|
Friday, January 26, 2007
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/jan/26/yehey/world/20070126wor3.html
Malaysia’s Anwar returns to political stage
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim is on the
attack after returning to the political stage,
launching a series of broadsides against the ruling
party which he says is “rotten to the core.”
Anwar was a celebrated deputy premier and
heir-apparent to former leader Mahathir Mohamad
until 1998, when he suffered a spectacular fall from
grace, facing sodomy and corruption charges that
landed him in jail for six years.
He was freed in September 2004, but until in April
led a nomadic existence with stints lecturing in
Britain, the US and Australia, and only in recent
months has switched his focus back to the political
scene.
“Like any established, long-serving, ruling party
they tend to rot,” he said of the ruling United
Malays National Organization of which he was once a
leading light, serving as a talented finance
minister with strong Islamic credentials.
“They lose their ideas and massive corruption,
lethargy and indolence are creeping in. They are all
signs of a major disease,” he said in an interview
with AFP. “They are rotten to the core.”
Anwar’s sodomy conviction has been overturned but
the corruption conviction still stands, barring him
from standing for public office until April 2008.
National elections must be held by early 2009, but
there is speculation that Prime Minister Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi, who replaced Mahathir three years ago,
will go to the people before that, effectively
preventing Anwar from taking part.
In the meantime his party, “Keadilan”—or the
People’s Justice Party—is formally run by his wife
and its only sitting parliamentary member, Wan
Azizah Wan Ismail.
Anwar has been lobbing blistering attacks on the
government, mostly centered on the corruption which
has calcified UMNO over its five decades in power
and which Abdullah has been criticized for failing
to address.
In press conferences at his sprawling home, he has
called for a probe into the high-profile murder of a
Mongolian model to determine whether the
well-connected political analyst accused of
organizing the crime used government connections to
do so.
He has also demanded the government investigate a
$900-billion Russian fighter jet deal, which he said
was “blatantly corrupt” and for which a former
cabinet minister received a massive commission.
However, the hard-hitting accusations receive little
airtime in Malaysia, where the tightly controlled
media rarely publish any of his pronouncements—just
one of the problems he faces as he tries to
reestablish his political relevance.
Political analyst Khoo Kay Peng says Keadilan has
the potential to be an effective opposition,
particularly after its coalition with the
fundamentalist Islamic party PAS, but Anwar has a
lot of work to do.
“If he’s making a political comeback he needs to
show a lot more commitment. He hasn’t made many
clear positions, he wasn’t even here [in Malaysia]
until a few months ago,” he said.
“People remember his past associations, he hasn’t
created a new political identity. Anwar ‘the
opposition leader’ is not established in the
people’s minds yet.”
Anwar is keeping up a frantic schedule of public
speaking engagements and rally appearances where he
airs his charges of high-level corruption within the
judiciary, the media and the electoral system.
“You try to talk about the murder and corruption and
they pretend not to hear. [They behave] with
impunity, bribing people, having lavish
entertainment and having total control of the
machine,” he said.
But when the talk turns to his intentions and
political plans, he is somewhat coy, even with
regards to his role within his own party.
“I’m not going to be presumptuous, I’ve been asked
to be more involved, but I’m not yet a candidate,”
he said.
--AFP
|
