would have been unthinkable not long ago in this erstwhile Umno fortress.
Selangor chief minister Khalid Ibrahim came on next. Not the best of public speakers, but he listed out his achievements in the state whose reserves, he said went up to RM2.4 billion from just RM400 million when he took over administration of the state five years ago. And, then, he was interrupted almost rudely, when the MC for the day announced that Anwar had arrived.
Everyone peered, including Khalid but there was no sign of Anwar. Khalid resumed his speech until Anwar made his way through the crowd, cutting a swathe through people standing and sitting on the padang with his attendants and bodyguards leading the way, occasionally pausing to shake a hand.
Anwar Ibrahim
As Khalid wound up his speech, Anwar took over. He was introduced by Khalid as the next prime minister of Malaysia, the same reference made by Azmin Ali earlier. In a light, black jacket, he looked pretty good, fit and trim. He was energetic and lively and he has lost none of his oratory, speaking in a mix of Malay and English. He strode up and down on the stage addressing the crowd on a variety of topics from oil prices, Utusan Melayu’s fitnah (lies), Selangor water problems, poverty to arrogance of power. The crowd loved it and lapped it all up.
By the time he finished introducing the PKR candidates list for Selangor, it was past midnight. He has been on stage, standing up and walking for two hours and he looks like he can go on. Pretty good for a 66-year old. At that age, it could well be his last chance to become prime minister – he himself has said he won’t go for it next time if he does not get it now. By all accounts, he stands a chance, even though the odds may still be stacked against him
A long hard climb back
It’s been a long hard climb back up for Anwar to the pinnacles of power after he went down into the dumps, just a whisker away from becoming prime minister. When he was thrown out of party and government in 1998 by then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and then detained without trial before being slammed with sodomy charges, most felt that the door had been slammed on his political career too.
His rise up to deputy prime minister and deputy head of both Umno and Barisan Nasional had been nothing short of meteoric. Soon after Mahathir became prime minister in 1981, he hand-picked Anwar, then an activist in ABIM, the Malaysian Muslim youth movement to come into the cabinet.
Anwar climbed up the ranks to become youth culture and sports minister in 1983, education minister in 1986, finance minister in 1991 and deputy prime minister in 1993. In the bruising battle for Umno presidency in 1987 between Mahathir and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah for the top post, and Musa Hitam (who served as deputy prime minister and Umno deputy president under Mahathir up to that time) and Ghafar Baba for the deputy’s post, Anwar backed Mahathir. Mahathir won by just 43 votes, with Anwar playing a key role by getting a hesitant Najib Abdul Razak and his supporters to swing Mahathir’s way too.
There was considerable envy and jealousy among Umno hopefuls over Anwar’s ascent, who at one time also enlisted the help of Mahathir loyalist and former finance minister and Umno treasurer Daim Zainuddin, a powerful behind-the-scenes kingmaker. Anwar’s methods of using money and patronage to go up the ranks did not differ much from other Umno kingpins. He cultivated his own coterie of businessmen, existing and aspiring, for his funding base.
He became deputy prime minister in 1993 after he ousted Ghafar Baba from the Umno deputy president’s post with covert support from Mahathir, who did not lift a finger to help Ghafar. Ghafar became the second deputy to Mahathir to fall by the wayside after Musa. At this stage, it looked like a foregone conclusion that he was going to succeed Mahathir, who already had been PM for 12 years.
Ambitions to become PM
Anwar’s ambitions to become PM were well-known and when the Asian financial crisis erupted in 1997/98, egged on by his followers, Anwar attempted to sound a siren for change for Mahathir to step down by getting his allies to raise issues of corruption and patronage at the Umno general assembly. When Mahathir dug in, Anwar backtracked but it was too late.
He was arrested and charged for sodomy, remaining in prison until 2004 when a court partially lifted his sentence and set him free, during Abdullah Badawi’s time as prime minister. Anwar faced another sodomy charge but was acquitted.
Parti Keadilan Nasional or Keadilan was formed in 1999 and did well that year, in part contributing to Mahathir giving way to Abdullah Badawi in 2003. PKR was formed via the merger with PRM in 2003. PKR did badly in 2004 as did the other non-BN parties when BN made major inroads and recorded its biggest victory on Abdullah’s unkept promise of reform, of which the main one was fighting corruption. It returned with a vengeance in the 2008 general elections, generally referred to as the tsunami, dealing BN its most severe setback ever.
Anwar went almost to the pinnacle in 1998 and swung down into the brink, and now, 15 years later, he stands a chance of reaching the top again, perhaps his last chance.
Will he become PM?
But will he? Some things stand in his way. There are still many who believe he is homosexual while many others contend he is not and others say it does not matter to them whether he is or not. But whatever the truth, the incident as a whole is likely to be negative. When BFM radio in an interview available on podcast but was not broadcast asked him point blank twice whether he was homosexual he denied it but said that he really did not need to answer such questions.
The other charge made against Anwar is that he is a chameleon, changing his colours to suit the crowd and the mood and acting accordingly. Detractors cite the fact that he used dubious means to climb up the Umno ladder and was therefore every bit as tainted as the Umno leaders. Anwar admits that he was part of the process and that he is a changed man now, having had plenty of time to reflect during his six-year incarceration. Some believe him, some don’t.
So if despite everything if he does become PM, what kind of PM will he make? How good will he really be? Without a doubt, he has the most amount of ministerial experience of anyone in the opposition, having run both the education and finance ministries and holding the deputy prime minister’s post for five years.
Critics of his finance ministry tenure will point to his handling of the financial crisis in 1998 when he went with the flow and adopted measures prescribed by the International Monetary Fund of cutbacks, which proved disastrous to the Malaysian economy. Mahathir, with Daim’s help imposed capital controls. He then injected liquidity into the system to revive the faltering economy, a method that the US adopted in its handling of the 2008 world financial crisis. Mahathir got that one right, but Anwar’s move was what most pundits advocated at the time.
Umno all over again?
Will Anwar, if he became PM go back to his old ways at Umno and will Pakatan become just yet another extension of Umno in a different suit and stripes? Even if Anwar, who has admitted to his share of the blame for what Umno has done before, returns to his old ways, there are checks and balances from his coalition partners. Will Abdul Hadi Awang or Karpal Singh and Lim Kit Siang, let him have his way? That would be unlikely.
Anwar is not an economist and economics is not his strong point. But if he is prepared to listen to people who know better and some really smart people within his party and in the coalition, the likelihood of making policy errors can be considerably reduced.
Anwar Ibrahim
If he becomes PM, he is not likely to change economic policies much. The basic growth thrusts are likely to be there, he is likely to be pro-business, largely pro-market with some amount set aside for social equity. He and his partners will have to keep the promises that they make in terms of civil rights, freeing up the media, cutting wastage, open tenders and cracking down on corruption.
In other ways, there is some evidence of change in Anwar. At that rally in Gombak, the audience was perhaps 95% Malay. But he championed the multiracial line. He actually showed a slide – the only one – to indicate the widening gap in incomes of the rich and the poor. There are poor from all races, he said and they were poor because of BN policies. And yes there were more poor among Malays than other races and if all poor were helped, Malays will be helped more.
“Melayu apakah yang mereka memperjuangkan? Melayu jaya? Syed Mokhtar, Bernas?,” he asked rhetorically, throwing cold water on the constant Umno campaign call in Malay areas that it will champion Malay rights.
Perhaps the best thing one can do is to compare him to the others who will be PM. Will any of them do better than Anwar?
Tomorrow: What if Muhyiddin becomes PM? Or Hadi Awang?
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