Now I remember hearing somewhere that a universal feature of all mental health issues is the presence of complications.
If you are not mentally disturbed — either by depression, anxiety, or whatever else — your thoughts tend to be simple. When your mind is healthy, clarity becomes your natural state. A friend will be a friend, an opponent will be an opponent. The person you love will be someone you respect and cherish, and the one you despise will remain someone you keep a distance from.
But when things become complicated — when confusion seeps into the heart — everything gets inverted. A friend begins to look like an enemy, an enemy begins to look like a friend. The person you love becomes the one you wound, while the one you respect becomes someone you quietly resent.
That, more than anything else, seems to describe the strange and evolving relationship between Rafizi Ramli and Anwar Ibrahim, as well as the party that they both belong to — PKR.
Former PKR Deputy President Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli has now openly hinted that he may never return to the party’s leadership, suggesting that it might be time for both him and PKR President Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to part ways for good.
In a Facebook post, Rafizi said it was better for both sides to “move forward separately,” adding that he would continue to share his political views regardless of how the party leadership reacted.
“I just hope PKR and its current leadership will stop overreacting and jumping every time I give my views. The decision was already made by PKR, and many of the leaders currently in place were complicit in that decision.
‘Apabila nasi sudah jadi bubur,’ it is immature to expect me to swallow it whole just as they wish,” he wrote.
He dismissed talk that he harboured ambitions to challenge Anwar, calling such claims a “recycled narrative.” He said similar rumours had been used in the past to turn Pakatan Harapan supporters against him, and later to justify Nurul Izzah Anwar’s challenge against him for the deputy presidency.
When he resigned from his government post earlier this year — despite being offered a comfortable appointed role — he said it was because he saw no meaningful path forward within the current political arrangement. His focus now, Rafizi said, is on building a cleaner, corruption-free political culture.
“Insyallah, I will carry out that duty as best as I can. Beyond that, it is better for PKR, Anwar and myself to go our separate ways. I don’t see a path that would bring me back into PKR’s leadership in the future,” he said.
It is no secret that the Rafizi–Anwar relationship has been strained for some time.
The fallout was visible during the party elections earlier this year when Nurul Izzah Anwar defeated Rafizi — a contest that exposed deep internal rifts. Rafizi later alleged that his loss was fuelled by money politics and internal sabotage by senior PKR figures, a claim that further alienated him from the party machinery.
Since then, he has become an outspoken critic of the government, though he insists his criticism comes from a place of principle, not hostility.
Political commentator Liyana Marzuki recently expressed hope that Rafizi and Anwar would reconcile, describing Rafizi as a crucial check and balance within PKR. She even suggested that, like Anwar and Mahathir before him, Rafizi might one day find his way back to the top.
Rafizi, however, appears unmoved by such optimism. He replied that he had never aspired to become Prime Minister and that if power was his goal, he would have sided with Mahathir Mohamad and Azmin Ali back in 2018. Instead, he chose loyalty to Anwar — a loyalty that, he now admits, has run its course.
Anyway, when I observe the way that Rafizi is describing his relationship with PKR and Anwar, I can’t help but feel that all of them might need to see a therapist — that is, if they are still interested in saving their relationship.
Because if there’s one word I could use to describe the bond between Rafizi, Anwar, and PKR at this point, it’s complicated — too complicated to be healthy for anyone.
From Rafizi’s version of events, it seems that he wants to go but also wants to stay. That he wants to hurt Anwar and PKR, yet also wants them to appreciate him for trying to hurt them. That he probably doesn’t think he’s harming them at all — and perhaps even believes he’s rescuing and saving them, while they likely see him as someone who is intending to harm and hurt them, even though he keeps telling them that all he wants to do is save and rescue them.
At the same time, I also think that Rafizi is in a complicated state of relationship with his party and leadership, because though he says that he doesn’t want to be a leader of the party, he still wishes to be treated as someone who is leading the party.
All in all, I think the state of their relationship is likely to be so disturbed that if they can’t work it out, it is best to just part ways and build a wall between them.
If they maintain this I-love-you-but-I-hate-you or I-want-to-save-you-but-I-also-want-to-destroy-you relationship for a prolonged period of time while maintaining close proximity, the restlessness and bewilderment that it will induce will almost certainly cause them to reach a point where either one of them or both of them are going to explode someday.
Rather than head in that tragic direction, it is much better if they either apply a stronger measure to resolve their problem or, at the very least, move decisively to cut their losses.
The last thing the country needs is for another toxic relationship between two politicians to cloud Malaysian politics for another 25 or 30 years.
I think one toxic relationship between two major politicians — the one between Anwar and Mahathir — is already more than enough for this nation to handle.
If Anwar and Mahathir had belonged to two different parties, I daresay their relationship might have even been positive and healthy, even if they were competitors and opponents. The tragedy and toxicity between them likely occurred simply because they mistakenly decided to work together in the same political tent rather than face each other in open competition.
It might be too late to change what happened between Mahathir and Anwar, but it is not too late to save Rafizi and Anwar’s relationship from going down the same path.
Rafizi should leave PKR, or Anwar should have the courage to expel him. Whatever pain that may follow will only last a while — and with time, that pain will heal, and perhaps even give way to reconciliation.
But if they hesitate and keep this relationship going — either because they lack the strength to sever it or because they assume they can still salvage it — a day will come when either one or both of them will explode.
And when that happens, what took place between Mahathir and Anwar will almost certainly repeat itself — this time, between Anwar and Rafizi.
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