The trials of Nurul Izzah

The government is alternatively regarded as a state. As public policy specialist David Easton once called it, "the authoritative allocation of values." The government, whether due to its sins of commissios or omission, can cause considerable pain.

As the "Princess of Reformasi," Nurul Izzah Anwar, barely 40, and Permatang Pauh MP, has experienced all the trials and tribulations that no average person would have gone through.

This involved seeing heavily armed policemen barging into her home, while she was in her mere teens, to arrest her father Anwar Ibrahim, then the deputy prime minister in 1998, and confronting the horror of seeing her dad being subjected to two scurrilous trials on spurious charges; which the previous monarch of Malaysia has pardoned and forgiven.

Nurul has confronted the beast that is the government, indeed, the entire edifice of the state, and bears scars of the pain.

Whether her defiance is as simple as resigning from the vice-presidency of PKR presided by her mom and dad over the last twenty years, her most recent interview with The Straits Times shows a dignified woman who is dejected by the slow pace of reforms.

By declaring that this is potentially her last term as a MP, - perhaps only in Permatang Pauh, Penang, but not elsewhere in Malaysia - Nurul has shown the all-too-human need to recover from decades of sordid political mud-slinging.

The puzzle facing Nurul is one quite similar to what her father Anwar (above) once posed when manhandled and punched by the former inspector-general of police Rahim Noor: "If this can happen to me, imagine what could happen to the average citizens?"

Well, if Nurul can experience a burn-out, barely a year after the victorious triumph of Pakatan Harapan on that historic night of May 9, 2018, imagine what Malaysians can feel when they have to struggle with the syndrome of procrastination?

Former premier Najib Razak and his ilk, including his wife, believe that every delay in their legal trial is a step closer to their own freedom.

But when Harapan is inconsistent and inconsiderate in stalling on more reforms, one cannot help but be empathetic with the inner struggles of Nurul.

Whether she is conducting herself as a MP, Nurul Izzah is a Malaysian first and foremost. She has a front row seat of the machinations in parliament, and beyond.

She also has a perspective that is rarer: she knows who are stirring the pot to bring about the downfall of not just Anwar, the incoming prime minister, but her mother, the Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

By declaring that this is her last term, Nurul has underscored the extent to which the power and ambition of some politicians, many of whom from her own party, has come to the fore. These are elements who cannot bear to wait to pluck the low hanging fruits of the state.

The pain Nurul Izzah, in this sense, is that of the average Malaysian. Many want meaningful and qualitative change, the sort that is systemic and structural.

The last thing Nurul and many Malaysians want to see is the politics of same old, some old.

It's akin to the movie Groundhog Day. Every day, the lead character, played by Bill Murray, would wake up to the same old routine, like a car zipping by a pothole to splash muddy water on his trench coat.

Politics also acquire and retain such a quality of dour sameness, a vapid display of same old, same old.

Nurul has represented the majestic elegance of reform over the last twenty years. 

By defending her seat in Lembah Pantai, Kuala Lumpur, a constituency that represents the best and worst of both Malaysia - due largely to the vast income gap - she knows the reforms needed to narrow the income differentials of Malaysians have either been waylaid by the powers that be, or ambushed by the Little Napoleons in the party.

Islam does not accept one giving up. What Izzah is doing is not giving up. She knows it is the people who decide the trajectory and direction of Malaysia, not some backroom schemers, much as their shenanigans, momentarily, seem to be winning out.

Madcap attempts to hijack or capture the state, either by selling its assets or stripping it clean, is but a veiled attempt to increase the size of its political liquidity – ironically, at a time when the government is left with mere crumbs by the previous administration.

Nurul has seen things that haves weighed down on her "unbearable lightness of being." But she has also taken the step to warn Malaysians.

Malaysians should wonder if this is the start of another slide in Malaysian democracy; what Joshua Kurtlanzick at the prestigious Council for Foreign Relations called a "democratic retreat".

Nurul's every decision to be in or out politics has become a barometer of how fast, deep and healthy democratic reforms are proceeding.

If she is stepping down, consequently voicing out, Nurul's decision is doing the country a favour. She is there to sound the death knell of reforms turning awry.

She isn't staying put just to enjoy the perks and privileges of the trappings of parliamentary office.

For now, one should give Nurul space to recover from fatigue, after close to a generation of unrelenting assault against the Leviathan that is the State.

Without the Leviathan, classical philosophers argued that life "would be brutish, lone and short."

It should be added that with a Leviathan that is incapable of restraining it's power through parliamentary checks and balances, life would be just as miserable, since MPs across both blocs are there to enjoy their moment in office, not to serve the larger agenda of improving the lot of the country.

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RAIS HUSSIN is a supreme council member of Bersatu. He also heads its policy and strategy bureau. - Mkini