Anwar’s “impossible” task of reforming the civil service
Anwar’s “impossible” task of reforming the civil service
The PM will be going up against graft and power struggles in his quest to get bureaucratic buy-in.
You’re reading a paid version of The Malaysianist, a newsletter on money and power by writer and journalist Emmanuel Samarathisa.
I run monthly and annual subscriptions. There’s also the atas or founding member tier where you get all the perks of an annual subscription and more, such as an annual report and insight into how this little corner of the internet fared throughout the year.
Group subscriptions are also on the table, too, if you’re mulling over bulk purchases for your organisation or family members.
Last Friday, Anwar Ibrahim announced the much-anticipated salary raise for civil servants1 of up to 15%, with wage hikes taking effect in two stages: December 1 this year and January 1, 2026.
The prime minister’s latest gambit comes amid tweaks his government undertook to improve a bureaucracy marked by polarising experiences. On one hand, they can be efficient, capable and emphatic. On the other hand, they can be corrupt, subservient and ineffective.
Raising salaries is the right thing to do but politics dictates that the matter isn’t just about wage hikes, according to civil servants and analysts I spoke to for this newsletter.
The PM is caught between a rock and a hard place. To execute policies, he sorely needs buy-in from the 1.2 million bureaucracy2, of which 90% are bumiputera, that keeps Putrajaya oiled and running.
But the prime minister is also up against a highly-political civil service. Push too much and he risks falling out with the civil service, while giving in would mean closing an eye to the systemic rot in the bureaucracy, ultimately drawing ire from taxpayers and the public at large.
Today’s brief covers the power dynamics and the internal machinations of the civil service.
Other equally important topics worth discussing – such as the merits of the pay raise, the lack of diversity and minority ethnic representation and the unsustainable pensions burden – will not make the newsletter but they do make the footnote.3
Civil servants I spoke to believe the raise is a win for Anwar but they remain sceptical as to how far will it sway the Malays in the civil service to the PM, while one analyst called Anwar’s attempts to improve and reform the bureaucracy “impossible”.
A chunky one today. Let’s get to it: