Abstract

The political life of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has been a very long one, but it is the last 20 years that have provided him with a role and a purpose that go beyond what would have been normal for an UMNO politician. Finally becoming prime minister in November 2022, he has travelled on a path that not only contours the post-Mahathir era of Malaysian history, but also suggests a remedial alternative to the excesses of the previous two decades.

The Unity Government is aptly named, but the conditions for its establishment and the rationale for its existence going forward would not have manifested, and would not be comprehensible without the discursive struggles that began with the Reformasi Movement that Anwar Ibrahim generated in 1998, the Bersih social movement, coalitional deconstruction of the last two decades, and the return of East Malaysian political assertiveness.

Where ethnic fragmentation has been the persistent and ironic logic for nation-building since the 1970s, the legitimacy of the Unity Government now depends on a search for common purpose for the nation as a whole..

About the Speaker

Ooi Kee Beng is the Executive Director of Penang Institute, and was Deputy Director of ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute where he remains a Senior Visiting Fellow. Over the last 20 years, he has written on Malaysian and regional politics, and authored several biographies on Malaysian and Singapore leaders including Goh Keng Swee and Yusof Ishak. He is the founder-editor of ISEAS Perspective, Penang Monthly and ISSUES Policy Briefs. He is a prize-winning author (for The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time, Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2007). His latest book is Signals in the Noise (Singapore: Faction Press, 2023).