Veteran Anwar Ibrahim has done more than most to earn his shot at Malaysian helm

The then-jailed Anwar Ibrahim walks out from a court in Kuala Lumpur in September 2016. Picture: AFP

Anwar Ibrahim has never been closer to securing Malaysia’s prime ministership.

The 73-year-old, who has paid such a high price for his political ambitions, has been uncharacteristically circumspect in recent months as he has patiently built a support base for what could be his final tilt at power.

Few in Malaysia know how to do that better than he does. The former Islamic firebrand-turned-technocrat, who Mahathir Mohamad recruited into his government in the 1980s to boost his appeal with religious conservatives, quickly rose through the ranks of the ruling United Malays National Organisation to become Mahathir’s deputy in the 1990s.

His fall from grace after the two fell out over how to handle the Asian financial crisis, his sacking and subsequent political persecution is now infamous.

He has spent a decade in jail, many more in the political wilderness building a democratic opposition from the ground up in a country where decades of gerrymandering and patronage politics appeared to have built an impregnable fortress of power for UMNO.

Urbane and charming, Anwar is often accused of being a political chameleon who plays to his audience, whether it be his true believer Reformasi supporters, Western admirers or the Islamic rump that now holds such formidable sway in the Southeast Asian nation. In ­recent years, some of his more progressive backers have fallen away, charging the veteran politician with abandoning his reform ­agenda in the pursuit of power.

It is certainly true he appears to have made some hard-headed decisions in recent weeks in luring over disaffected UMNO MPs — with what incentives are yet to be determined — to clinch his goal.

But without Anwar it is hard to see how there could be a viable opposition today in ­Malaysia.

Out of the Reformasi movement, spawned from his 1998 ­arrest and beating at the hands of the then police chief (his People’s Justice Party logo is a stylised image of the black eye he sported on his release), has grown a genuine political force which prioritises clean government, reform and racial harmony in stark contrast to the UMNO playbook.

Mahathir — the architect of Malaysian cronyism — could not have led the Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) coalition to its astonishing May 2018 electoral victory — ending more than six decades of UMNO rule — if not for Anwar setting aside decades of enmity to unite with his political nemesis and urging his supporters to do the same.

The collapse of that reformist government in February is squarely on Mahathir’s shoulders. The 95-year-old could not bring himself to hand over to Anwar, as agreed. If power and leadership must be earned and not ­bequeathed, then Anwar has surely done more than most to warrant his turn at the helm.