Is PM a Statesman Abroad and a Caretaker at Home?

 

This article is based on a blog article by Betty Teh.

If you watch Anwar Ibrahim on the ASEAN stage or at the UN: he is fluent, fearless, a regional elder statesman lecturing superpowers on Gaza or peace. At home, the same man struggles to pass a budget, cannot fire a single underperforming minister, and spends half his week flying to Kuching or Kota Kinabalu to prevent the government from collapsing. 

Is this a contradiction in personality? The difference is not character; it is structural. Is it a logical consequence of coalition mathematics? 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org

Coalition politics has hollowed, turned what was once the federation’s most authoritative office into a eunuch. This transformation, is from the 2018 electoral fracture. From Tunku Abdul Rahman to Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysian prime ministers wielded near absolute control within their coalitions. Today, the job is a perpetual negotiation. The Prime Minister is no longer the architect of national destiny; he is a coalition manager, juggling incompatible agendas from partners who view governance as a zero-sum extraction game. A Malaysian Prime Minister today is not a leader. He is a coalition manager, a professional negotiator. 

The asymmetry is starkest in foreign policy versus domestic affairs. Abroad, Anwar operates in a vacuum of vetoes. No political warlord is present to demand concessions. No GPS chief to text “remember MA63”. No DAP conservative threatens to bolt over on Palestine. The international arena allows him to project Malaysia’s intent unfiltered a moderate Muslim democracy punching above its weight. It is theatre without scriptwriters, where he can afford moral clarity because the stakes are symbolic, not existential. 

At home, every utterance is impacted by a cabinet that resembles a fragile Tower of Pisa. The “unity government” 19 parties stitched together post GE15 is less an administration than a non-aggression pact.  The result? Domestic policy is a graveyard of intent. A strong government derives power from clarity of purpose: “This is our mandate; this is the timeline.” Coalitions, by nature, erode that.

 

Separating the Attorney General from the Public Prosecutor? Stalled, to avoid accelerating trials that could topple some partners. Ending race-based quotas? Whispered in private, abandoned in public to placate Malay nationalists. Survival supplants strategy. The Prime Minister cannot fire an incompetent minister without risking a defection cascade. He cannot enforce fiscal discipline if it cuts Borneo’s subsidies. He cannot advance climate policy if it threatens Sarawak’s oil or timber interests. Even anti-corruption, once PH’s rallying cry, is neutered: high profile cases crawl at glacial pace. This is not governance; it is arbitrage, where every decision is priced in parliamentary votes. 

Compare this to coalitions that function. Australia’s Liberal National pact succeeds because both parties share a centre right worldview: free markets, rural priorities, conservative values. Their agreements are public, detailed, and enforceable, allowing the Prime Minister to lead without daily renegotiation. Germany’s traffic light coalitions (SPD-Greens-FDP) produce 200-page contracts that pre-resolve disputes, anchoring the Chancellor’s authority in shared progressive intent. Japan’s LDP dominated alliances marginalize junior partners, preserving executive primacy. 

Malaysia’s model is the inverse: a patchwork of ideological antagonists. From hudud to secular education, to Bumiputera patronage, reformist populism or regional autonomy. Coalition works only when parties share a similar ideology. Malaysia’s coalitions are marriages of convenience, not principle. 

As Betty Teh puts it, this is a political science term for “veto player proliferation.” Each coalition fragment becomes a gatekeeper, diluting executive intent until only the lowest common denominator remains - don’t collapse. Anwar’s government holds 148 seats but bleeding support. 

The consequences cascade. Voter cynicism spikes and turnout dipped to 61 percent in Sabah, foreshadowing GE16 apathy. Institutional decay accelerates, gerrymandering persists, political financing stays opaque, judicial independence remains aspirational. Economic growth sputters under policy inconsistency; foreign investors eye Indonesia’s decisiveness instead. 

Do we elect negotiators or government? Eventually it is assembled like IKEA furniture. And with the wrong screws missing parts and an instruction manual written in 5 different languages, it works like an intermittent wiper. Anwar knows this. His partners know this. The rakyat must internalize it: we have traded statesmen for caretakers, vision for vigilance. The premiership, once a decision-making office, is now a tightrope. And in Malaysia’s endless balancing act, the only sure winner is inertia. 

Reference:

The Hollow Crown, Why Malaysia’s Prime Minister Is a Statesman Abroad and a Caretaker at Home, Betty Teh, 4 December 2025