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A strong Anwar makes UMNO weaker, not vice versa

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.

He taunted his tormentors, banging his head against the wall with a vengeance for justice, pummelled at every turn until unexpectedly last Thursday (02 September 2004), he was released. There was no proof of sodomy, the Federal Court ruled, and freed him. Dr Mahathir disagreed, but when he was called as a witness during the trial, he declined. He and others were more interested in character assassination, not if Dato' Seri Anwar is a sodomist. But when charges are filed in court, the prosecution must prove it. It could not, so he is free. But it would not go away. How do you know he is? He is, you know. When asked for proof, they waffle. Those who accused him of sodomy could not prove it in court. Whether he is as alleged is not the issue; that no convictable evidence was proferred is.

His excoriation was political, not legal. The courts had a role akin to Judge Jeffreys, the 18th century Britain's hanging judge. A conviction had to be obtained by hook or by crook. And the courts obliged. But in vendettas speed and finality is the essence. Likewise a clear plan. But when law officials have to fit the law to political dictates, that plan cannot hold. If the man continues the challenge his degradation, with the ferociousness he has, it saps the energy of those out to destroy him. Dato' Seri Anwar brilliants taunted his tormentors – in the law courts, in his ex cathedra challenges and views, his appeal for humanity and fair play – that the institutions in charge was sapped of its moral presence.

That was the turning point of his release. The civil servants, who valued their comfortable existence, kept quiet, but as the years went by, their sense of injustice revealed itself. The late Tan Sri Azizan Zainal Abidin, the chairman of Petronas and a high ranking civil servant before he retired, told his wife – as she told Dato' Seri Anwar's wife, Datin Seri Wan Azizah – a fortnight before he died that the Anwar case was an injustice from the start, but he could do nothing about it. But as UMNO lost its head after the arrest of Dato' Seri Anwar in 1998, it gradually lost the trust of the civil servants and of the major institutions. Why it did not spill in public is the traditional Malay reticience.

The reality, which UMNO ignored, was different. It insisted he is not a political prisoner, but a criminal. He deserves his fate. And opted for a needless political confrontation it could not win. Dato' Seri Anwar brilliantly led the UMNO-led government into it, with every official hyperventilating official reation made mistakes galore. When it was clear he would be released, it went to extraordinary lengths to prevent it. But it raised another more serious point. How could his conviction for corruption – in this instance, misuse of office – stand if it relates to the sodomy that the Federal Court now insists is unproven? But the tide has changed. The Federal Court accepts it can hear a review to rehear its own decision in a criminal case as well and would, in time, rehear his appeal against sentence and conviction for corruption.

What frightens UMNO is that six years in jail had made its nemesis more determined to challenge the status quo, more philosophical, a far more astute politician than at his arrest, and with his charisma and demogogary intact. His three days between release and departure for microsurgery in Munich brought crowds not seen since his dismissal six years ago. UMNO does not know how to handle this. It is afraid if he rejoins it, and afraid he would not. His talk of reform, which lead to his arrest, is still his political platform, but he is in no hurry to announce it now.

He is still a demon in many eyes for good reason. In high office, he displayed the arrogance of UMNO and National Front (BN) leaders now. He was unstoppable then, and he played the part. When he fell, he was accused of the arrogance of power his former colleagues had exhibited with impunity. On his release, his accusers and tormentors continue to insist he is a homosexual, and the court decision a mistake. The truth is that UMNO decided to drag him through the courts but forgot that while it could, in the short term, get the courts to do its bidding, it would come unstuck the longer the appeals took. The new generation of judges, peripherally involved, did not want to be tarred for others' mistakes, with judicial integrity more important than the government's discomfiture.

Whether Dato' Seri Anwar would return to his pre-eminence in politics is uncertain, and what he would do next until he is more settled. But to UMNO it does. That he is free is enough to give it nightmares. Malaysian politics has had a breath of fresh air by his release. The moribund UMNO is forced to address its failing in the light of a free Anwar. It is caught in irrelevant minutae about its triennial elections later this month. It is still focussed on personalities. The Anwar bandwagon, should it take-off, is more than Anwar; but his ideas of reform could only sustain if rigorously tested. It could not in UMNO. He could head an Opposition coaltion and give it a fresh lease of life. UMNO is frightened of that, especially since he is perhaps the only one who could pull it off.

More important is what his release means to ordinary Malaysians. My relations with him had been rocky, refusing to talk to me when I wrote critical articles about his time in office. When he was sacked, I had not met him for four years. I went to see him two days before he was arrested on 20 August 1998. We sat down to talk. I told him I disagree with him over many issues, but I do not want my deputy prime minister treated like this; he has friends in high places and overseas who would rise to his defence, but who would there be for me, or any Malaysian, in similar circumstance. It is on this narrow issue I shall back him. I am certain the old disagreements would surface, but that would be another time and another fight. But if the police could so harsh on him, is that not a reflection how so much harsher they are to ordinary Malaysians in less harsher surroundings and occasions?

[This is my column in Seruan Keadilan, the organ of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, and on sale from today, 10 September 2004]

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