THE future, it would appear, is coming to Malaysia. 

Just a stroll through any given city gives the appearance that half the country is under construction, yet a shame-filled cartoon man in a hard hat begs your forgiveness for the inconvenience as this is all “for our future”.

It is that unspoken agreement, call it cultural if you wish but certainly embedded here in Malaysia, that the sacrifices made now will work themselves out to improve conditions for our children. The limits of this allowance have been put to the penultimate test this year, both in terms of democratic aptitude and the unity which is found in collective struggle. 

The tenuous success of Malaysia’s stand against the Covid-19 pandemic looms upon the razor’s edge between fading trust and increasing ridiculousness. SOP compliance has its limits and the deficit of trust demonstrated by the backdoor government has asked too much. Even the threat of apocalypse does little to keep the floodgates closed. 

In this period of pandemic, time itself loses meaning and relativity. While such time-measuring notions of days, weeks, and months have grown increasingly novel, a moment is on the horizon that will put into play a series of motions that will barrel us into a future. 

These times are indeed postnormal, as is often noted by opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, using the term coined by the British intellectual Ziauddin Sardar to describe a transitional period “where old epochs are dying and news ones have yet to be born.” Things are weird. Crises are compounded and a new set of rules are establishing themselves for how things will work going forward while many of us continue to play by the outdated ones. 

This period of instability only grows more wobbly with each attempt to command and control it. 

What is needed are navigators. Guardians at the city gates to actually lead us into the unknown futures. The stakes couldn’t be higher as the pandemic rages on, economic ruin lurks at every turn, and the very existential definition of Malaysia rests on these outcomes. What happens in parliament in the next few weeks sets a precedent.

To set the stage, I put forward four potential scenarios examining Malaysia’s parliamentary futures. The point of a scenario is to clarify thinking about alternative futures. They also serve to get us asking questions and, if it may come to pass, provoke actions. 

The point of scenarios, in the context of postnormal times, is to get us thinking about what we aren’t thinking about, or the “unthought future”. The point of my exercise here is not to be right, but to help us pre-empt the dismal potentiality of “we didn’t see that coming”.

In the first scenario Anwar defeats the Perikatan Nasional government and finally wins his personal two decades-long fight for justice for the people. Prime minister in waiting no more, he will take Pakatan Harapan 2.0 to Putrajaya again, as he should have following GE14. No doubt deals had to be made to pull off this coup of a coup, and so Anwar will arrive in Putrajaya with a house divided, but his strong sense of governance and commitment to lead by example will prompt the extending of olive branches across the divisions in the august house, but acceptance of said branch will require a commitment to principle above all. 

PH 2.0 will have the appearance of a unity government, but former traitors will make oddly comfortable bed fellows with those who cannot see beyond their own egos to form a veritable shark tank of an opposition. The ethnic and historic lines that have been the basis for political movement will finally shatter beneath the weight of their own contradictions. The international world will see Malaysia as a place where things could actually happen. This matched with solid plans for finishing the marathon that will be the pandemic for the next two years and repairing the economy will provoke the rakyat to be more engaged and to not abandon their hopes. All of this will create a wonderful feedback loop of prosperity. Rhetoric of the Asian century, the new silk road, and Asian tigers will not exclude this small Southeast Asian nation.

In the second scenario, the PN government wins. Be it by its clever political manoeuvring, the influence of the Agong, or even the play of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, in this scenario Anwar loses his long war. The man who should have been prime minister becomes the man who didn’t. Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin sees the narrow passage of his first budget, allowing his survival. For another day at least. The opposition in disarray and the fringe members not in government will call for what is obviously needed –a reifying of the people’s mandate. This is something the present parliament cannot grant and elections will need to be called. Muhyiddin will be pressured to have these elections as soon as possible as his political capital will never again be this high before an election victory. If Covid-19 makes this an impossibility, it is only a matter of time before Muhyiddin over stays the coattail of a rival’s defeat. 

If an election cannot be announced within Q1 of 2021, Umno and PAS, in a new pact that was decades in the making, will not lose their opportunity to insure their futures. Umno will demand the power, once thought entitled to the majority seat holder in a parliamentary democracy, to pick the man on top. With Muhyiddin goes Bersatu. The remaining MPs are subsumed into a larger party or use Barisan Nasional as their primary allegiance indicator. The flame of hope ignited in 2018 will have been snuffed out and without a solid plan for economic recovery and a pandemic weary public, a long and hopeless potential decade under BN Again will sign the warrant for Malaysia’s return to being yet another disappointment, unable to grasp the illustrious title of being an Asian Tiger. In fact, a combination of Malaysia falling behind, the taste of hope from Reformasi and the PH experiment, and the changing of the times could easily see this return of BN ushering in an era for Malaysia on par with the social devastation (and correlated economic destitution) of Reagan in the US and Thatcher in the UK during the 1980s. SDs will become an easy way for the more wealthy to have their way and hold the nation hostage. While certain glaring errors will be swiftly corrected from Najib’s last government to save face, new names will fill old shoes and the politics of kleptocracy, nepotism, and corruption will find a new comfort and legitimacy by way of a rubber stamp offered by a highly corrupt, anticorruption commission. Suddenly the new normal doesn’t feel all that new or even like something we want.

Before moving to the third scenario, it helps to first point out the few wildcards that could create a lot of chaos during the unravelling of the second scenario. The wildcards are Dr Mahathir, Senior Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali, and leader of the fledgling political entity Muda, Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman. The third scenario supposes two things happen: that Anwar steps down as leader of the opposition and that PN government falls. 

Azmin, a man who seems likely to sell his own grandmother just to stand in the shadow of the prime minister’s office, will not take a loss. It should be expected that he will do whatever he can to survive, be that selling out Muhyiddin to remain in whatever form BN takes after PN dissolves, attempting a take over of PKR, or selling his soul to Umno. 

While Dr Mahathir may not personally contest the leadership of the opposition or the government should a flip occur, he will not take kindly to being put back in the corner he has been confined to during the MCO. No doubt, Dr Mahathir will not only stir up chaos in the opposition’s scrabble to solidify itself, but be sure to be in the photo when the dust settles with a Parliament looking more and more like a cube of sugar dropped into fresh kopi-o. 

While it is hard to tell if  Syed Saddiq himself is or is not an ego maniac, his ego is by far no match for Azmin and Dr Mahathir’s. Syed Saddiq at least has his eyes also on the future and has the wisdom to understand that the completion of his mission may not occur in his time or with him at the helm. So, in the third scenario it is not Syed Saddiq but rather what he represents that is the focal point. 

Without the strong leadership of Anwar, the opposition will be a mess. If PKR can maintain, they can hold together the old PH siblings DAP and Amanah, but if PKR falls into dormancy to consider its own future, DAP will be pushed to the ethnic margins while Amanah scrambles to either bury the hatchet with Dr Mahathir’s brood or even hold out for the potential of a reformed Umno. While old hats will beg Dr Mahathir to once again save the day, a more fitting filler for the Anwar vacuum would be none other than giving it to the kids.  After all, it appears Dr Mahathir’s objective since the early 1990s was to make a machine that ran by his will without him having to do much but kick back and enjoy the teh tarik. Also, he wouldn’t be the first person to think that the youth make for good puppets, especially in Asian politics (China should take a page from its own history in Hong Kong, but history never was a strong subject for the CCP). And how better to solidify Dr Mahathir as the once and future saviour of Malaysia than by mobilising the seven million new voters that are expected to come in the wake of the constitutional amendment of 2019. 

Two problems remain in this scenario. First, political wisdom notes that one must never rely on the youth vote. They can be loud and they can certainly dream, but when it comes to action, well that’s a different matter. Though, honestly, I hope this one comes back to bite me, I’d rather see an engaged Malaysian youth drive this country towards something better. Of course, that would mean great strides need to be made to combat the apathy and powerlessness of non-Bumiputra young Malaysians. The second issue is that the youth motivated, particularly by Syed Saddiq’s Muda, are a youth of privilege driven by the high minded, and often selfish, desires of getting a good salary, a good car, and an attractive mate. The promise of this to every citizen is tempting, yet perhaps not in Malaysia’s best interests. And this is before we mention the highly corruptible nature of this new youth. Their spirit of innovation and dedication towards liberal ideas and green policy are noble, but since proper philosophy and ethics is diminishing from contemporary curriculums, a good scandal here or there should go without saying. The company Syed Saddiq keeps, though not necessarily mirrors of the man himself, are start-up millennials and though they hold expensive and well-intentioned diplomas their deficit of street smarts will spell doom as the same issues facing Silicon Valley will come home to Malaysia in spades. 

The fourth scenario is simple, and like a simple plan, all the more dangerous. Dissolve. Elections. The rod can only be bent so far before it breaks and pandemic aside this should have already happened by now. Even if a vaccine is delivered by the end of Q1 2021, it will be at least a year before anyone should start getting lax about compliance with the “new normal SOPs”. People are angry, the government is scattered. No matter who wins, we all lose in one way or another. Not to mention those who will get sick and those who will die. It will be the political catastrophe of the century if Sabah is any indication of this. As the parable goes, let the elephant fight while all of the grass below them is trampled. Let the victor be the king of the mountain of rubbish that remains. 

It is unlikely that what will come to pass will follow any of this to the t, but the point is to get us all thinking about our future. We need to be critical and really consider where we are and what can get us to the other side of the storms we find ourselves in. This requires simultaneous thinking in the short term and in the long term. It requires complex thinking and the ability to cope with the chaos at hand. Lastly contradictions need to be transcended. Change is never comfortable and democracy never works fast. It is slow, dirty work. And it takes all members of society and those chosen to represent the others to really consider their burdens and their obligations.

There is no future with Dr Mahathir. There is no future with Muhyiddin. There is no future with any of the present MPs in the Dewan Rakyat, even Anwar himself. What makes Anwar different, is that he is aware of this fact. His drive is for justice, anticorruption, and eradicating poverty and this has been his line for a long, long time. He has been beaten for it. He spent half of the last two decades in jail for it. If he is not a man dedicated to Malaysia, then there is no one looking out for Malaysia. Anwar embraces futures, the plurality, because there are many ways to go and his future isn’t necessarily the one he wants for Malaysia. Malaysia’s future rests in Malaysia’s hands alone. And he is perhaps the only MP who believes that, be it hopeful or foolish. A future beyond self interest and wishful thinking can be coming to Malaysia. But if Anwar fails, then Malaysia too fails and for it to get back to this point will take a long time and depend on the upcoming generation not perpetuating the cycle as generations before have done. – December 8, 2020.

* C. Scott Jordan is author of the book, A Very British Muslim Activist: The life of Ghayasuddin Siddiqqi, deputy editor of Critical Muslim, a quarterly literary journal is the UK, and executive assistant director at the Centre of Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies in London.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.