The three mainstream English-language newspapers in the Klang Valley are strong on the community, but not on the communitarian, role. In the short term, this would attract advertisers and be a corporate dream – one managing director of a mainstream newspaper takes home RM6 million a year – but are not newspapers of record or substance. But in the end it would pay for shortchanging the reader. The NST and the Star have lost readers because of this. In fact, the NST is boycotted in parts of the east coast states of Pahang, Trengganu and Kelantan, and after the fallout between UMNO and its then deputy president, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, in 1998, around the country. The Star has lost readers to the Sun for its slanted coverage of MCA politics, wherein only the party president's view is important. The Sun, making no pretense of it, presents a bare-bones news coverage from Bernama, backed with solid commentaries that gives it a communitarian heft not seen in its rivals. All are now caught in a conundrum: Anwar should be banned from the newspapers, so the diktat, but he sells newspapers; it is a fact that when he is in the news, newspaper sales rise. But he is an UMNO pariah, so he must be excluded. So those who want news of him must seek elsewhere, and many do.

The election result is not to Pak Lah's liking. The one obvious winner is his deputy president, whose men dominate the supreme council. Pak Lah could possibly overcome this by appointing the ten supreme councillors in his gift. But it may not be enough. The new supreme council is a veritable agglomeration of factions, the likes of which it has not seen. Most of these are aligned to Dato' Seri Najib. There is no guarantee, in this uncertainty, if the ten he appoints would stay loyal to Pak Lah. This is the crisis in UMNO. It is complicated by other factors, especially two men uninvolved in this political confrontation: Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. One takes a patrician view of the shenanigans beneath him, the other arouses much sympathy and respect despite having been expelled from UMNO and told to forget – which he has before it did – he is banned for ever.

UMNO in 2004 is in crisis. It would not admit it, but its general assembly, and its election, last week (23-25 September 2004), did not lie, even if its leaders did. It was to annoint a new president, but it ended with him worse off than ever. The three days of election and debate were overshadowed by two issues that its leaders insisted were irrelevant: its former deputy president, Anwar Ibrahim, and vote-buying. Yet both were never far from the lips of delegates and leaders, within and without the assembly.

First Broadcast - September 22, 2004 Episode 23: The Anwar Factor

BOTH WERE ABSENT AT the just concluded UMNO general assembly – one never wanted to, the other dare not – but in the "best" debates heard in years, as the youth chief, Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein would have us believe, only Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim and money politics mattered. They are irrelevant in UMNO, but they had to be excorsised, drawn and quartered for the damage they can and do cause. The UMNO president lead the charge; every sycophantic leader raised it to a war cry. But the twin traitors of UMNO lodge deeply, in fear, loathing or indifference, in the heart of every delegate. In public, they are excoriated; in private welcomed as a long lost sibling. The mainstream media has made it their role to explain to Malaysia that both are a pernicious influence not only on UMNO but on every citizen, Malay and non-Malay, in this blessed land. In the process, much got lost in three days of debate and elections. In a nutshell, UMNO lost its way. But it does not know it yet.

So few outside his inner circle were surprised at yet another drubbing he got from the UMNO he leads. However one looks at the party elections, he is caught in a bind. The delegate, fed up of being ignored and threatened, kept his own council – a dangerous sign in Malay society – who indulged in the excesses of the consumer society, but determined nevertheless to make known his distaste for being taken for granted. Ranged against Pak Lah were four irreconciliable factions: that of his deputy, Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak; that of Malay cultural hurt which turned the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, though not now a member, into an icon of dissent in UMNO and the Malay cultural world outside; that of the mentris besar riding on a platform of evental constitutional confrontation; that of the newly marginalised. The disparate groups worked alone, often at odds with each other, but they had a common focus: Pak Lah and his coterie.

DATO' SERI Anwar IBRAHIM is the subject of much obloquy at the UMNO general assembly this week, accused of betraying the Malay race, of unspeakable sex crimes, a traitor to UMNO, and ordered banned from ever returning to UMNO. The UMNO president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the youth, wanita, putra chiefs gleefully and with alacrity put the knife into him in venom. At the end of the day, they pat each other with a self-satisfied smirk of a job well done, convinced the man is history, and UMNO safe from this traitor. But it is UMNO, not Dato' Seri Anwar, which lost the plot. If he is disbarred from UMNO because he worked against it after he was expelled, should not this rule, in fair play, be applied to others equally guity? The UMNO youth chief, Dato' Seri Hishamuddin Hussein, insists he should not ever return to UMNO. How could an UMNO leader when he leaves, or is forced out, ever talk ill about this glorious party of Malay hegemony? He must pay for it if he does. Dato' Seri Anwar did. So he must.

AND SO IT HAS come to that: UMNO is not only afraid of the Anwar lava which spews constantly from the once-dormant volcano of public dissent, but is also infected with the Anwar cancer. At the UMNO wanita, puteri and youth congresses in Kuala Lumpur yesterday (22 September 2004), no leader talked of him by name, but it was he who dominated. He is not an UMNO member, which is why the reticience, but he was nevertheless the man of the hour. He has said he would not join UMNO, that his reform agenda is as current as it was in 1998, when UMNO deemed him politically destroyed. He has returned from the dead, and UMNO is mortally terrified of him. At the Putra World Trade Centre, where UMNO meets, there was little other talk – with groups either supporting or excoriating him. Nothing else seemed to matter. In this atmosphere, few took what was said seriously. It was Anwar, Anwar, Anwar all the way. And he still has said nothing, is in a Munich clinic after his back operation.

But this UMNO belief in its invincibility is fiction. It is pulled in all directions by forces it cannot control. The seeming calm that prevails in UMNO belies the raging fires beneath, a volcano ready to explode. What caused it to spout in 1998 was its humiliation of its deputy president in 1998, breaking the social contract between the feudal leader with its subjects by humiliating one of his chiefs. UMNO has sacked its leaders before, but had not treated them with the humiliation the former UMNO president, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, heaped on Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. The Malay ground rebelled, the extinct volcano became alive, the leaders held its ground which when it could not hold, fueled the volcanic fire by assuring the world all is well. It ignores the volcanic fire, dare not mention its name, but the lava it spouts reduces UMNO and its leaders to mortal terror.

The issue that started it all was when poor villagers in Grik were driven to eat poisonous wild tapioca. It brought students and undergraduates into a confrontation with the government, led by this student. Thirty years on, the poor villagers in Grik are reducing their children with tea without milk and sugar and condensed milk. Does it bother UMNO? No. It is more worried about that one graduate who stood up to be counted. Today UMNO is paranoid and in mortal terror about him. His name is Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. How many Anwar Ibrahims would surface from this latest hamfisted attempt to force the undergraduate to think the UMNO way? I don't know. But one could well threaten UMNO, if it exists, three decades from now, or be the country's leader on a reformasi platform to make mincemeat of all UMNO stood for.

UMNO LEADERS HAVE LOST the plot. A fortnight after Dato' Seri Anwar is released from prison, he is the only issue they have. The only news that matters of Malaysian politics, as the mainstream newspapers see it, is he, not UMNO or its general assembly or indeed its triennial elections next week. If it is not to decry him or his future in Malaysian politics, it is UMNO's fear and loathing of the man. And this of one the UMNO supreme council decreed should never ever soil the party with his membership. Is that the issue here? After all, UMNO gleefully points out to any who would listen that whatever the courts might say, he is a sodomist, that he is barred from party politics for five years, that he would be 61 by then and 'too old' to start the grind to be prime minister.

UMNO will not re-admit the convicted, jailed, and IGP-battered former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. He will not be in the cabinet. He must be made to suffer for his treachery. He should not expect a pardon. He is a nobody. Which is why he wants back in: he is envious and jealous of UMNO's total commitment to championing the Malays, its fantastic success in the March general elections, its unique role in Malaysia's postwar political history. These and other outlandish mantras are repeated ad naseum by the UMNO president, the deputy president, and other high ranking leaders in speeches, in private talks, to party delegations worried about it and at press conferences across the country. Malaysia's tabloid newspapers – all fighting for the right to lose as much money as fast as possible – and other newspapers the BN parties own have spread this message incessantly since 02 September 2004, when the Federal Court freed Dato' Seri Anwar from jail.

THE UMNO SUPREME COUNCIL is mortified of its own shadow, in rigor mortis at the vaguest hint that former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, might rejoin UMNO. So it unanimously barred him from rejoining UMNO "even if he wants to" at its meeting yesterday (14 September 2004). But he had said repeatedly, after the Federal Court allowed his appeal and freed him from prison last week, he would not; that he wants reforms which could not happen if he returned to UMNO. UMNO leaders believe him to be devious and speaks, as the Red Indian would say, with forked tongue. But why should a political party with an acclaimed 3.5 million members be frightened of an ex-member it insists it destroyed in 1998, and run around like a terrified headless chicken now that he is free? He cannot join a political party awhile yet. He is acquitted of sodomy, but he could not clear the other: to vitiate the conviction for corruption of abusing his authority to investigate the sodomy allegation. The Federal Court refused today to rehear its dismissal of his corruption conviction, so he is barred from party politics until April 2008 before he can rejoin UMNO or even join another political party. It does look like UMNO jumped the gun – and unnecessarily. If he had succeeded, it would have been a pyrrhic victory at best: it could take years before the appeal was reheard.

THE FEDERAL COURT'S CAREFULLY-CRAFTED 89-page judgement, which allowed Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's appeal against conviction and sentence for sodomy and freed him from prison, contained this throwaway line: "To summarise our judgment, even though reading the appeal record, we find evidence to confirm that the appellants were involvved in homosexual activities and we are more inclined to believe that the alleged incident at Tivoli Villa did happen." UMNO politicians, cabinet ministers, journalists, anti-Anwaristas and others seize upon it to insist that though acquitted, he is still guilty, unfit to return to politics. But they ignored the judges' reasoning and caution: "(However) the court may only convict the appellants if the prosecution had successfully proved the alleged offences as stated in the charges beyond reasonable doubt on admissible evidence and in accordance with established principles of law." Their cursory remarks – what the law would call 'obiter dicta' – has no bearing on the judgment but it raised the eternal conundrum: Is justice at the mercy of the political executive? The status quo insist behind the scenes it is, whilst in public affirm justice's inviolability.

UMNO DID NOT KNOW what hit it when it sacked its deputy president in 1998; nor that it would fight for its life today because of it. That intemperate misjudged vendetta is the cause of its misfortune and its lingering death. The UMNO president, Dato' Seri (Tun as he now is) Mahathir Mohamed moved to destroy his deputy president who he felt had grown too big for his boots, and did by denying him his rights. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, in short, was drummed out of UMNO, and sacked as deputy prime minister. He and his supporters took to the streets. That led to his arrest, he was battered to an inch of his life, he was charged with corruption and sodomy, convicted of both in what is a traversity of justice, jailed. It should have destroyed him. It did not.

But this ruckus about bribery is irrelevant. UMNO collapses in slow neglect, its foundations breaking down, its leaders rushing hither and thither to prevent it falling as they assure the world all is well. It could go on if no natural disaster strikes. But the worst of it has. His name is Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. The man its leaders insisted is a common criminal whose support disappeared the longer he stayed in prison. To make sure he did, the UMNO leaders, who led the governing National Front (BN) coalition, had pliant judges to do their bidding. It did not matter, as it now turns out, how he was kept in jail, only that he must. But he is out and recuperating from microsurgery on his back. He has not decided on his political options, but UMNO's future is now linked to his. Distasteful as it is for UMNO leaders, they must somehow persuade him to return to the party that cast him, when Malaysia's deputy prime minsiter and UMNO's deputy president, into the gutter, and made sure he remained there. That depends if he thinks it is a good idea.

WHEN THE MALAYSIAN AIRWAYS flight landed at Frankfurt airport yesterday (05 September 2004) morning at 06.15 am, the few hundred well-wishers, amongst whom were the Malaysian ambassador, Dato' Kamal Ismaun, and his staff, gave a rousing welcome to the special passenger, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. The New Straits Times sent a special correspondent to cover his arrival, who thought it unworthy to report this minor detail. But look closely, and one could see apparatchiks of the UMNO high and mighty. But this goes against the grain: it is difficult to turn a devil into a hero, but that is what it has to do. He went on to Munich and checked into the Alpha Klinik, and expects to undergo surgery today. His back problems worsened after the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Noor, no less, beat him, shortly after his arrest, to an inch of his life, and combined with political positions he and the government took reduced him to a near cripple, with neck and back braces and confined to a wheelchair. Who blinked, lost. And the National Front (BN) government did.

TRY AS IT MIGHT, official Malaysia cannot rid its mind off Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Extraordinary pressure was put on the two judges who judged his conviction for sodomy could not stand in law: the Sultan of Pahang called his relative, on of the two judges, to change his mind; a senior police officer whose role was pivotal to convict Dato' Seri Anwar turned up at the two judges' houses in the middle of the night before but they showed him the door. The chief justice, half an hour before the court sat, made a final attempt to throw his weight so the man would be in jail until 2009. The judges stood their ground. All officialdom could do was to grin and bear it, and let the spin take over. This is proof the judiciary is independent. The courts have spoken, and we will honour it (but that this was said is proof it still struggles for its traditional independence). Make no mistake, the judiciary is pure as the driven snow. The government respects the judiciary.

WHAT HIT UMNO ON Thursday (02 September 2004), when the Federal Court set aside Dato' Seri Anwar's conviction and sentence and released him had the political force of a hurricane, a tsunami, a typhoon, an earthquake, a volcanic eruption; in Malaysia, that force is Anwar Ibrahim. The public comment, local and foreign, is of an astute prime minister who wants to let bygones be bygones, and the judiciary to discuss the case on its merits. It is a new beginning. It lays the most divisive period in Malaysian history to rest. When they ran out of superlatives to praise the government, the spotlight turned on Dato' Seri Anwar: would be join UMNO? Would he become prime minister, can he stand up to the rigours of the position, given his bad back? Would he be up to the task, given that he was guilty of what he accuses the present government of? But remember, all this could not have happened, if Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi did not insist he wants the judiciary to be free, and he, on his part, accept its judgement without question.

THE MORE ONE LOOKS into Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's dramatic release from prison yesterday (02 September 2004) the more one realises politics, not law, that ensured it. He was charged, humiliated, convicted in a political vendetta. The only way he could be released ahead of time only by political intervention. The prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, like his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, wanted him in jail for as long as possible. The rules were stretched so he could not get what others charged for similar offences would as a matter of right. The judges, their hands tied, could do little but convict. The speed with which he goes for his surgery – he leaves tonight – raised many an eyebrow. That appears to be part of the deal, that he would leave immediately after his release, and not return for a while as Pak Lah tried to firm his rule. What forced Pak Lah's hand was the fear Dato' Seri Anwar might die on him – horror of horrors – before the UMNO elections in three weeks. Dato' Seri Anwar held his ground, and did not want a deal in which he would lose out politically.

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