COMMENT | There has been considerable hype around Malaysia taking over the chairmanship of Southeast Asian bloc Asean this year, with pundits focusing on the leadership and vision of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
Early indications suggest that these expectations of Malaysia as the 2025 leader of Asean may be hard to fulfil.
One problem is that Malaysia’s chairmanship risks the potential of being too much about Anwar, and not enough about Asean.
For example, Anwar’s personal choice of ally and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an Asean adviser did not go down well in a politically divided Thailand. Nor did it recognise that Thaksin’s interventions around the Myanmar crisis have not helped.
Another problem is...