In Malaysia today, “structural reforms” has become the favourite phrase of the politically disappointed—especially among reformists trying to explain why the country still feels stuck despite a change in leadership.
Their argument is simple:
Anwar Ibrahim has failed because he has not delivered the structural reforms he promised.
That is why they often denounce Anwar, by referring to the Reformasi movement that Anwar originated, as Reformati instead.
Anwar’s counter is just as straightforward:
He has implemented structural reforms—and Malaysia is already seeing the results, Anwar is saying, to plant his victory flag in the same place that his opponents and former supporters are building his monument of defeat.
The dichotomy comes from the fact that although both sides are using the same word, they are almost certainly not talking about the same thing.
To understand the disagreement, we need to first understand what “structural reform” actually means.
Think of any system as three things: an entity, a world, and a structure.
Take a racing team.
The entity is the team.
The world is competitive racing.
The goal is to win.
The structure is everything the team builds to achieve that goal: the car, the driver, the engineering decisions—every detail designed to extract victory from the environment it operates in.
If the team keeps losing, two explanations are possible.
One: the structure is sound, but it has been poorly run—corrupted, mismanaged, or inefficient.
Two: the structure itself is no longer suited to the world—it is outdated, mismatched, or fundamentally flawed.
And depending on which explanation you believe, your idea of “reform” changes completely.
This is precisely where the divide in Malaysia lies.
Starting from the Asian Financial Crisis back in in the late 1990s, over the decade, many Malaysians have increasingly felt that the country is no longer getting what it wants from the world—whether that is growth, fairness, happiness or upward mobility.
But we disagree on why.
Anwar belongs to the first camp.
He believes Malaysia’s structure—its institutions, social arrangements, political system, and economic model—is fundamentally sound. The problem, in his view, is that this structure has been contaminated by corruption, cronyism, and abuse.
Remove the distortions, clean up governance, restore integrity—and the system will function as intended.
From this perspective, reform is about purification, not transformation.
That is why Anwar appears comfortable with many of Malaysia’s deeper features:
The idea of “special rights” as a permanent organizing principle of society, that is being used as by everyone from the Malays, Muslims, Sabahans and Sarawakians to justify why the deserve favourable treatment as compared to everyone else in the country for perpetuity.
An economy heavily reliant on cheap, often exploited labour, where instead of relying on the majority of the population in the country to generate value in the economy, a few select corporations and elites are empowered to exploit the majority of the population - and millions of foreign workers as well - because of the view that if these select corporations and elites are big enough, they can carry the entire country and people in their shoulders
A system where advancement is frequently driven by selection and patronage, rather than open competition.
A "No Contest" leadership culture where those at the top are seen as separate and special from the ones they lead, and thus are excused from "debasing" themselves to contest, like the other mere mortals in their organisation.
To Anwar, none of these are structural flaws. Anwar likely has no problem with the concept of special rights or "no contest" leadership or selection and patronage or exploited labour. His only problem is that he believes that these concepts have been misused by corrupt, inept and racist elements.
If he is empowered, he believes that he will be able to remove these corrupt, racist and inept element from the equation, with people he believes are not corrupt, racist or inept, and that is all that need to be done to make the system work in getting Malaysians what we want from the world.
But many Malaysians—especially reformists—belong to the second camp.
They do not believe the system is merely corrupted.
They believe it is misdesigned.
To them, the Malaysian model, which we inherited from the British might have worked fine in the post-colonial era, but the world has so significantly changed since then, that to expect it to operate in the present times is akin to expecting a modified Wira to win in the F1 circuit.
To the second camp reformist, Malaysia’s problem is not that our Modified Wira is dirty.
It is that we are driving it in a Formula 1 world.
No amount of cleaning the Wira will make it competitive.
From this perspective, what is needed is not repair, but redesign.
Not better management of “special rights,” but a rethinking of whether such a framework should dominate national life at all
Not cleaner patronage, but a shift toward competition-based mobility
Not more exploitation based economic model, that concentrates gains at the top , under the expectation that a few multibillionaires and multibillion ringgit corporation at the top will be able to take care of all Malaysians, but a restructuring of an economic model to allow the majority of Malaysians to add value to the economy
Not more “Trust me, I will take care of everything” leaders, but process and procedure based system that do not depend on trust in individuals at all
In other words, reform is not about making better decisions within the system—it is about changing the rules of the game itself.
This is where the disappointment with Anwar comes from.
It is not simply that he has failed to act.
It is that he may be solving the wrong problem.
If you believe Malaysia’s structure is sound, then Anwar’s approach—where you just have to trust him to deliver anti-corruption, institutional clean-up, moral leadership in a time frame that only he can determine according to his own "special" wisdom and discretion—makes perfect sense.
But if you believe the structure itself is outdated, then his reforms will always feel insufficient—because they are aimed at restoring a system that no longer delivers.
And this is the uncomfortable possibility:
Anwar may genuinely be reforming Malaysia—
just not in the way that many Malaysians think reform is needed.
Ultimately, the debate is not about performance.
It is about diagnosis.
Is Malaysia failing because its system has been corrupted?
Or is it failing because its system no longer fits the world it is in?
Until that question is answered honestly, “structural reform” will remain what it is today in Malaysian politics:
A powerful phrase—
with two completely different meanings.
TheRealNehruism (nehru.sathiamoorthy@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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