The evaporating potential of Anwar Ibrahim

Why don't you do more updates about Malaysia? I I would love to be able to talk about something substantive in terms of policies or initiatives of the Anwar Ibrahim government in Malaysia, but there's just nothing really to critique. I mean, Anwar was waiting for decades to become the prime minister of Malaysia, and then after winning the seat, Malaysia is still waiting for him to become a prime minister. Meanwhile, the problems are not waiting. The ringgit is steadily drifting downwards.

It was around 4.4 ringgits to the dollar when Anwar was elected, and it's now closer to 4.7. Where is it gonna go? 4.8, 4.95 ringgits to the dollar? That'll be devastating, and nothing is really being done about it. Now Bank Nagara raised interest rates, which means that people are paying on their loans and mortgages at a rate higher than considerably higher than the national rate of inflation.

Anwar wants to cut subsidies on the t 20 income group, the higher income group on everything from poultry to electricity. And he says that this will not negatively impact lower income Malaysians, but of course, that's not how economies work. If you raise costs for one segment of the economy, one segment of the population, that segment of the population that has the most disposable income, if you raise costs for them, then they're going to cut their expenses. They're gonna cut their expenditures, which will then have a ripple effect through the entire economy in terms of prices, in terms of production, in terms of demand, and consumption across the whole economy. And of course, of these people in the t 20 are themselves business owners.

So when they either cut their expenses or raise their prices to compensate for the higher costs that they're grappling with, obviously, that's gonna affect everyone in the economy, including low income, mostly low income Malaysians. The government just doesn't look like it has any economic plan, frankly. I mean, they keep sort of falling back on IMF recommendations, you know, the the the general IMF structural adjustment program, like with the cutting of subsidies. And, of course, if they follow through, if they proceed on that path, it's gonna be devastating for the Malaysian economy. I mean, when he was elected, Anwar had a manifesto.

He came in with a manifesto. In fact, the combined manifestos of Pakistan Harappan and BN. But now nobody seems to be adhering to either one of those manifestos. I mean, think about it. If there had been a hung election last year and no government was formed and Malaysia had operated for the last seven months without a government, I don't really see how anything would have been different.

It's like the government is absent as it is. And Anwar insisted on naming himself as the finance minister. So it's not like he can blame anyone else for, failing to act on the economy. I mean, he's both prime minister and minister of finance. So the state of the economy is pretty much entirely his responsibility.

I mean, when he was elected, Anwar asked civil servants to give him ideas about what to do to rescue the economy, and he gave them two weeks. It's been seven months and still no ideas have emerged. Now he's even asking journalists or saying that journalists are also responsible for giving him ideas about governance. So predictably, the opposition is likely to sweep upcoming state elections, which Anwar says is signals political instability in Malaysia, is causing hesitancy, by foreign investors that they they don't feel confident in Malaysia because there's political instability and therefore they're not investing in the country. But I mean, both of these problems would have been solved or could be solved if you had a plan for the economy.

Because if you have a plan and you can show foreign investors that you know what you're doing and you're managing the economy, then not only would they have confidence in you, but the opposition wouldn't have anything to use against you. So you wouldn't be looking at likely losses in the state elections if you were managing the economy well. And FDI would be flowing in because everyone would see that you're managing the economy well. So either way, it comes down to the problem, both the problem of facing losses in the upcoming state elections and the problem of foreign investors not having confidence in Malaysia. Both of these come down to the fact that Anwar just looks bewildered by the challenges of running a country.

And instead of managing the economy or coming up with a plan and actually governing properly, He's busied himself with vendettas against political rivals, posturing, posing, photo ops, speeches and, you know, pretending to call Erdogan on the phone to boost his image as a world leader. Or else he's preaching about ethnic and religious hatred as if he lives in some Malaysia in a parallel universe that is being riven by racial hatred and strife and violence, which of course isn't happening. None of this is helping. None of this is addressing the real problems that Malaysia is facing. People need to pay their mortgages.

They need to pay their rent. They need to pay their bills. They need to be able to buy groceries. They need to be able to service their debts without going bankrupt. And they need their salaries to stop being worth less with each passing day.

Malaysia needs guaranteed food security. I mean, are real practical problems that people are facing and rhetoric about, you know, culture war type issues is not gonna solve them. I really think that if Anwar had been from a younger generation, he would have, instead of getting into politics, he would have and should have, pursued a career as a pundit of some kind, a YouTuber or a blogger or something like that where you can just talk abstractly your criticisms of the government or your big ideas about how things should be without actually having to bear any of the responsibility of making it happen on the ground. Because talking is really more his forte. I mean, decades, Anwar Ibrahim was held up as this leader with great potential who was never given a chance to prove himself.

Well, now he's been given that chance, and he is really as inactive as if he had never been elected to office. I mean, goes on and on about fighting corruption, and surely corruption is an important issue. But ultimately, Malaysians are gonna have to start asking themselves what is more damaging for a country, corruption or incompetence? I mean, honestly, at least corrupt politicians have to be active, you know. They have to come up with initiatives and policies and programs and projects that they can use to enrich themselves and there's a trickle down effect, where there's some benefit for the population while they're while they're running projects and programs and policies that they can collect graft from.

There's still something going, at least there's something moving, there's some action, There's some activity, and some trickle down benefit for the population. An incompetent politician just sort of sits there immobile as the problems just pile up all around them, which is what it looks like is happening with this government. I mean, I don't know. Maybe Anwar's potential was eroded over the years due to being sidelined for all that time. I don't I really don't know.

You know? Maybe at some point in his life earlier on, he really did have that potential, and he could have been a great leader back in those days, and he could have really been everything that he has been hyped up to be. But at this moment, it looks like he was elected and he won the seat of prime minister with an empty gas tank. His his tank is empty at this point. I mean, he had the will for a long time to persevere until he could become the prime minister.

And now that he has become the prime minister, it just doesn't look like he really has the will to be prime minister.