That Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had recently converted a Hindu youth to the Islamic faith was received as a shock by many non-Malays, even when many of us were prepared for some major move by him in the aftermath of the August 12 elections.
Post August 12, the writing on the wall is clear. The Malays are not behind the unity government. Anwar is reigning chiefly with the support of the minority races.
There is an inherent instability in this arrangement, and as the captain of the country, it is expected that Anwar will have to take some drastic actions to address the situation.
Despite that, it was still a shock to see the image of Anwar converting a non-Malay to Islam while serving as the Prime Minister of the country, when he is reigning chiefly with the support of the non-Malay support.
But sentiments aside, I do wonder as to how effective will this more conservative image he is cultivating be in securing his reign?
Khairy Jamalluddin had predicted that there is a possibility that Anwar might take on a conservative approach and make “ethnocentric overtures” to stabilise his reign.
The conservative approach is basically a “fighting fire with fire” approach. In response to PN seizing much of the Malay support through hyper conservative overtures, Anwar could become as conservative or more conservative than PN, in order to out maneuver them.
Will the Malays, however, find such a move from him convincing, when it comes as such an about turn?
It is hard to say.
On one hand, our politicians have a tendency to too conveniently presume that the common people are so naïve that we cannot see through the intentions behind the actions that they take.
On the other hand, people do have a short memory. This is just the first move by Anwar to cultivate a more conservative image. If he consistently makes similar moves, in a couple of months, there is a possibility that even his own supporters might forget that until recently, they saw him as a champion of liberalism and multiculturalism.
Khairy is of the opinion that Anwar might probably take a two pronged approach to stabilise his reign. Other than continue with “ethnocentric overtures and programmes'', Anwar at the same time might make significant changes to the economy and “hope that the economy improves for ordinary Malaysians.”
In Khairy’s mind, I reckon, he thinks that Anwar will appear more Islamic and conservative to win over the Malays, while improving the state of the economy in order to not lose his non-Malay support base.
In other words, Anwar might likely copy the strategy that Mahathir applied during his 22 years reign.
Mahathir, incidentally, has once again called Anwar a dictator in a press conference recently.
Let us not take Mahathir’s view about Anwar lightly.
From his conversion of the Hindu youth recently, we can see that Anwar is capable of taking drastic action to secure his reign if necessary.
As the saying goes, “familiarity breeds contempt.”
For all you know, Anwar and Mahathir might have developed an interminable animosity towards each other for decades, simply because they know each other so intimately that they can read each other's thoughts and predict each other's next move.
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