By: Yusoff Rawther








It is evident that something more than elections are necessary to create a genuine new dispensation of sustainable democratic good governance.  Creating the EAC and sidelining the PM-in-waiting is not a good indicator of that. Authoritarian rule is not just about figureheads. The power they manipulate to maintain themselves is institutionalized and embedded in deep structures of privilege that corruptly deliver a nation’s bounty into the hands of a chosen few.

If Anwar Ibrahim is the icon for democracy, then Mahathir is the icon and spokesperson of the embedded structures of inequity, demonstrated by his former 22 years in power.

As the principal articulator of genuine reform, thoroughgoing change to sweep aside the structures of authoritarian control and the inequity they beget, Anwar’s analysis reveals the context in which events occur and pinpoints the problematic eventualities that become the normal practice that allows an environment of corruption, cronyism and nepotism where democracy is made into a gerrymandered veneer to serve and keep the powerful in power.

It is the diligence and energy Anwar applies to broadcasting an alternate vision of good governance and of a free and competitive Malaysian economy and harmonious, multiracial society that have made him an important voice not only in Malaysia but around the world. Anwar has spent his career speaking for and articulating an agenda of politics as the art of what Malaysian’s wish were possible.

As a Deputy Prime Minister during the Asian Financial Crisis, Anwar came very close to dismantling the Malaysian version of crony capitalism when he decided to implement an austerity program, suspend big-bulge infrastructure investment and force big businessmen to take care of their own debts.

Anwarnomics promises to do away with state-backed racism. It promises to be inclusive, rules-based and competition-oriented with a large, well-funded social safety net and he has reiterated time and again the need for uncompromising reforms. Here are some of the things he has advocated for, long before the formation of the EAC:

  • Malaysia’s economic policies should be inclusive and to dismantle obsolete policies such as the New Economic Policy. Positive discrimination policies must be based on freedom, justice, and equity.
  • Affirmative actions taken must be based on needs.

Given the facts, it is only fair to question Mahathir’s  motives of Mahathir in creating the EAC while failing to include the next prime minister.
