Hisomuddin Bakar, the executive director of Ilham Centre, a think tank, is of the opinion that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s “self-centered” traits overshadowed the other ministers.
Comparing the current government to a band, Hisomuddin said that Anwar wanted to be the “lead singer, drummer and guitarist.”
Even if I agree with Hisomuddin’s description, I don’t see why it is such a bad thing, as Hisomuddin makes it out to be.
Even Mahathir, the person that Hisomuddin was complaining about Anwar to, had such a prima donna quality.
From Proton to the Penang bridge to the Petronas Twin Towers to Putrajaya, Mahathir was not exactly shy of taking credit for it all, and be the “lead singer, drummer and guitarist” of his administration.
Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice Roosevelt, famously described her father as “wanting to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the baby at every christening." Despite that, Theodore Roosevelt was not only popular and respected during his reign, his legacy has endured until the present time.
Internationally, Putin has that trait that Hisomuddin sees in Anwar, but Russians generally credit Putin for bringing Russia back from the brink of ruin.
Duterte overshone everybody in his administration too, but he is celebrated by the Filipinos.
In our own region, we can say that the late Lee Kuan Yew was the “guitarist, lead singer and drummer” of his administration as well, but nobody in this entire world will speak poorly about Lee Kuan Yew’s administration, despite his tendency to “overshadow his minister.”
The truth is, people don’t really care whether their leader centralizes or delegates power in their administration.
As Deng Xiaoping famously said, "It doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice".
I would argue that the tendency of the leader of the government to be a domineering figure, might even be the preferred mode of governance by the us Southeast Asians.
From Duterte to Lee Kuan Yew to Hun Sen to Suharto to Marcos to even Mahathir Muhammad during his first tenure, Southeast Asians never lacked an authoritarian leader, who towered above everybody else in their administration.
The only thing that we require from an authoritarian before we give them the mandate to rule is a clear vision or dedicated mission.
Anwar’s problem is not that he outshines his ministers. Anwar’s problem is that he has no vision or mission.
If he had something like Mahathir’s Vision 2020 or a mission to save the Philippines from criminal cartels like Duterte, nobody is going to blame him for overshadowing his ministers, even if he does overshadow his ministers.
So rather than share the limelight with his ministers, which honestly speaking, is probably not the style leadership that suits Anwar, what Anwar needs to do is to look into his heart and find the courage and resolve to stand for something.
He has got to aim for something. What is it that he wants to do? Expand the economy? Clean up the swamp? Unite the people? What?
Once he find something worthwhile to do and develops the resolve to do it, come hell or highwater, he can outshine everybody in his administration, and instead of criticizing him for being “self-centered”, Malaysians will likely just hail him as the chief, the way the Singaporeans and Russians and Filipinos hail Lee Kuan Yew, Putin and Duterte as their chief.
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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