Anwar has signed off his one-year anniversary as the Prime Minister by declaring that the unity government and him have tried their best. He then added that his reign is politically stable, hopes there will be no disturbances in the next four years and resolved to improve his performance in the coming years.
I don’t know about the next four years. I am more interested in seeing whether his government will make it pass the next three months.
I hate to sound superstitious, but since Najib was toppled in 2018, I have noticed that all the governments in Malaysia have been cursed with a shorter and shorter lifespan. Mahathir's reign only lasted 22 months. Muhyiddin only made it to 17 months. Ismail Sabri is the shortest serving prime minister in the country with 15 months in his belt.
Considering this, the record I am interested to see Anwar beat belongs to Ismail Sabri. If Anwar can break Ismail Sabri’s record and survive another three more months, then I will believe that the curse on the government of Malaysia has been broken and Anwar's reign will be able to make it for another four years.
Other than surviving the next three months, I hope that Anwar will also try to bolster the longevity of his government by actually achieving something that is worth achieving.
Saying that you have tried your best is not just a matter of empty words. It is about setting objectives, coming out with a feasible plan and committing yourself to the necessary exercises and practises to achieve your goals.
If you want to start your own business in 5 years, and you need 500k to do it, but you are starting off with zero cents in your bank account today, you should come up with a plan to save an average of 10k every month for the next 60 months. This is a good plan, because even if you fall short of a 100k, you will still meet your target. After you have a plan, rain or shine, you are going to have to commit to following that plan.
If in between, something untoward happens, like if you became the victim of a scam and lose 200k, and thus, you could just manage to save 400k, so you had to scale down on your goal and start a smaller business instead, then you have the right to say that you tried your best even if you didn’t reach your full objectives.
If you have no goal, no plan, no commitments, no exercises, but you say that you tried your best, although you are just meandering aimlessly, you are just an empty can. You might wish for a lot of things and express your wishes out loudly, but they are just the empty words of an impotent person. It means nothing because you are incapable of changing anything.
If you ask anybody on the street what Anwar has achieved in the last 12 months, the best answer you will receive is: “give him more time. He just had one year.”
The worst answer that you will receive is that the only thing Anwar has achieved is saving Zahid Hamidi from jail and getting Syed Saddiq whipped for leaving the unity government.
Some of you might be thinking: “Wait a minute. Syed Saddiq is not going to be whipped because he left the unity government, he is going to be whipped because he embezzled money" or " Zahid Hamidi was not freed from his charges by Anwar, but by the courts and the Attorney General’s chamber.” Officially, you would be right.
But the official narrative and popular opinion are not always the same thing, and the government should be concerned about that, because to the degree that the popular opinion diverges from the official narrative, the government is not safe, regardless of how many opposition MPs that it has managed to sway to its side.
Independent pollster Merdeka Center has come out a couple of days ago with a survey result that says Anwar’s personal approval rating is just standing at 50 percent.
Just February this year, his approval rating was at 68 percent. If even with a 68 percent approval rating, Anwar lost decisively to PN in three states and saw PN making inroads in another 3 states in the August 12 state elections, imagine what kind of problem he can expect in 2024, now that his approval rating has slid by 18 percent.
To Anwar, all I got to say to you as you go towards your second year, is have a goal. Aim for something.
What are you focusing on? Is it the economy? Is it reforms? Is it national unity? What?
Doing a Jack Sparrow and “making things up as you go along” or doing a “Jack-of-all-trades, master of none” act is all fine and well if you indulge in it every now and then, but if you keep doing it all year long, you are not being serious in wanting to reign for another 4 years.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.
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