Anwar must shift focus back to Malaysia as ratings dip amid his anti-Israel cause
- Anwar has been actively campaigning for the Palestinian cause but his allies want him to focus on domestic policies
- Polls have shown Anwar’s popularity is falling even as he attempts to win more support from Malay-Muslim voters
Nobody said it would be easy to run a country.
Even his path to the top post was riddled with political shenanigans, as rival parties jostled to secure sufficient support to claim the right to form government in the weeks after an ethnically split general election that returned no clear winner for the first time in the country’s history.
He eventually secured a supermajority in parliament, something that has not been seen since 2004, thanks to an ad-hoc partnership between his allies and their long-time rivals at the behest of the king.
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It gave some hope that the government would finally have space to ease off the political throttle after a period of heightened uncertainty that followed the historic change of government in 2018, which ended the then-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition’s unbroken streak of power since the country gained independence from the British six decades earlier.
But the results of the 2022 national polls were a cause for worry for Anwar, whose unity government had to rely on BN lynchpin party Umno to bolster representation of the country’s Malay-Muslim majority, who instead voted heavily in favour of a new ethno-nationalist bloc in Perikatan Nasional (PN).
Turning the tide of the “green wave” – so-called to reflect the primary colour of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), the largest component of PN – became a key focus for the prime minister for a good part of his first year in power.
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There was a clear timeline for Anwar. He had to build up support from Malay-Muslims in the hope that it would be enough to convince them that his unity government was a viable option for them ahead of state elections in August.
The prime minister went on a breakneck cross-country tour in the months ahead of the polls, including hosting separate Eid celebrations in the six states facing polls in a bid to counter PN’s narrative of Malay neglect by his administration.
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The state elections’ outcome was a status quo with Anwar’s unity government and the PN retaining control of their respective states, albeit with the opposition gaining significant Malay ground in the country’s two richest and most industrialised states of Selangor and Penang – both strongholds of his Pakatan Harapan coalition.
Despite the outcome, Anwar’s allies felt it was time for him to quickly switch gears and focus on policy work to implement his reform agenda before the election season returns in 2025 when the state of Sabah goes to the polls.
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The campaign drew broad support from Malaysians, but some in his government worry that Anwar is losing focus with his efforts highlighting the plight of Palestinians - a major rallying point for the Malays – coming at the expense of his role as the nation’s chief executive.
A survey published on Wednesday by independent pollster Merdeka Center found that 60 per cent of the respondents felt the country was heading in the wrong direction, while Anwar’s popularity fell to 50 per cent compared to 68 per cent last December.
Perhaps this is the clearest signal yet for the prime minister to give external politics a rest – at least for now – and start providing some much-needed leadership at home.
Joseph Sipalan is a correspondent at the Post’s Asia desk.
