From GeorgetownVoice

Anwar Ibrahim, the man poised to become Malaysia’s new prime minister, is profiled in today’s Voice. The full text of the email interview with him has been reproduced below:

To start off, why are you attempting to remove the current government from power?

In a democracy, imperfect though it is in Malaysia, you need two legitimacies to govern: a moral legitimacy and a political one.

The moral legitimacy stems from your entire deportment whilst governing – transparency of conduct, rule of law, separation of powers, integrity of office bearers, and the like.

The political legitimacy results from your effective command of the electorate and its legislators.

The National Front of Malaysia, in power for 51 years now, has been oozing its moral legitimacy to govern for at least a decade now. The judiciary was corrupted, the police force became dysfunctional, the civil service was reduced to a rubber stamp, money politics infected political parties, and matters to do with race and religion became a minefield. The economy is sluggish, now approaching quagmire status and the government has offered no solution to the problem of widespread joblessness, rampant inflation and the decline in foreign direct investment. In sum a tragic state of affairs after 51 years of governance.

The National Front’s political legitimacy was premised on its command of a two-thirds majority in Parliament. Once before it lost that majority — in 1969 when race riots flared in the aftermath of that loss.

On March 8th this year, it lost that majority in the general election, the 12th in the nation’s history. A psychological threshold was breached and in its wake, there was mounting discovery that the emperor has no clothes.

The divestment of the moral and political legitimacy to govern has brought the National Front to the current impasse. The opposition coalition wants to end this stalemate by inviting government legislators to join in our campaign of national regeneration.

Continue reading ‘The Voice interviews Anwar Ibrahim’