Dennis Ignatius
~ Provoking discussion, dissent & debate on politics, diplomacy, human rights & civil society.
A Leader in Denial
08WednesdayJul 2026
Posted in Politics
Is the past finally catching up with Anwar?
[1] There is a particular tell that comes over politicians when the ground begins to shift beneath them. They start rewriting history, recasting their own choices as other people’s conspiracies, and appointing themselves the wronged party. Anwar Ibrahim has made an art of it — always the reformer in his own telling, never the man responsible.
[2] Consider his explanation for the recent Johor contest. It was, he suggested, precipitated by people agitating to free Najib Razak from prison.[1] It is a neat story, save for one inconvenient fact: it was Anwar who set the machinery of Najib’s pardon in motion.[2] It was he who told us Najib deserved leniency on account of his service and contributions to the country.[3] Having lit the fuse, he now professes shock at the explosion.
[3] On the Johor campaign trail, Anwar also declared that he did not want anyone tainted with corruption to become leaders.[4] It is a curious line, given that he appointed Zahid Hamidi as his deputy prime minister – even though he was, at the time, on trial for criminal breach of trust, graft and money laundering. Subsequently, all the 47 charges against him were inexplicably withdrawn, despite the trial judge’s earlier ruling that a prima facie case had been established and that he must enter his defence. [5]
[4] It is hard to escape the impression that a deal was done – a reprieve for Zahid in exchange for his support in propping up Anwar’s government. In January 2026 the Attorney-General’s Chambers declared it would take no further action, closing the case for good and placing it beyond the reach of any court – a decision the Bar has denounced as irrational and against the public interest, and is currently challenging.[6]
[5] Now that Zahid has turned on him, Anwar reaches for the moral high ground. But he is only reaping what he sowed – betrayed by the very man he rescued from oblivion – and has no one to blame but himself.
[6] He casts himself, too, as a scourge of graft – the very reason, he says, that certain parties are so eager to be rid of him. But a leader serious about corruption does not entrust the fight against it to someone like Azam Baki, a controversial figure as ever there was. He sat on his hands over allegations of graft in Sabah and looked past a host of other serious cases besides. Anwar not only failed to properly investigate him over allegations of impropriety but granted him extension after extension and then rewarded him with a perch on the NFCC advisory board. In the eyes of many Malaysians, Anwar no longer has any credibility on the issue.
[7] He also claimed that certain parties were plotting his downfall.[7] We have heard that before too. The most recent – a plot supposedly hatched by Daim’s widow – was trailed with a flurry of statements, one of them to Parliament, before the whole affair quietly evaporated.[8] He has cried wolf once too often to be taken seriously.
[8] How Anwar wishes to be remembered tells you much about how little he grasps his own predicament: a leader, he says, who loved the people and was loved by them in return.[9] There is something almost poignant in the hope – for it was a hope many of us once shared. We wanted him to succeed; we wanted to believe that the long years of struggle had led somewhere. Yet poll after poll now tells the same quiet story. He has failed to win the Malay ground he courted so assiduously, and the non-Malay voters who once placed such faith in him have drifted away, disillusioned. In the end, one is left to wonder who remains to love him at all.
[9] The past has a way of catching up. The mask is slipping. And the man beneath it looks nothing like the reformer he promised to be.
[Dennis Ignatius |Kuala Lumpur |08 July 2026]
