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09-06-2023
By SJA Jafri
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has reaffirmed the need for reforms, saying Malaysia must change or it will not survive.
“When it comes to governance, I think it is my duty to undertake and effect change because the country is somewhat destroyed. Unless there is a clear political commitment and resolve to change, I do not believe Malaysia will survive,” he said in an in-depth interview with Al Jazeera’s 101 East program, stressing he was committed to transitioning Malaysia from race-based to needs-based affirmative action policies.
Anwar, now 75, became prime minister after elections in November 2022, capping a turbulent rise to the top of Malaysian politics.
A firebrand youth leader, he rapidly climbed the political ladder to become second-in-command to then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in the 1990s. Sacked and accused of sodomy and corruption in the midst of the Asian Financial Crisis, Anwar was eventually jailed twice on charges widely considered to be politically motivated, fueling a campaign for reform that has lasted more than 20 years.
Malaysia is a multi-ethnic country, but affirmative action policies that benefit the majority made up of Muslim 
Malays and Indigenous peoples have been in place since the 1970s. Such policies give preferential treatment to these ethnic groups in areas from jobs to education and housing and were introduced as part of a social engineering program following racial riots between the Malays and ethnic Chinese in May 1969.
While the policies were supposed to be temporary, they have remained in place ever since, creating deepening resentment among the country’s minority Chinese and Indian communities and leading many to leave the country in search of better opportunities elsewhere and with relatively high income inequality in Malaysia, it has also attracted questions about whether the policies have reached those who need them most.
For Anwar, a needs-based approach “would help the Malays more than the race-based policies, because the race-based policies have been proven to be used by the few elites and their cronies to benefit themselves”.
