Anwar at bay amid DAP pleas to expedite reform

 

From Terence Netto

It was risky for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to grace the launch in Ipoh yesterday of the Mandarin edition of Lim Kit Siang’s biography by the writer Kee Tuan Chye.

A two-volume biography of Kit Siang, penned by Tuan Chye, at the end of a four-year study of the man’s career, had been published in late 2022 and in early 2023 by Gerak Budaya, renowned publishers of the Reformasi generation.

Ipoh is a DAP stronghold where feelings among reformasi supporters are running against the PM for what is widely seen as a culpable tardiness on reform.

Credit to the PM for being brave enough to come to the launch of a book on a strong collaborator of his in the decades’ long struggle for political and economic reform in Malaysia, and who is now enjoying iconic status among the DAP faithful.

Anwar could not be sure of the reception he would get after two years in the prime ministerial seat, where he has appeared more interested in retaining power than in driving reform.

At the event, the PM received a polite but unenthusiastic reception from a full house of DAP enthusiasts and what looked like people who merely wanted to be present to add gold to a retired politician’s sunset. Kit Siang is 83.

After hearing DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng, who in his speech sharply pushed for the speeding up of the reform process, and then listening to Kit Siang politely making the case for Anwar to seize the day, the PM treaded an ambiguous path.

Anwar reminded the audience of the French Revolution’s excesses of zeal which he said had brought violence and grief to one of history’s pivotal moments. He insisted that reforms, which he termed “good governance”, had been introduced.

He pleaded for his unity government to be given more time.

He suggested the urban-rural divide in Malaysia was not a rhetorical flourish and that what was good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander.

He conjured up glimpses of his reform-fighting past, lauding Kit Siang as a consistent supporter of the struggle, and assured that the reformist in him may be dormant but was not dead.

In the end, Anwar discovered that ambiguity does not ride well among people who had long expected that a premiership by him would be a breakthrough moment in the reform saga in Malaysia.

Perhaps he should bear in mind the counsel of the poet Rabindranath Tagore, one of the thinkers Anwar had extolled in his Asian Renaissance enthusiasm of past years:

“Oh, listen to rumbling of the clouds,
Oh, heart of mine;
Be brave, break through,
And leave for the unknown.”

The only known in Anwar Ibrahim’s immediate future is his desire to have a second term as prime minister.

On the evidence of what was seen of Reformasi supporters in Ipoh yesterday, they are ambivalent about endorsing that desire, even if that redounds to what they are loath to see: the empowerment of Islamists in Malaysia.

Anwar Ibrahim must seize the day. - FMT

Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.