The PM’s crocodile tears over rising electricity bills

What a truly marvellous, heart-wrenching show Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is putting on for us.

We see him weeping alongside the rakyat over the unbearable tragedy of rising electricity bills. He says he is shocked. He says he is deeply concerned.

He rushes into “urgent special meetings” with Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and the Energy Commission. He waves his hands. He demands immediate relief measures.

He blames the hot weather and the haze for making your bills spike. It is a beautiful performance. It almost makes you want to hand him a tissue.

But please, do not pull out your handkerchiefs just yet. If you look closely at how this country actually works, you will realise you are being taken for a ride by a master illusionist. A showman.

The narrative Madani wants you to believe is simple: TNB is a greedy corporate giant, the Energy Commission is a heartless regulator, and poor PMX is the heroic “white knight” swooping in at the eleventh hour to save your wallets. That is the illusion.

Let us, however, look at the actual reality.

First, TNB is not an independent rogue agent. It is a government-linked company (GLC). Who has control? The Ministry of Finance.

Second, the Energy Commission cannot just raise prices on a whim. By law, under Section 26 of the Electricity Supply Act 1990, any major change to your tariff needs official approval. Who gives that green light? The minister and the Cabinet.

Third, who holds all the keys? Anwar Ibrahim is not just the prime minister. He is also the Minister of Finance.

This means the entire system is a closed loop of his own making. The fuel adjustment surcharges that hit your bill the moment you use a bit more air conditioning during a heatwave? That was not an accident. That was a structural policy explicitly approved by his own administration.

To put it in plain English: he signed the paper that allows your bills to go up, and now he wants you to thank him for pretending to look into why your bills are so high.

If this script feels incredibly familiar, it is because we just watched the exact same movie with the petrol subsidies.

Remember the tears? Remember the sombre speeches about how fiscal responsibility is painful but necessary? Remember the Hormuz Straits narrative?

He plays the reluctant leader, forced by cruel global markets to make your life harder, while begging for your sympathy and understanding. But the moment the public backlash gets too loud, the strategy flips.

Suddenly, he shifts from the “responsible reformer” back into the “protector of the poor”. He claims his targeted frameworks are shielding 85% of domestic users from the worst of it.

How long are we going to fall for this?

A real leader takes responsibility for the policies they enact. A real leader owns the consequences of restructuring the nation’s utilities.

But what we have instead is a prime minister who wants the absolute power to dictate the country’s finances, while completely deflecting the blame when those same finances crush the ordinary Malaysian household.

He is not an outsider fighting the system for you. He is the system.

So the next time you see a press release of the PM looking deeply troubled about your cost of living, do not be fooled. He is not your saviour. He might well be the reason.

He is simply the man who approved the price tag, holding the matches while pretending to be the fireman.

Rafique Rashid is a lawyer and information chief of Pejuang.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of MalaysiaNow.