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Anwar Ibrahim at Oxford menaces UMNO

THE FORMER MALAYSIAN DEPUTY prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, is now in residence at St. Antony's College, Oxford. When this was made known to one grandee of the Establishment, whose post-retirement role include attempts to prevent him access to the Saudi-Malaysian funded Oxford centre for Islamic studies, all he did not have was a heart attack. He calmed down only after he was told the centre will remain Anwar-free.

The Malaysian government forgot its writ does not run outside its borders, while it can enforce its writ on Malaysians at the centre, it cannot anywhere else in Oxford. But it assumed he could get to Oxford only through its good offices. I had known for weeks – along with, no doubt, a few hundred others – of his plans to be at Oxford and Harvard, that the last British governor of Hong Kong and later EU commissioner for foreign affairs and currently chancellor of Oxford University, Mr Chris Patten, helped him to St. Anthony's College, where he would write a book on his life in jail. That worries many in UMNO for what it could contain.

In London, he met the former US vice-president, Mr Al Gore, who runs a think tank called Generations, funded by blue ribbon investment banks, the client of one of them being the Barisan National Government (BN) of Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. He mets others including the British chancellor of the exchequer, Mr Gordon Brown, an old friend from his years in office. And several others. The government is worried Malaysia undergraduates at Oxbridge and elsewhere would flock to him. There are attempts to prevent it, but in the end, the Malaysian government would be as shocked as that grandee.

He has rebuilt his international contacts to what it once was, he remains a politician to the core, knows what he does, reads widely – shortly after he was released from prison in September, I bantered with him about the books he had read, only to find he was up to date in his reading, and, of those books I had also read, he pointed out to me several areas I had missed or forgotten – and has a decided view on issues of the day. The Malaysian government dismisses him in the light of his legal constraints to run for political office; he prepares his ground for the day he could, not at the next elections, but whenever.

Before he left, he sent word to the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, whose contempt for the man is ill disguised, that should he should continue to attack and belittle him as he has, he would retaliate so it would be front page news in the New Straits Times. The import of it was clear: the NST, under its present leadership, has no love lost for him. Besides, the Pak Lah camp is incensed that the Najib camp has gone on the warpath. It looks an even fight now, so word of that has yet to make the newspapers. Which is why the menace in Dato' Seri Anwar's threat is all the more serious.

UMNO leaders up and down the country watch this confrontation in ill-disguised delight. It does not matter if they back either, or the warlords in the states: a fight amongst the leaders gives them unexpectedly more power. The other aspect of this is unmentioned and for the moment unmentionable: behind Dato' Seri Najib stands the still formidable former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. This political confrontation between Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib is more serious than is assumed. There is little love lost between the two camps, and both believe their chances are better if Dato' Seri Anwar tilts in their direction. Notwithstanding that he could ever, nor want to, return to UMNO.

The political convulsions he created in UMNO after his dismissal in 1998 turned its leaders into zombies, unable and unwilling to act for fear of what he could do. The UMNO general assembly in September a fortnight after his unexpected release last year from prison passed a resolution he would never ever be re-admitted into the party. Despite it, he was the star of the assembly. Officially, he did not exist, even attacked, but in the corridors and the cofee shops, it was he who dominated conversation. Nothing has changed since. When he turned up at Pak Lah's Hari Raya open house in his constituency, the credit was his, especially when Pak Lah did not return the compliment.

He did not to Dato' Seri Najib. With good reason. He headed the special committee to manufacture a videotape allegedly show Anwar in a compromising homosexual position with a Chinese. It was done so crudely that when this was shown to Malaysian ambassadors, flown in from their posts for the occasion, and military officials, neither group believed it. An ambassador and a general, in separate sessions, archly observed: "How was it possible Anwar had long hair "on the job" and short hair when resting after?" A few months ago, a key official of that conspiracy revealed to Anwar what and how this videotape was brought out.

[A retired Malaysian ambassador sent this comment after reading this article and which corrects the paragraph above: "Jusr read your piece in Anwar at Oxford and must correct you on the point of the briefing that Ambassadors were given by the IGP as I was one of those there. We were not shown any pictures of Anwar in a homosexual position with a chinese but lots of photos of hotels and hotel room doors behind which he was alleged to have been having sex with men. there were also recordings of supposed telephone conversations between Anwar and his lovers. None of this was convincing and it was all rather amateurish and nauseating.

["I always admired Anwar for his intellect and he spoke persuasively to us about his vision for an open and tolerant Malaysia. This was before things went sour with Mahathir. Even if he is a bisexual and I have not seen any convincing proof of this, I don't think that it is a big deal. Many of our so-called leaders have extremely sleazy records." – MGG: I stand corrected.]

Dato' Seri Anwar told me, shortly after his release from prison, he would not harp on the past, nor allude to it unless provoked. If his UMNO enemies left well enough alone, so would he. UMNO leaders are perplexed that many UMNO leaders and members, especially from out of Kuala Lumpur, are drawn to him that many insist that should he rejoin UMNO, he could be swept into power with a huge majority. The implications for those who in UMNO remain hostile to Dato' Seri Anwar, the implications are only too clear: they fear that he could, from the outside, act to destroy their political careers.

But by all accounts he does not dwell on UMNO, contrary to his detractors. They still believe he wants to destroy UMNO. He retorts that he does not have to destroy UMNO; it would destroy itself from within, and without his help. The infighting within UMNO is so fierce that the general assembly in 2007 puts all current leaders on notice: the divisions within so intractable, and the power groups so widespread and powerful, that few of the present leaders could well face nasty surprises then.

The presence of Dato' Seri Anwar would ensure it. He has reorganised Keadilan so division and branch leaders must where possible reside at least in the state, not in Kuala Lumpur. He reorganised the party from the ground. He cannot stand for elections until 2008. The BN has to call for general elections before then. This would cause irreparable problems for UMNO, if it is held before or after the general assembly. Especially when Dato' Seri Anwar's book on his fall would add fuel to the UMNO fire.

There is no one in UMNO who has the respect and presence to forget the man, and turn UMNO into a political machine in which Dato' Seri Anwar is but a pinprick. The infighting in UMNO would make that all but impossible. A bigger threat awaits the BN government with Dato' Seri Anwar in Oxford and Harvard. The pettiness with which Dato' Seri Anwar's request for surgical treatment overseas is overshadowed by its impotence at what he plans for the next year. BN and UMNO can do nothing about that. Though they have to live in the sheer panic of it.

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