A lousy sequel
It is hard to see how Mr Anwar’s case will benefit Mr Najib even if he thinks him deserving of punishment.
(The Economist) – FOR 16 years Anwar Ibrahim, leader of Malaysia’s opposition, has battled dodgy charges of sodomy and corruption designed to keep him from power. One way or another, a court hearing which began on October 28th looks like the end of the road. As The Economist went to press Mr Anwar (pictured above, with his wife) was reaching the conclusion of his final appeal against a five-year prison sentence, imposed in March, for allegedly having sex with a male aide (sodomy is illegal in Malaysia). It leaves Pakatan Rakyat, his three-party coalition, on shaky ground.
Mr Anwar has been here before. He was once the rising star of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which has governed Malaysia since independence in 1957. But a bust-up with Mahathir Mohamad—the prime minister for over two decades—saw him dumped from the party in 1998 and convicted of sodomy soon after. That conviction (though not another for corruption) was quashed in 2004, after Mr Anwar had spent more than five years in jail. He has since fashioned the first serious challenge to UMNO rule.
Mr Anwar’s conviction bars him from holding a political post for five years after his sentence is served. Going back to jail would thus probably end the political career of the 67-year-old, who as leader of Pakatan has enjoyed unprecedented success. Since 2008 the coalition has taken huge bites out of the dominance enjoyed by Barisan Nasional, the ruling alliance headed by UMNO. At the general election in 2013 Pakatan won just over half the popular vote. But under Malaysia’s first-past-the-post—and heavily gerrymandered—electoral system, it got less than a majority of the seats in Parliament.
For all its achievements, Pakatan is a fractious alliance. It groups Mr Anwar’s People’s Justice Party (PKR) with the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), a devout Muslim outfit, and the Democratic Action Party (DAP), a secular, ethnic-Chinese one. Until now Mr Anwar’s charisma—and his legal travails—have kept these parties together despite their differences. But the divisions have widened.
For much of this year the coalition squabbled in unseemly fashion over who should fill the plum post in Selangor, earmarked for Mr Anwar before his conviction rendered him ineligible. PAS leaders torpedoed a plan to install Mr Anwar’s wife, Wan Azizah, PKR’s president and a respected politician in her own right. The imperious way in which PKR had proposed this dynasticism raised hackles throughout Pakatan, although some say the Islamists’ main worry was the prospect that a woman—and a relatively liberal one to boot—might one day run the coalition. After a six-month stand-off and the intervention of the local sultan, the job of chief minister has gone to Azmin Ali, Ms Azizah’s deputy. But the “childish infighting” has dented Pakatan’s image among voters, says Bridget Welsh, an academic.
PAS, the smallest party in the opposition coalition, is also its weakest link. It is distracted by a struggle between progressive Muslims who predominate in its upper ranks and conservatives in its grass roots. The party is growing more illiberal, notably in a renewed push to toughen sharia law in the northern state of Kelantan, its heartland. Widespread criticism of the party’s spoiling role in the Selangor crisis has pushed PAS’s leader, Abdul Hadi Awang, closer to the conservatives, reckons Wan Saiful of IDEAS Malaysia, a think-tank. Government barons would love to lure PAS to their side.
