Anwar Ibrahim should not be the prime minister of Malaysia

My first knowledge of Anwar Ibrahim was the time he rose to prominence as the deputy prime minister of Malaysia under UMNO umbrella in 1993. My parents even told me at the time that they even met him while touring the great wall of China. 

The next time I heard about him was the Highland Towers collapse disaster in the same year. The rescue team at the time was led by Anwar, which also comprised of 2 teams, one from Japan and the other from France. However, Anwar was indecisive at the time as both teams proposed contrasting solution to rescue the victims. 

In the end, only 2 were rescued while 48 persons perished.

His realtionship with Mahathir was "exceptionally good" to the extent that it is compared to a father-son relationship. 

Soon, words started to spread that Anwar is poised to replaced Mahathir as the next prime minister of Malaysia. 

At the start of the financial crisis, Mahathir and Anwar were in direct confrontation as to how the crisis was to be handled. Anwar took radical steps in changing the governing mechanism during Mahathir's absent which mainly dealt with Malaysia's response to the crisis.

Their relationship further deteriorated with his attack on the short coming of UMNO and its ruling coalition when he attempted to deal with nepotism and cronyism within the party.

By 1998, he was voted as the "Asian of the year" by Newsweek magazine and poised to challenge Mahathir for the leadership of UMNO. It was at this time that a book by Khalid Jafri titled "50 reasons why Anwar cannot become prime minister" emerged.

This was followed by his sudden termination from cabinet and expelled from UMNO for act of sodomy. He was jailed. It is believed that he was framed by Mahathir to have him removed. He was charged with both sodomy and corruption and was jailed for 6 years.

This however, tore the party into 2 fractions, with one breaking away to form Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR). By 2008, the party formed an uneasy alliance with both Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS). PKR acted as the mediator to bring the 2 nemesis together to fight against Barisan Nasional (BN) under the coalition name of Pakatan Rakyat.

They fought BN during the 2008 election and managed for the first time in history deprived BN a 2/3 majority and governance for 5 states. By August 2008, Anwar made his come back to the political arena through a by-election in Permatang Puah, becoming the leader of the opposition.

Rumor also started at this time that PR was going to flip the government with member of parliament (MP) from opposing team deflecting over. It went for few months never happened, all these whiles, Anwar and his team continued to spread rumor leading to panic on BN side so much so that they sent their MPs for oversea team building trip.

Flipping of government did happen though in state of Perak, but it went the other way with 3 members of PR went over to BN. 

By this time, PR managed to gain the governance of a few states including Selangor which Abdul Khalid Ibrahim was appointed as the chief minister. Selangor was progressing well under his care leading to challenge from the then Anwar's good friend and supporter Azmin Ali within PKR for the position. support for Abdul Khalid was removed causing him to lean towards BN for support. He was eventually removed and replaced by Asmin Ali. all this while, Anwar stayed silent on the matter.

By the 2013 election, PR again failed to take power. Anwar pointed the fingers to the "unfair" electoral system. He continued to heckle the BN government at the time, specifically the prime minister Najib. This led to his second imprisonment of 5 years on sodomy charge in 2015, stopping him from winning a state by-election in Selangor. By now I am skeptical if he is innocent as his relationship with his intern certainly seemed to be more than ordinary.

In the same year, underlying conflict between DAP and PAS surfaced. The new president of PAS, Hadi Awang decided on a different leading to the collapse of the alliance, with PKR still led by Anwar Ibrahim sitting on the fence. This also caused PAS to break into 2 fractions, the conservative group remained as PAS, another Parti Amanah Negara led by Mohamad Sabu which remained with PR..

Came election during 2018, Anwar was approached by Mahathir asking for support to overthrow the then BN government. Mahathir arranged for his pardon by the royal family after the new coalition Harapan won the election. This time, the remaining parties (PKR and DAP) of former PR joined force with Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) of Mahathir.

Anwar then again returned to politics through another by-election in Port Dickson. While he claimed to not be in a hurry to step in replacing Mahathir as the next prime minister, there was nevertheless continuous pressure for Mahathir to hand over his power, eventually leading to Mahathir's resignation as the prime minister. 

This led to conflict with Bersatu due to their discontent that Anwar allowed DAP to take the lead creating policies favoring the Chinese while viewed as Malay as being sidelined. This causing another collapse and pushing Muhyiddin to move toward BN, becoming the new prime minister while Mahathir formed a separate party Perjuang, while Syed Sadiq who was not willing to collude with both formed Muda.

Now Anwar and what's left of Harapan is calling for blood on BN, Bersatu and Perjuang for depriving them of maintaining the power which rightfully theirs. The called those in Bersatu as traitors, BN as corrupt and Perjuang as liars.

While busy blaming and discrediting others during the present election run, they have not self-reflected of what went wrong with their coalition. 

The story of Anwar is a series of partnership implosion, starting from his existence in UMNO, PR and lately Harapan. He is highly indecisive in time of urgency while his action is radical. 

While critical over the act nepotism and cronyism in UMNO, Anwar exhibits the same behavior pattern. He allowed Azmin power grab in Selangor and turned a blind eye on DAP's execution of policy based on racial and party line, causing imbalance within the coalition. 

All these behaviors to me have much to do with his want to be the prime minister of Malaysia to the extent that he will disregard certain underlying principles to realize his dream. I am really concern if he became the prime minster of Malaysia one day. as long as the root cause of the continuous implosion is not found, we may see history repeating itself again. 

Unfortunately, the self-reflect mechanism of is lacking within the party, the team continued to blame external factors ignoring the fact that it is what's within the causing their own failure.

I will feel sorry the day they return to power, it will be another 5 years of instability, this round they will increase their urge to be in control.  We will witness a more dictatorial form of government in Malaysia as a result.