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By Mihar Dias December 2025
The Cabinet reshuffle has delivered what Malaysians have come to expect from reshuffles in recent years: change everywhere, except where it matters most.
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim remains both Prime Minister and Finance Minister, a pairing that once triggered endless speeches, press statements and moral lectures about the dangers of concentrated power. The Sun Daily
Back then, during the Bossku era, this dual role was portrayed as a symbol of everything that had gone wrong — excessive control, weakened oversight and a political culture too comfortable with authority answering only to itself.
Today, the structure remains intact. Only the explanations have evolved.
PAS Information Chief Fadhli Shaari’s sarcastic “condolences” for the death of reform may sound dramatic but it lands because it echoes a familiar discomfort.
Reform, after all, was not marketed as conditional. It was sold as a correction — a deliberate move away from the habits of the Najib years, when holding both the steering wheel and the fuel budget was said to be an invitation to institutional imbalance.
At the time, Malaysians were told that no matter how competent or well-meaning a leader might be, systems must be designed to limit power. Reform meant separating roles not because Najib was Najib, but because no one should be Najib.
Fast forward to today, and the argument has subtly shifted. The same arrangement is now defended as necessary, stabilising and — perhaps most revealingly — temporary.
Temporary, in Malaysian politics, has always been a flexible concept. It can mean months, years, or until the next reshuffle that also changes nothing.
Supporters insist this is not a return to Bossku practices, merely a practical response to economic realities.
Yet that is precisely the logic once rejected. During Najib’s tenure, economic pressures were also cited as justification. The counter-argument then was uncompromising: governance should not bend to convenience, especially when it comes to safeguarding accountability.
What makes the current situation particularly uncomfortable is not that the dual role exists, but that it now attracts far less outrage from those who once found it intolerable.
The language of reform has not disappeared; it has simply been refined. The slogans remain. The structure does not. The Sun Daily
This is not to suggest equivalence between administrations. Context matters. Policies differ. But reform was never meant to be personality-dependent.
If the principles only apply when one’s opponents are in power, they cease to be principles and become campaign material.
The comparison with the Bossku era persists not because critics are lazy, but because the government has left it open.
When promises once framed as red lines are quietly redrawn, cynicism becomes a rational response.
Perhaps the most telling aspect of the reshuffle is not what was announced, but what was not explained.
There was no clear timeline, no stated intention, no acknowledgment that this arrangement contradicts earlier positions. Silence, in this case, speaks louder than justification.
In the end, Malaysians were promised a government that would behave differently, not just speak differently.
Reform was supposed to change how power is held, not merely who holds it.
When the same concentration of authority once condemned under Bossku is now rebranded as continuity, the public is entitled to ask whether reform has been postponed — or simply repackaged.
Either way, the gap between promise and practice grows wider, and the condolences, sarcastic or otherwise, begin to feel less premature.
Mihar Dias (mihardias@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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