TASMANIA: Malaysians love acronyms and when you use “DSAI” in Malaysia, it can only refer to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, widely seen as the Malaysian Prime Minister-in-waiting.
Anwar will take a huge step to becoming Malaysia’s PM on Oct 13, when he is expected to win the Port Dickson by-election and become a Member of Parliament (MP).
This leads to an interesting question that has been the subject of much speculation in the Kuala Lumpur political class for the past few months: How will DSAI and incumbent Mahathir Mohamad co-exist in parliament?
Perhaps, more importantly, how will they deal with the power transition from Mahathir to Anwar, widely reported to be in the later half of 2020?
THE POLITICAL DYNAMICS
The power transfer is not as straightforward as many think. There are political calculations working in the background.
First, there is some unease among the political class that the way Anwar is getting into parliament might begin a bad precedent.
The Port Dickson by-election will be held merely five months after the recent general election. The incumbent MP, a retired navy Rear-Admiral who comes from the minority Indian population, gave up his post and will not be eligible to stand in the next general election.
Second, the popular opinion is that Anwar should have asked one of his two family members to give up their seat instead.
Anwar’s wife, Wan Azizah, and daughter, Nurul Izzah, are both MPs. Wan Azizah is also Malaysia’s deputy PM. With Anwar back in parliament in October, some said it sure looks like the Anwar political dynasty is up and running.
Third, there have been persistent rumours that many in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition do not want Anwar to be the next PM. They prefer Anwar to play the role of elder statesman and help the PH government outside of parliament.
Part of the fear comes from their belief that Anwar will be a political liability among the rural Malay voters in the next general election.
The argument goes like this: The PH alliance under Anwar was unable to dislodge the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) in the past two general elections (in 2008 and 2013) until Mahathir came along.
Mahathir’s weapon was his ability to win one-third of the rural Malay vote which allowed the entire PH coalition to defeat the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and the BN. Prior to Mahathir, the opposition tried and failed to make any headway among the conservative rural Malay voters.
There are many who think Anwar will not be able to…
