There is no way in the world Anwar Ibrahim can or will be able to "pull a rabbit out of his hat" when he has proved from the start until today that he is but a charlatan. A reformist is definitely is not. He has sold the people of Malaysia lemons left, right and center but the choice they faced between rightwing, fundamentalist, even Talibanist Islamic PAS, the hideously corrupt Umno, the equally hideous Bersatu and Perikatan Nasional, and Pakatan Harapan -- which likes to boast it is a multiracial coalition but that's been shown to be far from reality -- is that Anwar is hellbent on becoming a Malay populist leader simply because the Malay population, by and large, do not like him, do not trust him, do not want him at the country's "leader". And if your ears are to the political ground in Malaysia, even as far back as April, you would have heard growing disgruntlement, even anger, at Anwar (in particular), his PKR party, and their Chinese coalition partner DAP. There is more than a widening "trust deficit" for all three, with the Chinese, mainly, almost completely distrusting Anwar at his every word. His ridiculous stance with not Palestine, except only in name, but with the murderous terrorist outfit Hamas, wasn't just nonsensical but plainly a dumb domestic and foreign policy move by a moron. His economic policies -- besides the desperate need for greater and greater inflows of foreign investments to keep the sick ringgit from crashing like the Japanese yen -- spell a number of other policy problems that no media in Malaysia cares or dares to write or speak about. The arrests of the corrupt, except for Najib Razak and his wife, are mainly the "small fish", the "ikan bilis" of the corrupt in Malaysia whilst the truly big corrupt ones in Malaysia's bureaucracy, business and its security forces, are necessarily ignored. The low voter turnout at this by-election by the Chinese, primarily, isn't a simple case of their sending a message to the PH coalition; it is a spit in Anwar's two-faced face. When the time comes, don't expect the bulk of Chinese voters to rush toward the comprehensively useless MCA, most of whose business membership I would placade in corrupt business practices. These voters will back MCA 2.0, i.e. the DAP. The outstanding question here is by what numbers will the Chinese lend MCA 2.0 their support. The greatest problem for Anwar, try as he will to shift blame toward the non-Malays for their "apathy" is his very denial that the Malays will not back him as long as he is prime minister, even if he plays all of his Islamist cards, most of which are straining -- dangerously -- toward the right and fundamentalist idea, which ought to make PAS enormously pleased that their "Green Wave" is picking up speed courtesy of Anwar Ibrahim's growing political and ideological desperation(an ideology that has so many punctures that they're enough to sink the Titanic). And as long as Anwar Ibrahim continues with his desperate idiocy, Umno will abandon him, calculatingly, and join PAS, by which time it will be the dominant party within the PN coalition. All this could easily happen before or at the 2027 general election. I cannot see Anwar Ibrahim holding on to power. The only way he would, and that's a big if, is he turns authoritarian, just as his predecessors were, from whom he learnt the mastery of Malay nationalist control of federal power and ideology.
There is no way in the world Anwar Ibrahim can or will be able to "pull a rabbit out of his hat" when he has proved from the start until today that he is but a charlatan. A reformist is definitely is not. He has sold the people of Malaysia lemons left, right and center but the choice they faced between rightwing, fundamentalist, even Talibanist Islamic PAS, the hideously corrupt Umno, the equally hideous Bersatu and Perikatan Nasional, and Pakatan Harapan -- which likes to boast it is a multiracial coalition but that's been shown to be far from reality -- is that Anwar is hellbent on becoming a Malay populist leader simply because the Malay population, by and large, do not like him, do not trust him, do not want him at the country's "leader". And if your ears are to the political ground in Malaysia, even as far back as April, you would have heard growing disgruntlement, even anger, at Anwar (in particular), his PKR party, and their Chinese coalition partner DAP. There is more than a widening "trust deficit" for all three, with the Chinese, mainly, almost completely distrusting Anwar at his every word. His ridiculous stance with not Palestine, except only in name, but with the murderous terrorist outfit Hamas, wasn't just nonsensical but plainly a dumb domestic and foreign policy move by a moron. His economic policies -- besides the desperate need for greater and greater inflows of foreign investments to keep the sick ringgit from crashing like the Japanese yen -- spell a number of other policy problems that no media in Malaysia cares or dares to write or speak about. The arrests of the corrupt, except for Najib Razak and his wife, are mainly the "small fish", the "ikan bilis" of the corrupt in Malaysia whilst the truly big corrupt ones in Malaysia's bureaucracy, business and its security forces, are necessarily ignored. The low voter turnout at this by-election by the Chinese, primarily, isn't a simple case of their sending a message to the PH coalition; it is a spit in Anwar's two-faced face. When the time comes, don't expect the bulk of Chinese voters to rush toward the comprehensively useless MCA, most of whose business membership I would placade in corrupt business practices. These voters will back MCA 2.0, i.e. the DAP. The outstanding question here is by what numbers will the Chinese lend MCA 2.0 their support. The greatest problem for Anwar, try as he will to shift blame toward the non-Malays for their "apathy" is his very denial that the Malays will not back him as long as he is prime minister, even if he plays all of his Islamist cards, most of which are straining -- dangerously -- toward the right and fundamentalist idea, which ought to make PAS enormously pleased that their "Green Wave" is picking up speed courtesy of Anwar Ibrahim's growing political and ideological desperation(an ideology that has so many punctures that they're enough to sink the Titanic). And as long as Anwar Ibrahim continues with his desperate idiocy, Umno will abandon him, calculatingly, and join PAS, by which time it will be the dominant party within the PN coalition. All this could easily happen before or at the 2027 general election. I cannot see Anwar Ibrahim holding on to power. The only way he would, and that's a big if, is he turns authoritarian, just as his predecessors were, from whom he learnt the mastery of Malay nationalist control of federal power and ideology.