Politics and Elections in Malaysia, the Anwar upset I

Politics and Elections in Malaysia, the Anwar upset I

Many people were shocked when Anwar Ibrahim’s wife, Dr. Wan Azizah, vacated her seat as Permatang Pauh representative at the parliament. This she did to pave way for her husband to contest the by-election, so that he could reclaim the position he left at the parliament ten years ago. And may be get enough MPs to cross over so that he can become the Prime Minister and thereby achieving his life long ambition.

Having been made the party president and having been elected as the opposition leader in the parliament, Dr. Azizah could be excused for being too confident that her husband could win the election. But it was still a risky move. Or so I thought as a Nigerian. For example, who from our National Assembly can willingly resign to allow her husband or his wife to contest an election against the PDP?

Dr Azizah resignation came at the time her husband was facing fresh sodomy charges, which made her decision more precarious. But instead of the husband viewing that as a weakness, he added the trial to his campaign arsenal and called it persecution. The Star of Monday 11th August reported him to have said, “Things are getting bad for me now as I have been accused and slandered by those who are preventing me from winning in the by-election. It is an uphill battle for me”

Earlier, Anwar, who has just turned 61, alleged after his arrest, that he “was striped naked and measurements (of my privates) taken. I was placed in a lock-up on the seventh floor of the IPK; the lock-up for major criminals. I was also made to sleep on a cement floor.” But he didn’t give his DNA sample because he feared that it could be tampered with.

He also refused to allow the police and medical personnel to photograph him because he feared that the pictures may end up on YouTube. Anwar finally asked, “Why was I treated like a major criminal and a public enemy?”

All these happened between Thursday, 17th and Friday 18th July – the wife resigned on the 31st of July.

The events that led to his arrest were also as dramatic. Anwar scheduled a press conference at Quality Hotel on Sunday, 29th June. But he quickly cancelled this conference and took refuge at the Turkish Embassy because of what the wife called a “second political conspiracy” to finish him off politically.

The person that caused the uproar and panic was Saiful, the 23-year old former aide of Anwar. On Saturday 28th June, he lodged a police report that Anwar had sodomized him.

The wife didn’t see any sodomy case at all. She saw, “a second conspiracy and an attempted murder. There’s a serious threat on his life. They did it in 1998 and they’re doing it again now.”

Anwar himself said, “I have been told that my assassination has not been ruled out as means to subvert the people’s will and bring an end to the transformational changes taking place in Malaysia.”

Anwar’s conspiracy theory forced the Prime Minister to react. “Umno (the ruling coalition) has never thought of disturbing him like this. BN (the Prime Minister’s Party and Anwar’s former party) also has never thought of making his life difficult or making up something like this or doing anything bad towards him. We don’t have such intention. It never crossed my mind to frame him.”

Now Anwar was in the Turkish Embassy. Although he had immunity there, the government could summon the ambassador. It was also obvious that the good relationship between the two countries could suffer some damage. Anwar had to leave. And the ambassador had to explain to the government that Anwar came to his personal residence – not to the embassy. And that he came as a friend and not as a refugee.

The politicking, accusations and counter accusations may be familiar to Nigerians but Malaysian politics are quite different from our own as you shall soon see.

Campaign and election

After the by-election date was fixed to be 26th August, the candidates had only ten days to campaign. Within the ten days, they gave talks, visited markets, traveled to remote villages and granted interviews to the media.

The contest was between two main candidates: PKR’s Anwar and the ruling party’s Arif Shah. Arif is a man I personal think is too good to be a politician.

Although Anwar knew that he had previously held this same seat on contest for 17 years, then his wife held it for 9 years, he didn’t take the people for granted and campaigned vigorously. He gave several promises. To the Malays he promised to protect their interests. To the Indians and Chinese, he promised more opportunities. To the Malaysians in general, he promised to chop off RM.50 from the fuel price. It’s currently fixed at RM2.70 (N99.9).

To be continued
Quotes are taken from The Star, New Straits Times, Malay Mail, the Sun and TV3.