Malaysia’s Fading Opposition
Dogged by disorganization and allegations of sex scandals, the Pakatan coalition looks in trouble.
“Simply accusing him of bribes, cronyism and having affairs with women was not going to work. Those who know Anwar know he is above such things,” said Sardar, now a prominent UK-based critic and commentator. “They had to find something unthinkable, something the Malays had a deep aversion for.”
By Sholto Byrnes, Asia Sentinel
Three years ago the opposition Pakatan Rakyat’s victorious sally in the 2008 general election seemed to have Malaysia’s governing Barisan Nasional alliance on the ropes. Then only a Cassandra would have predicted that Pakatan’s successes would appear so hollow so soon.
State elections in Sarawak loom, supposedly the last campaign for Chief Minister Taib Mahmud, just the kind of long-standing Barisan potentate that Pakatan was supposed to sweep away. Instead, the only question is how big a majority he will win. Few doubt it will be less than two thirds.
Far from charging at the head of his troops, Pakatan’s charismatic leader, Anwar Ibrahim, is suspended from parliament and distracted not only by his second, interminable sodomy trial but now also by the allegation that he is the star of a sex tape (by way of variation, with a woman) produced by a trio collectively known as “Datuk T.”
If the tide of filth through which Anwar must wade is politically motivated – and whatever the truth of the charges against him, no one believes they stem solely from an earnest desire for rectitude in the private lives of MPs – some of it still sticks. Visiting Kuala Lumpur recently, Anwar’s former adviser Ziauddin Sardar told me that as long ago as 1996 he predicted that the then deputy PM’s enemies would try to fell him by bringing up sodomy.
“Simply accusing him of bribes, cronyism and having affairs with women was not going to work. Those who know Anwar know he is above such things,” said Sardar, now a prominent UK-based critic and commentator. “They had to find something unthinkable, something the Malays had a deep aversion for.”
The problem is that while Sardar may declare him “a man of unshakeable integrity,” who “cannot be bought, bribed or forced to deviate from the path of honesty,” there are plenty who are not so sure. His nemesis and onetime boss, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, said that Anwar admitted to “affairs with women” in his just-published memoirs, claiming that prior to his ousting, his former deputy told UMNO’s supreme council “he had done nothing unusual and insisted that everyone had done such things.”
Not all believe the good doctor, of course; nor might they listen too closely to former colleagues in government who remember a not-quite-so saintly figure.
But Anwar’s cause was dealt a blow from the home side earlier this year when reports highlighted the fact that although he later changed his mind, the DAP chairman Karpal Singh (subsequently Anwar’s defence lawyer), also once accused him of sodomy, raising the issue in parliament in 1997 and asking the government to act against the then deputy PM. Even in liberal circles, observers with no great affection for the BN privately express the strong suspicion that Anwar might have indulged in hanky panky, possibly with both sexes.
These may be the tribulations of one man, but he is the man that matters: the only one who is, or who could be, a prime minister-in-waiting. And they are compounded by, and partly the cause of, those also being suffered by his party, PKR, and hence Pakatan as a whole.
Of Pakatan’s three allies, the DAP gives the impression of being fighting fit, helmed by the still dynamic duo of Lim Kit Siang and Karpal, with an array of talent coming up the ranks and of an age to take over if necessary. In particular there is Lim’s son, Guan Eng, who is also Penang’s chief minister, Karpal’s feisty orator son Gobind Singh, and the forensic economics whizz Tony Pua.
PAS, meanwhile, appears to have maintained its grip on its heartland in the peninsula and – important not only in wresting the Malay vote from UMNO but also to encourage non-Malays to overcome their reservations about casting their ballots for a party that used to think the Taliban had a good thing going — its reputation for probity.
However much they try to paper over the cracks, though, the leftist, Chinese majority DAP and the Malay Islamists of PAS are allies of convenience, not soulmates. They cannot stop themselves from rowing over the extent to which Muslim laws should apply: for instance, PAS-controlled Kelantan’s ban on the sale of “un-Islamic” lottery tickets, which the Chinese like to buy. Beyond good governance, their aims are ultimately incompatible.
So, how to keep these two together? This is supposed to be the role of PKR. And this is where Anwar’s party is failing badly, struggling to convey what it is for, apart from being a vehicle for its leader’s ambitions, and immensely damaging Pakatan Rakyat’s effectiveness and chances at the next general election. It has lost a fifth of its parliamentary representation to defections and resignations since 2008, including in January N Gobalakrishnan, whose departure was particularly devastating given that he was a founder member of PKR who had given up a promising career within the Barisan Nasional (he had been Youth Leader of the BN component party, the Malaysian Indian Congress).
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