Anwar upbeat despite setback on sex chargesAnwar upbeat despite setback on sex charges
By Kevin Brown in Singapore
Published: December 3 2009 20:05 | Last updated: December 3 2009 20:05
Anwar Ibrahim, the Malaysian opposition leader facing a criminal trial for sodomy, says the government has miscalculated if it thinks that jailing him will keep it in power at the next election.
Mr Anwar faces his second trial for sodomy in January following the high court’s rejection of an attempt to have the charges struck out on the grounds that medical evidence showed them to be false and that the prosecution was biased.
The court’s decision is a setback for Mr Anwar, a former deputy prime minister and finance minister, who spent six years in prison on similar charges before Malaysia’s federal court overturned his conviction in 2004.
However, in an interview with the Financial Times Mr Anwar said the fresh charges were part of a conspiracy by the Barisan Nasional (National Front) government to undermine the three-party Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance) coalition, which made spectacular gains at the 2008 general election.
“I am resigned to the fact that I am dealing with this oppressive system and I must be prepared for the worst,” Mr Anwar said in his office in Malaysia’s federal parliament building in Kuala Lumpur.
“It is not the courts, it is [the government],” he said. “Their political masters will instruct them that I be convicted. Then they have to be prepared for the grand battle; I am not taking it hands down. I will do what it takes; we will see.”
Mr Anwar said the Alliance leaders had agreed a strategy for running the coalition if an election – due by 2013 – is called while he is in prison. “I am optimistic that my incarceration would not necessarily put them in a sure victory; I think probably to the contrary,” he said.
Malaysia, a multi-racial state of 28m people, has been in political turmoil since the unexpected election result, which opened the possibility of a transfer of power between competing parties for the first time since independence from the UK in 1957.
The National Front, a 13-party coalition of mainly regional and race-based parties, won 140 of the 222 seats, but for the first time lost its two-thirds majority in parliament, which had allowed it to change the constitution.
Its three main components – the United Malays National Organisation, the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress – have been rocked by leadership disputes. Umno dumped Abdullah Badawi, its election-winning leader, in favour of Najib Razak, his deputy, in April last year.
Mr Najib has sought to stabilise the coalition, ordering Umno’s Chinese ally to resolve its festering leadership dispute and signalling to the MIC that the National Front might encourage other Indian-based parties if it fails to revitalise itself.
He has campaigned effectively against Mr Anwar, whose successive political careers have drawn accusations of inconsistency and opportunism.
The prime minister has also sought to re-engage minority voters through economic reforms intended to dilute discrimination in favour of ethnic Malays, who make up about 53 per cent of the population.
However, tensions have continued to flare, with Muslim protesters publicly trampling on a cow’s head, sacred to Hindus, and a government minister claiming that Indian demonstrators wrapped an Umno flag around a severed pig’s head, regarded by Muslims as unclean.
The three-party opposition coalition also has troubles, though, with few ideological links between its three parties – Mr Anwar’s multi-ethnic Parti Keadilan Rakyat (People’s Justice party), the mainly ethnic Chinese Democratic Action party and the Islamist Parti Islam Semalaysia (PAS).
Some PAS leaders favour an alternative alliance with Umno, which would bring the two mainly Malay Muslim parties together, while others have clashed with DAP leaders over issues such as the sale of alcohol – especially in the four of Malaysia’s 13 states where the opposition parties are in power.
The Alliance hopes to resolve these issues at a convention on December 19.
