Everything that has gone wrong with the political career of Anwar Ibrahim, the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia, who is two years into his five-year tenure from November 24, 2022, onwards, began with an M.

No. One does not have to refer to Mahathir, let alone Mahathir Mohammad – a double M’s – to explain how things once went horribly wrong with his political life, when Mahathir put him through various trials and tribulations.

Let’s begin from the start.

In secondary school, Anwar excelled at the Malay College of Kuala Kangsar (MCKK), an institution that began with an M.

Now, had Anwar studied at Penang Free School, for instance, no matter how much of a rabble rouser he was to become at Universiti Malaya in the early 1970s, Anwar would not have been seen by his critics as a rabble rouser, but a promising leader.

Penang Free School would have suited Anwar like a glove as compared to the Malacca High School or the La Salle School in Kuala Lumpur.

However, excelling in all his exams in MCKK in Perak, indeed going on to be the Head Prefect of the school, Anwar was educated in an environment where he could see the differences and weaknesses of the Malays, invariably, Muslim Community with the clearest vision.

The Malaysian intelligence agency could not have missed the chance to identify his strengths and weaknesses, one of which was the proclivity to focus on political Islam that the establishment in the 2000s still disliked.

Rich or poor, Anwar was marked by the state and powers that be. In turn, Anwar has had to decipher the pluses and minuses of the Malay world in elaborate speeches, often telling his audience what he is not.

Such speech acts would extend to the West, that he is not an Islamic extremist, especially when he is speaking up on the complexities in the Middle East.

The heavy need to battle this characterisation head on has often diverted Anwar from saying the obvious: he is but a national and global progressive focused on fairness and justice.

Ironically, the latter isn’t what Anwar can win.

Since the UN Security Council (UNSC) is shaped to favour those with naked power and the undiminished will of single-minded aggression, Anwar will forever be faced with the challenges of the moneyed class gone rotten regardless of whether they are in the Global North or South.

Since the moneyed class in the Global South provides a lower threshold for Anwar to break in, his statecraft has had to consider the importance of BRICS, a move which has invited the derision that Anwar can never upend the current order from World War II.

Of course, Anwar will fight to transform the mangled world order, whether using the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and indeed the East Asian Summit (EAS), to speak against the atrocities of the world, anything from the causes of colonialism to climate change.

Anwar has to be measured and mature enough to accept the world functions on realistic change.

Not idealistic aspirations alone. More than anything else, Malaysians have to understand this transaction cost too.

Moulding the world, comes with the thorny issue of understanding the limitations posed by women and men themselves, notwithstanding the fact that the world is created as an Imago Dei: the image of God –the latter being a belief affirmed by all Abrahamic faiths according to Professor Osman Bakar, the Rector of the International Islamic University of Malaysia.

Through the above optics of M, one can further understand that Anwar is always caught in a world that is not binary, black and white. If anything, it is always in multiple shades.

Precisely because of Anwar’s sophisticated world view, Anwar was one of the first to successfully climb to the very top of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno).

While the earlier Anwar in Umno was a force to be reckoned with from 1981 to 1999, Anwar had to cultivate a new group of leaders from scratch in the Justice Party, a party that is based on multicultural and multiracial composition.

While such a form of politics is entrenched in Sarawak and Sabah, it is not as firmly established in Peninsular Malaysia.

Everything that has gone wrong with the political career of Anwar Ibrahim began with an M.

Hence, Anwar had to consider a Grand Coalition with parties in Sarawak and Sabah, some of which have not escaped the politics of rent (i.e. corruption) to make their keeps.

Anwar cannot lash them anymore, nor can he attack all states in Peninsular.

In this sense, Anwar can only succeed as and when he forms a coalition.

The very fact that he has a two-thirds majority in Parliament right now is not so much a testament to Anwar’s negotiating skills alone but the minority parties’ ability to try to hold Anwar to ransom too.

Hence, political scientists who insist Anwar must be as tenacious as Mahathir do not understand how fragile the original basis of Anwar’s power.

Even as late as November 2024, the President of Umno, invariably, Zahid Hamidi, who is concurrently the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, has confessed that the likes of him is still being baited to abandon the current Unity Government sanctioned by the King.

When seen through this lens, it is understandable why Anwar can never get along with Mahathir. The latter believes deeply in dividing and conquering his enemies with various mendacious schemes.

Before Mahathir checkmated himself at the ripe old age of 94 for being the Master Conspirator of the Sheraton Move on February 23, 2020, a move where Mahathir earned the total distrust of all Malaysians as the country was just about to face a serious pandemic on March 18, 2020, when power not only slipped away from Mahathir, but the premiership subsequently slipped into the hands of two other inconsequential leaders, which history will never remember other than the Movement Control Order (MCO) that Mahathir’s successors had imposed.

Not surprisingly, Anwar is extremely conscious of his reputation. Any wrong moves or aspersions will be cast upon his good name and that of his political party. The cost would be too high to pay.

Thus, Anwar, for now, has staked his name and legacy on becoming the most accomplished Muslim Prime Minister, albeit by explaining that being a Muslim means being connected to the universal values of justice and democracy.

To achieve that, Anwar has had to latch on to another M – the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC), to pursue a comprehensive anti-corruption agenda.

Naturally, the very people who tried to challenge Anwar have been those who had feted themselves to billions of dollars from the government. From the state largesse.

By this token, as and when one of the accused suddenly perishes in old age, Anwar’s reputation has taken a hit.

Why? This is due to the complex process of trying to re-trace decades of corruption, with which the family of the now demised accused had found the time to re-plan their media offensive.

In the case of Daim Zainuddin, his wife has issued the challenge to Anwar to come gunning for her and the whole family, and that the family is not afraid.

Of course, the family can feign fearlessness because the extent of the criminal laws in Malaysia stops at the physical death of a person.

Yet, such a person could not have failed to understand the need to first transfer the assets and properties to his or her close family members to avoid any kind of legal culpability altogether.

A standard technique in any form of evasive action when one is afraid of being criminally indicted while alive.

But what the media in Malaysia has often not been able to explain is the difference between civil and criminal laws.

The fact is, the investigation of MACC remains in place to go deep into the family’s excessive wealth while in office.

When indicted under the civil law, the forfeiture of billions of illegal funds that have been funnelled away remains a legal sentence that the accused’s surviving family cannot run away from.

Thus, when the cases are exhausted through all legal avenues – be it High Court, the Federal Court, or for that matter the Court of Appeals – the long arm of the law will continue to come at these wildly moneyed classes.

In other words, the accused may be six feet under, but the lion’s share of the larceny, even when transferred to another name or names of other family members, will not remain immune.

Anwar, in this sense, will always be weighed down by the media in Malaysia.

Media deficit, coupled with the inability of Malaysian thinkers to explain the intricacies of the Madani government – as one shaped by the need to be as compassionate as possible – while pursuing all kinds of reforms, will weigh Anwar down for now.

Be that as it may, Anwar belongs to a small class of politicians who had bounced back from various purges before, such as Deng Xiaoping of China, Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, Lula Da Silvio of Brazil, and last but not least, Nelson Mandela of South Africa – each and every one of them defied all odds to return truly triumphant.

To garner such a distinction, however, Anwar cannot lose the next General Election two or three years away from now, without which his seeming status as an “immortal” would be rendered as but that of a mere Man. The last M!

(Dr Phar Kim Beng, Expert Committee Member of Centre of Regional Strategic Studies, CROSS.)