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The political nightmare that is Anwar Ibrahim

WHAT UPSETS THE NATIONAL Front (BN) coalition and its lead party, UMNO, now is that it splinters from within. Despite the best results ever in a general election in five decades, it flounders and blunders, with uncertain and worried leaders more worried about their future than if the coalition and its member parties must survive. The Malay ground is split, diffused, confused, still seeking a cultural leader it lost in UMNO when it defied Malay cultural mores to sack its deputy president, and the country's deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim in 1998. The UMNO president then did not care how he went, only that he must. But he also wanted him to be humiliated so that he would not have a political future outside of UMNO. He was then detained under the ISA, beaten to an inch of his life by the Inspector-General of Police no less, charged and convicted for sodomy and corruption in circumstances that ensured he would not get a fair trial. He is jailed for 15 years, his appeals wends its way through the courts. As expected, they are dismissed, but with fresh doubts about the fairness of the proceedings. It now redounds on Malaysians that the BN and UMNO, for their own political future, cannot allow him to be free.

In the six years since, his supporters have been ruthlessly rooted out. Loyal satraps and carpetbaggers filled the vaccuum, each with a vested interest to ensure he does not return to centre stage. Politics owes no loyalties, only self-interest. And self-interest demands that Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim should never return. The fear of a witch-hunt, should he ever return to centre stage, unites the BN coalition, UMNO, the civil servants, and others to ensure he does not leave prison until his 15 years is up, when he would no more be a political threat. For the record, the BN and UMNO insists he is not a force. Why? The 90-odd websites that once supported the reformasi movement he kicked off is reduced to a dozen or so. He is a forgotten man. He is history. To help this along, the government uses extra-legal methods to force his backers to denounce him. All this is true. But it remains that his support group is intact. The government did not dent that. It insists that Parti Keadilan Nasional, the political party that he spawned, is a deadweight. Its leaders caught between their own political future with campaigning for Dato' Seri Anwar's release. Several frankly do not see the point, and would rather cut and run.

But this is to be expected. But the BN's and UMNO's difficulty is not KeADILan or its leaders. It is the larger fear of what Dato' Seri Anwar can unleash from his prison cell. He has done that brilliantly. He refashioned himself in a new image, and his relentless attacks on the BN and its leaders begin to strike home. The BN and UMNO is caught in it so deeply that their leaders must react to every demand Dato' Seri Anwar makes. They were caught flatfooted when the IGP's karate chops turned him into a near cripple. When he asked to go overseas for medical treatment, the government blinked. Instead of deciding firmly that he should not go, it wavered, and justify why he should not go overseas. The then minister of health made a detailed reply to the request in Parliament, which had only one practical effect: that the government was still frightened of Dato' Seri Anwar's shadow. His medical condition is worse than ever, he needs a neckbrace, is confined to a wheelchair, and is in obvious pain. But the government cannot allow him to go overseas for treatment, or even allow the specialist to come here. If it does, it loses ground in this cultural fight for the Malay community.

It wants the courts to put the matter to rest once and for all. But the courts blinked too, when it scraped the bottom of the barrel to get judges who would convict without compunction. So unpopular and legally unquestionably were their judgements that some judges have round-the-clock police protection, not that they have been threatened but that, in the paranoia that suffuses in the government over Dato' Seri Anwar, they could be. If it wanted to destroy Dato' Seri Anwar once and for all, it should have pulled all stops and rushed the cases through. It did not. For a good reason. As the case wend its way through the courts, even cabinet ministers and senior UMNO leaders realised that this single minded humiliation of the man could redound on them. Worse, the mass prayers that Dato' Seri Anwar's supporters called for - the sembayang hajat - frightened many officials who allowed themselves to be active in his destruction. Two judges contacted the families for forgiveness, but they would not go to Sungei Buloh and face Dato' Seri Anwar. One died. The other is unsettled to the point of paranoia. One prosecutor has become slow in his reaction. And in court during one of the numerous appeals, he asked Dato' Seri Anwar for forgiveness.

This is not to imply that Dato' Seri Anwar himself did not make mistakes. He believed that when Tun Mahathir Mohamed retired as Prime Minister, he could have a better chance in the courts. He did not understand that he is an icon that reeks of the injustice meted out to him. So dangerous is he that the authorities could not even allow him out on bail. He has stood his ground, refusing to budge, and excoriating those in authority for the bad done to him. He has refashioned himself into a Malay icon, a victim of an un-Malay vendetta, and in so doing put the Malay leadership of UMNO and BN as outcastes. It is a role Nelson Mandela took on during his 27 years in jail, and his reputation grew the longer he stayed in jail. Dato' Seri Anwar has done likewise, aided in no small measure by the small-minded UMNO and BN leaders whom he cleverly brought into his trap. The intractible BN and UMNO dilemma over Dato' Seri Anwar is self-inflicted. They did not think through their plans, that today they would lose ground if they agreed to one demand of Dato' Seri Anwar. And lose ground if they did not.

An example. He is due for release on 14 April 2009, if he gets his two-thirds remission. This means the general election must be held well before that date. The spectacle of an Anwar in a wheel-chair travelling up and down the country during the election campaign is not one UMNO and BN would want to contemplate. If he is not released then, and elections is held later, that could be an election issue. So, elections must be held well before that, perhaps by mid-2008. Yet, the prevailing wisdom is that he is a spent force. Is it not strange that the BN and UMNO spends so much of their collective waking hours on this spent force, and still find him a political nightmare?

[This is my column in the latest issue of Harakah, the PAS organ, out today, 25 May 2004]

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com