steadyaku47

Tuesday 5 February 2013

If not Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim then who?

What is most vivid in my memory of the time when Mahathir was Prime Minister and Anwar Ibrahim his Deputy was in the manner by which they both conducted themselves. God and demi God! Tales abound as to how Mahathir dominated Cabinet and all facets of Government – if need be he knew who was the OCPD of any District and if required would and did direct that OCPD to do his bidding at district level. Anwar was no slouch at getting things done. The manner by which he turfed Ghaffar out of the DPM post is now stuff of legends. These two rule the roost and Malaysia was their stomping ground. Any lesser being then these two had reason to fear their ire.


How things have changed today. Mahathir is now a caricature of himself.

While in the past during the Mahathir’s years as PM this  Ibrahim Ali would not have been able to approached Mahathir even on bended knees, today Mahathir is Advisor to Ibrahim Ali’s Perkasa! Now Mahathir stands beside this Ibrahim Ali waving a Kris to denote his support of Ketuanan Melayu to the Malays?   

Where Mahathir once could silence the Malaysian Cabinet by letting it be known that he was not amused with the antics of its Members, today he is reduced to using sarcasm to show his displeasure at the antics of KJ, Nazri or anything else that displeases him. More often than not his words falls upon deaf ears or are dismissed with contempt by the recipient of his ire.

He could once decide the fate of Deputy Ministers, Ministers and Menteri Besars. Today he shots blanks at Pakatan Rakyat and increasingly finds himself to be the target of an ever increasing group of people that treats him with utter contempt and disgust. And these are people whom Mahathir would not have the time of day for in his years as PM.

Anwar is not any better then. In Mahathir he had a good teacher and Anwar was an eager disciple. Do you all not remember the rarefied atmosphere of the rich and the powerful that Anwar moved in then? He had his people everywhere  - especially in the corporate world.

I marvelled at how these two have managed to put themselves into that strata of the high and the mighty without ever considering the need for humility in the job that they do – that of being leader to the people of Malaysia. Humble leadership was not in their vocabulary!
To them being ever so confident, bombastic and extrovert without an ounce of humility was what they perceived to be the way to go! If you were to see any humility in them it was feigned and certainly insincere! But those were the days.

Things are different today. No one now fears Mahathir anymore.  Mahathir is politically impotent and has been so  for many years now though through bouts of self medicated Viagra in gestation he has from time to time manage to stand erect above the UMNO fray to spout forth his views on what ever he thinks would give him that fleeting recognition from the public that he so much craves. What self imposed humiliation is worse for Mahthir than to be the Advisor to PERKASA. The old Mahathir would have considered it beneath his dignity to even be in the same room as Ibrahim Ali what more be his ADVISOR!

DSAI is finding his feet again. Standing tall amongst his peers but this time in a different arena, in the strange world of those not in government. To succeed in the new world that he is now in he has to distance himself from the world he was once part of. And there my friend lies the problem for Anwar Ibrahim.

Anwar and Mahathiir knows enough about each other to bury the other!  So why have they not done so? They both know that even if one of them were to strike the mortal blow to the other, there would still be enough time for the dying to do enough to kill the other. So for self preservation they will joust with each other but not kill each other.

For both the days of glory, unbridled power and influence is long gone and will never comeback. Today Mahathir and Anwar fear the people they once dominate. 

When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.”

Liberty is close for us but not yet a certainty. But I think there are more good people amongst us than evil one.Those in political power  can no longer deceive or overawe us with the pomp and circumstance that they surround themselves with. 

My greatest hope is that Anwar Ibrahim is a change man. We all would like to believe that the sum of all the experiences that he has gone through has made him into a better man. We have need of a changed Anwar Ibrahim. Many of us will give Anwar the benefit of the doubt but there are still many who will not do so. But as I have often asked before…if not Anwar then who?      

10 comments:

  1. Who then???

    Nizar Jamaludin.
    Hadi.
    Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah
    Nurul Izzah

    ...and if we remove our racial binders ... Lim Guan Eng

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  2. With the exception of Ku Li, any one of the above would be acceptable - Guan Eng included! Possibly in the near future with Guan Eng as PM and Nurul as DPM?

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  3. Yes, very true...if not Anwar then who? In fact, if you take a look at those in high positions in Umno now, who really can make a good PM for our multiracial Malaysia? None. They were there only because of Umno and money. Without money to buy votes you will end up a nobody in Umno. This speaks of the quality of the top people in Umno...and one of them will be our PM if given the power to rule again.

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  4. Bro Hussein,
    I am color blind, any of the above will do as long as he/she truly looks after all Malaysians. Are we not all anak2 bangsa malaysia?

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  5. Well put bro! If you don't mind I will "curi" this for my blog.

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  6. I wish Tok guru nik aziz is 60 years old.....then we will not have to argue who will be pm if Pakatan get hold of putrajaya.....but still first thing first....get rid of the devil regime first,then we will cross the bridge when we come to it.

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  7. Inevitably, you are on the spot with this one. Anwar would have to do his bidding and come out straight. Denying he knows anything about Project M / IC in Sabah is shooting himself in the foot. Being a senior member of umno/bn at the time, he surely would have had knowledge of it. Come clean Anwar, admit you knew what was going on an apologize to all Malaysians.

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  8. why not ku li en hussin ? , kuli proved himself as a good cabinet minister and a visionary, he was only deprived the oppotunity to contribute by the devisive mahadhir, if you can give anwar another chance, again i said why not ku li and i dare say, kuli in aggregate term, is more decent and better than anwar....lets start a debate.

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  9. to have a stabilty period , i propose tok guru nik aziz as prime minister, he is old alright, but as pm he is not doing the job alone, he only need to appoint the best men/women to the cabinet and just regulate them...the country will prosper and strife anytime, ronald reagan , the us president is much older but he did it rigt and was most succeessful...please view this point seriously, after all we want a peaceful and prosporous malaysia............

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