Anwar — Do-Or-Die By-election

Anwar — Do-Or-Die By-election Jed Yoong

25 August 2008

Malaysian voters in a semi-rural constituency tomorrow will decide the political future of Anwar Ibrahim. If he wins, will he be the next prime minister? Anwar, who leads the opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat, announced that he would contest in the by-election shortly after a former 23-year-old aide accused him in June of forced sodomy. Anwar has claimed that this is a political conspiracy to thwart his plans to contest the by-election and wrest power from the Barisan Nasional, the coalition which has ruled since independence in 1957. Since then, the government has backtracked and charged Anwar for consensual sodomy, which is punishable by up to 20 years in jail and whipping. Anwar first won the parliamentary seat in Penang in 1982. He was then a rising Islamic student activist who had served time in prison under the draconian Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial, after leading demonstrations to fight the plight of poor farmers. Mahathir Mohamad, who became prime minister that year after campaigning with the slogan "Clean, Efficient and Trustworthy", invited Anwar into the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the biggest ethnic party which leads Barisan, to boost the party's Islamic credentials and fend off the rise of political Islam, as UMNO was widely seen as a liberal, Westernised party. After Anwar was sacked by Mahathir and later hauled into court and jailed on charges of corruption and sodomy in 1998, the seat has been held by his wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail until she vacated it in August. The sodomy charges are widely believed to be trumped-up and were overturned in 2003. Anwar was then released after serving his corruption conviction. The by-election, analysts and observers say, is a referendum on whether Anwar would be an effective prime minister heading an unwieldy coalition of his own predominantly ethnic Malay and middle-class Parti Keadilan Rakyat, or People’s Justice Party, the largely Chinese and pro-socialist Democratic Action Party, and the fundamentalist Islamic Parti Islam se-Malaysia, or PAS. Anwar has postured himself as the "prime-minister-in-waiting". He has said that about 30 lawmakers in the flailing Barisan Nasional, or national coalition, will jump over to the Pakatan coalition by September 16, wresting federal power from the Barisan. The Barisan, on the other hand, has mostly dismissed Anwar's claims as ludicrous and said Anwar was engaging in "psy-war" to destabilize the government. Pakatan has 81 lawmakers to Barisan's 140. In the March 8 general election, Barisan lost its 50-year grip on its two-thirds parliamentary majority and as well as five states, including the most developed ones, Selangor and Penang. It also lost the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur, the capital, and won only one out of 11 parliamentary seats in the area. The disastrous electoral showing under Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi intensified the infighting within UMNO and decimated the other largest component ethnic parties – the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC). The Barisan now faces leadership crises in UMNO, MCA and MIC. On the ground, members are also defecting to Pakatan parties and more are set to cross-over if Anwar wins. Furthermore, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and Rosmah Mansor have been linked to the gruesome murder of a 28-year-old Mongolian translator, Altantuya Shariibuu, who was shot before being blown up by military explosives. Considerable evidence in court and statutory declarations outside it have pointed to Najib but he has neither been questioned nor named in court On Saturday, Najib swore on the Koran in a mosque at the election site that he has nothing to do with the murder and have never met Altantuya. The Mongolian honorary consul-general to Malaysia, Datuk Syed Abdul Rahman Alhabshi, reportedly denied Najib's involvement after his investigations, which included visiting Mongolia. It is crucial for Anwar to gain a convincing number of Malay votes, which make up about 69 percent of the constituency. Failure could cost him his legitimacy as a Malay leader and his Pakatan federal government is likely to be shaky, as in Perak state where Pakatan only received marginal Malay support and formed the coalition government on the strength of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), a Chinese-based party. Traditionally, with Malay politics, the cards to play are race and religion. In culturally segregated Malaysia, race and religion matter. Malays are defined as Muslims by the Constitution and sodomy is a sin in Islam as well as being a statutory offense. As expected, the election has turned into a pseudo trial on the sodomy allegation, with UMNO showing nightly screenings on large screens of Anwar’s accuser, his 23-year-old former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, swearing on the Koran that the 61-year-old politician had forcibly sodomized him in an apartment in Kuala Lumpur. In a country where the Chinese and Indians are regarded as immigrants no matter how long they have been here, UMNO over the last five decades has championed Malay rights and privileges. Under Mahathir, ketuanan Melayu, or Malay supremacy, has become a mantra and a promise to elevate the Malays from their socio-economic backwardness. The country ‘s New Economic Policy, a race-based affirmative action policy which sets quotas for Malays in education and government service as well as seeking to transfer economic wealth to them, has become sacrosanct. Hence, UMNO has labeled Anwar a traitor to the Malays for proposing to replace the NEP with an income-based poverty eradication programme. Anwar has retaliated by saying that it's UMNO that betrayed the Malays because the system has enriched only a rent-seeking elite. Ironically, that elite once included him as deputy prime minister and finance minister. It remains to be seen whether racial and religious rhetoric will overshadow more pressing concerns like inflation and public discontent over a 40 percent hike in fuel prices and UMNO's plummeting credibility. But bookies are giving good odds of Anwar winning, Reuters reported. According to the report, "Bookies in Kuala Lumpur are offering odds of 3-1 for Anwar winning with a majority of 15,000 votes in the August 26 by-election in northern Penang state, an Anwar stronghold."