London - When Otto von Bismarck coined the adage in the late 19th century that “politics is the art of the possible, the attainable – the art of the next best”, little could he foresee how relevant it would be more than 150 years later and how many of today’s politicians, driven by hubris, misplaced ideology and ambition still fall foul of it by ignoring its core premise.
Only in October, former UK prime minister Liz Truss was humiliatingly forced out of office after only 45 days, thinking that she could impose an unelected socio-economic agenda on the British people by ignoring constitutional convention and bypassing the parliamentary rules of the game.
The latest politician to be tested by Bismarck’s quip is Malaysia’s very own “comeback kid”, septuagenarian erstwhile opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who on Friday was sworn in as the country’s 10th prime minister.
At 75 years old, Anwar is the “new PM on the block”. He has been waiting for the top job since 1993, when he was appointed by his then mentor and later nemesis, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, as deputy premier.
Instead of biding his time, Anwar tried to take on his wily boss, only to fall foul of his handling of the Asian financial crisis in 1998, when Mahathir sacked him as finance minister because he was too willing to go cap in hand to the IMF for a bailout.
His fall from grace nosedived when he was convicted of sodomy and corruption on two separate occasions, spending a total of nine years in prison – a move his supporters and overseas friends claimed was politically-motivated.
In South Africa in two years, President Cyril Ramaphosa – if he survives as ANC president in the wake of an alleged money laundering scandal surrounding a robbery at his Phala Phala game farm in 2020 – will face the electorate in a general election in 2024, which Dr Frans Cronje of the Social Research Foundation predicts “will be a positive watershed for the nation”.
Ramaphosa, too, will be tested on whether he can deliver on Bismarck’s adage.
The wily German statesman and diplomat set the bar very high. After all, he masterminded the unification of Germany in 1871 and served as the first chancellor of the German Empire until 1890.
Both Ibrahim and Ramaphosa are faced with the same dilemma: the nigh-impossible task of forging a political and governing consensus among a motley bunch of disparate parties and partners to tackle an entrenched cost-of-living crisis exacerbated by rising prices, high inflation, subdued GDP growth, rising unemployment and crime, and corruption, which are leaving not only the vulnerable and disadvantaged, but also the middle classes, behind.
Anwar is banking on forming a unity government “to serve the people”. Only a week or so earlier, the main parties were at each other’s jugulars during a bitter campaign in the 15th general election (GE15), which as predicted resulted in a hung parliament.
After six days of deadlock, the Malaysian monarch became so exasperated that he asked Anwar, as the leader of the single largest bloc, Pakatan Harapan (PH), to form a new government.
Anwar, a friend of NeoCon ex-US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and as self-styled social and anti-corruption “reformer“, could not resist playing to the populist gallery – declaring today a national holiday and pledging not to draw a salary as premier.
Like South Africa, Malaysia has its own version of the politics of race, religion, money and affirmative action.
Part of it is steeped in the country’s colonial history with Britain, and part in the potential for race riots which last rocked the country in the 1960s, albeit the political mood music currently does not point in this direction.
Anwar has a daunting task! It’s all a numbers game – can Anwar muster the required number of MPs in the 222-seat Dewan Rakyat (the lower house of parliament)?
He told his king that he has, but Bismarck’s test will come to the fore on the 19th of December when Anwar faces a vote of confidence. If he fails, then he will suffer the humiliation of having an even shorter tenure than Truss.
In his first press conference as PM, he claimed to have the support of the three main constituent coalitions of PH, Barisan Nasional (BN) and GPS, with others set to join given the horse trading and jockeying for control of key ministries.
“As a prime minister representing all Malaysians, all races ... I am open to accepting the rest of the parties to make this country united,” stressed Anwar.
That is easier said than done! At the last AGM of Umno, the dominant Malay-based party in the BN coalition, the clarion call was: “No Anwar, no DAP.”
The BN led Malaysia uninterruptedly since independence from Britain in 1957 until it lost in a landslide defeat in the 2018 general election to an unlikely PH coalition which comprised among others the PPBM, a Malay nationalist party launched by ex-premier Tun Mahathir Mohammed and his allies; Anwar’s “reformist” People’s Justice Party (PKR) and the DAP, the Malaysian Chinese leftist party.
In a curious move, Anwar vacated his traditional seat in Penang and stood in a constituency in a Chinese majority one in Perak in GE15.
“Anwar got elected through Chinese votes. He had given up his values to be in the seat. Let’s see how he walks the talk,” noted a local political analyst.
In South Africa, ANC stalwarts may scoff at any idea of a unity government. But the electoral trajectory may already point to it. The ANC is haemorrhaging support, especially among the urban centres.
In a recent interview with Biznews, Cronje maintained that: “If only urban people voted, the ANC’s at 30%, its rural vote is still very strong. But that’s logical because it’s an older population with living memory experience of growing up as a black person under apartheid in a rural community.
“The economic and social pressures explain why ANC support is sitting in an election now at 45%. It peaked at almost 70% in 2004 and it is falling really fast.”
Cronje’s tantalising long-range forecast: “A possible parliamentary coalition between the ANC and its closest rival, the DA – rather than the more popularly predicted ANC/EFF combine.”
What would Bismarck have made of Anwar and Cyril’s dilemmas? Is he turning in his grave or smiling wryly thinking: “It’s bloody time. Both countries have been waiting for decades for something like this to happen?”
Parker is an economist based in London.
Cape Times
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.