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Malaysia
This Week in AsiaPolitics

‘Scary’ polarisation is Malaysia’s greatest challenge, PM Anwar’s daughter Nurul Izzah warns

  • Nurul Izzah says social media is a key driver behind the shift, which has seen the conservative ‘green wave’ sway voters and split the country
  • Malaysia and the PKR must continue to uphold justice and fairness to bridge the social divide and stay true to reform principles, she says

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Nurul Izzah Anwar, daughter of Malaysia’s prime minister Anwar Ibrahim. Photo: Hadi Azmi
Joseph SipalanandHadi Azmi
Malaysia has wandered down a “scary” path of racial and cultural division, warns Nurul Izzah Anwar, conceding that conservatives have outflanked her reform party – founded by her father Anwar Ibrahim – in their mastery of social media to whip up identity politics and split the country.
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Squabbles over culture have flecked Prime Minister Anwar’s time in office, after a national election in 2022 that ended without a clear winner but brought the rise of a powerful Malay-nationalist minority bloc to parliament.

From socks printed with the Arabic word “Allah”, to a worker wearing a crucifix pendant while preparing food at a Chinese Muslim restaurant, bouts of confected outrage – often amplified by those same Malay-Muslim leaders – have commandeered government attention. Critics say they have successfully dragged the prime minister into aligning, at least tacitly, with conservative causes.
A KK Super Mart convenience store in Kuala Lumpur. The owner of the local chain apologised over the sale of socks with the word “Allah” printed on them. Photo: Shutterstock
A KK Super Mart convenience store in Kuala Lumpur. The owner of the local chain apologised over the sale of socks with the word “Allah” printed on them. Photo: Shutterstock

“Polarisation is our biggest challenge. And it is not religious. I think it is more ethnocentric than anything else,” Nurul Izzah said in an interview with This Week in Asia.

“We have to retell Malaysian stories and celebrate those different voices, but we don’t have a safe space now because everything is very scary,” she said about attempting to bridge cultural divides.

Nurul Izzah, Anwar’s eldest daughter and a founding member of his Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), said the outrage was enabled by the “green wave” – reflecting the primary colour of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) – during the 2022 election.

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Many Malay voters threw their lot in with PAS, in a rejection of corruption-tainted former ruling party Umno, which for decades was the political vehicle representing the voice and interests of the country’s largest ethnic group.

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