Two votes. That was the margin by which Malaysia’s prime minister, a man with a supermajority in the 222-seat lower house, failed to pass a bill his own coalition had spent weeks publicly championing.
After the numbers were read out, the cameras cut to Anwar Ibrahim. He was mid-laugh, chatting with his deputy.
The bill, defeated on March 2, was supposed to be a quick win – a term-limit proposal capping any prime minister at two terms or 10 years in office, chosen precisely because it was popular, symbolically loaded and politically safe.
But instead of a clean win to silence the growing chorus of critics who say Anwar’s reform agenda has stalled, it fell just shy of the two-thirds majority required.
“It was really disappointing,” said a lawmaker from Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, asking not to be named. “That bill should have easily passed. It feels like there was not enough effort to make sure everyone turned up.”
The government has pledged to reintroduce the bill in June. Leaders of the key parties in Anwar’s unity government have promised their MPs will actually attend this time. But promising to get it right the second time is not much of a rallying cry.
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