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MALACCA, Malaysia: Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim toured Malaysia
over the weekend in a bid to revive his ambitions of seizing power
despite his arrest on sodomy allegations—the same charge that saw
him jailed a decade ago.
Dressed in his trademark blue batik shirt, Anwar
traveled to the government-held states of Malacca, Pahang and Johor
to build support and momentum after last week’s explosive events,
when he spent a night in police custody over the accusations leveled
by a 23-year-old male aide.
“The government knows that if not for these
sodomy allegations, I would be on my way into parliament by now,”
he told a crowd of more than 5,000 conservative Muslim supporters in
Jasin, a village near the tourist town of Malacca.
“I tell you now that I will be contesting in a
by-election,” he told the crowd, to yells of “Allahu akbar” or
“God is greater.”
A return to parliament would be the next step in
the political rehabilitation of Anwar, who was sacked as deputy
premier in 1998 and jailed on sodomy and corruption charges.
The sex conviction was overturned, but the
corruption count barred him from public office until April.
The Pakatan Rakyat opposition alliance, fired up
by Anwar’s charismatic presence, made unprecedented gains in March
general elections, leaving it just 30 seats short of ousting the
Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, which has ruled since independence
from Britain a half-century ago.
Anwar’s latest crisis, which he said has been
fabricated by the government, has been a distraction from his plan
to form a new administration with the help of defecting coalition
lawmakers.
But he told the crowds on his post-arrest
roadshow that he was making progress nevertheless.
“I will shortly be ready to announce four BN
MPs [members of parliament] who will join the Pakatan Rakyat. It
will happen very soon,” he said.
Anwar had agreed to be questioned Wednesday over
the new sodomy allegations brought by Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan,
who said he was assaulted at a luxury condo.
But just an hour before he was scheduled to
appear, a team of balaclava-clad police commandos picked him up and
took him to Kuala Lumpur police headquarters.
He was released on police bail until August 18,
but could still be charged with sodomy—which in predominantly
Muslim Malaysia is a serious offense with a maximum penalty of 20
years in jail.
Analysts said Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi’s government could be forced onto the defensive by the
allegations, which one survey found are widely disbelieved by
Malaysians who have lost faith in the justice system.
“Anwar is trying to capitalize on a tactical
weakness of the police and government,” said Tricia Yeoh, head of
the Centre for Public Policy Studies.
“If they charge him in court on the sodomy
allegations, he will get more sympathy and support from the public.
And if they let him go, he will be vindicated, and it will be a
victory for the opposition,” she said.
Anwar is also seizing on a largely unpopular
41-percent fuel price hike introduced last month, saying he would
lower pump prices immediately if he comes to power.
“Don’t let these baseless accusations about
me distract you from what is most important, how to bring down the
high prices of oil and food which have devastated the people,” he
told an enthusiastic crowd in the small Malaccan village of Cheng on
Friday night.
More than a thousand ethnic Chinese supporters,
including old men with walking sticks and young girls in cheongsams,
turned up to hear him speak in a sign of the multi-ethnic appeal
that he enjoys in Malaysia, which is home to large ethnic Indian and
Chinese minorities.
“Keadilan [Anwar’s party] did not win very
big here in the last elections,” said 44-year-old villager Choong
Hai Sung as blue-and-red Keadilan flags fluttered from wooden
houses.
“But the recent hikes and indifference of the
local authorities to our problems mean that we have to now shift our
support,” he said.
“I know that subsidies are bad, but we are
going through bad times and Anwar’s plans seem like the best
option now.”
-- AFP
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