On Anwar's fitness for the highest office

Is Anwar Ibrahim fit for the office of prime minister of Malaysia?

This question was not seriously asked of previous holders of the post.

The prevailing political culture did not allow space for serious public discussion on the fitness for the highest office of Abdul Razak Hussein, Hussein Onn, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib Abdul Razak – the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth PMs respectively of the country – prior to their actual occupation of the post.

The regnant political culture did not consider it good form to discuss the fitness for the highest office of the above-mentioned prime ministers when they were deputy PMs.

True, there were major queries on the fitness for prime ministerial office of Najib Abdul Razak while he was deputy to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

This was on account of Najib's alleged involvement in a murder case and his alleged corruption stemming from the purchase of a French submarine when he was the defence minister.

But the political culture, then, did not permit serious public debate on the major queries on Najib's fitness. There was discussion, in subterranean circles, but nothing of a serious public nature.

This was despite Najib's boss, Abdullah Badawi (photo), engaging in a kind of political glasnost: He opened up space for public debate and discussion of issues during the time (late October 2003 to early April 2009) he was the PM.

Eight months after the inauguration of a supposedly New Malaysia in May 2018, there is a wider berth for public discussion and debate in which questions about the fitness for prime ministerial office of the de facto deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, can be aired.

But there is a reluctance to come to grips with the questions, perhaps because it is assumed that Anwar's succession is a given unless of course the current PM, Mahathir, bushwacks him.

Mahathir has often publicly declared he will hand over power to Anwar.

He has promised to do so, the pledged handover having been a vital precondition for Pakatan Harapan's collective decision to name Mahathir, instead of the then jailed Anwar, as their PM-designate should the coalition win GE14.

This is the kind of compact that is very difficult to renege on without being branded a fiend.

It's not that Anwar himself has not furnished good reasons for Mahathir to backtrack.

It is believed he was in negotiation with immediate past PM Najib on a deal for Umno support for him being the choice of PM had GE14 eventuated in a hung Parliament.

After he gained a royal pardon, Anwar was seen truckling up to the royals who were opposed to Mahathir as PM.

He urged Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng not to be overzealous in exposing Umno's nation-debilitating corruption.

He was opposed to Tommy Thomas' appointment as Attorney General and then pretended he was instrumental in enabling the appointment to be a fait accompli.

He had no qualms about opposing Icerd

Disconcertingly, he is for Malay primacy and Islamic supremacy. He comported with some of the more dubious fat cats of the Malaysian business world.

He had no qualms about being opposed to the ratification of Icerd.

All these cast doubts on Anwar's credentials as an egalitarian and on his reputation as a fighter against corruption, the founding plank of the party, PKR, that was birthed by the travails inflicted on him by Mahathir two decades ago.

To compound matters, he presides over a PKR that is split down the middle, a split his conduct had engendered and he continues to mismanage to virulence.

Anwar doesn't seem to know that factions are endemic to democratic party politics, it being wise to co-opt rather than keep them in contention, as his latest appointments within his party portend, following its highly divisive internal polls.

All these disqualifying clauses do not make Anwar unfit for the highest office in the land any more than Mahathir's failing reformist drive enfeebles his hold as Harapan head honcho.

But this much is clear: there is an undeniable fund of gratitude accruing to Mahathir for making Harapan's GE14 win possible.

When we imagine what would have become of the country had GE14 yielded a victory for Najib's BN, we are certain of our gratitude to Mahathir.

At this point, we can be sure that this former authoritarian has not had a Damascene conversion to the reformist thrust of the Harapan manifesto for GE14. Mahathir was only pretending.

But victory in GE14 was attainable because Mahathir was Harapan's PM-designate.

How could we know this for sure?

We cannot know for sure. This is hypothetical, which like all such questions elude certainty.

But this much we can know: if Anwar had not made all those mistakes he has made in the recent past, he would be a shoo-in as PM to succeed Mahathir.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus observed that man's character is his fate.

Character is the way in which a person confronts the things that happen to him; fate is the sum of the decisive things that happen to a person.

It is his character that has spawned the doubts that have arisen as to whether Anwar will succeed to the premiership.

If he misses out, it would not be fate but his characteristic behaviour that engendered it.

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TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others. - Mkini