Anwar case verdict: AN Uncertain future awaits Malaysia's opposition
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If Anwar is jailed, Pakatan will be without the man that holds together two unlikely partners
The Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance) coalition that confidently appeared on the Malaysian political landscape with a big win in the 2008 general election faces an uncertain future with its leader Anwar Ibrahim set to hear the verdict in his final sodomy appeal in the Federal Court tomorrow and on Wednesday.
On a personal level, the forthcoming ruling could be the biggest challenge ever for Anwar’s mercurial career, which has seen many ups and downs.
It could be a game changer not only for him, but also for the coalition he leads, all his political friends and allies, and could cloud the ideologies he had campaigned for.
Anwar has said that he is confident of his appeal and sees no reason why the court could find him guilty. Realistically, though, if he is found guilty, it could mean a jail term. And that could mean the Pakatan coalition would be without its leader.
The coalition he founded while in jail and took to big wins in the 2008 and 2013 general elections will be without its greatest limelight and most unifying force.
Pakatan could not defeat Barisan Nasional, which won 133 of the 222 seats in parliament last year, but it dealt Barisan its worst ever drubbing since independence.
If Anwar is jailed, Pakatan will be without its glue, the gum that holds the two unlikely partners – the Islamic PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party) and the secular and socialist DAP (Democratic Action Party)– together under one roof.
This was Anwar’s greatest achievement, holding the disparate coalition together and politically benefiting from it.
But that roof very nearly came down during the Selangor chief minister crisis.
It shows that the two parties are ready to part ways but are only staying together out of convenience and out of respect for the PKR.
If this parting finally happens, it will not only severely weaken Pakatan, it could lead to its break-up.
The Federal Court will hear Anwar’s final appeal on a charge of sodomising his former aide Mohammad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, ending one of the longest legal battles ever.
Anwar had suffered several early blows: his lead counsel Karpal Singh who had bravely soldiered on was killed in a road accident in April; and Anwar also could not unseat the lead prosecutor, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, a prominent lawyer in private practice whom the government had hired for the appeals.
Above all, Anwar had lost traction in the international political space where he once held sway with world leaders and world movements lending moral support to his claim that the case against him was politically motivated – that he was charged with sodomy to derail his political ambition.
The government, however, rejects Anwar’s charge saying there is ample evidence to convict him and that the laws of the country are against acts of sodomy.
The new sodomy case started in August 2008 at the height of Pakatan’s euphoria in winning at the polls. It had badly hampered Anwar and sucked up most of his energy fighting the case in the courts, the media and through diplomacy.
The trial started in February 2009 and was over only in January 2012 when the court unexpectedly acquitted him, more than a year before last year’s general election.
Anwar was then free to campaign all over the country but, at the most crucial polls, he could not unseat Barisan. Although weakened, the veritable old coalition still stayed in power.
The Court of Appeal, to which the government had appealed with Muhammad Shafee as a new prosecutor, unexpectedly held in March that the High Court had erred when holding that it was not safe to rely on DNA evidence that had been cited at the trial.
The appellate court held that the “tampering” was restricted to the bag containing the individual test tubes of the samples, and that the test tubes themselves remained sealed and intact.
It sentenced Anwar to five years in prison, but a stay was granted pending his final appeal to the Federal Court.
Anwar was deputy prime minister while in Umno where his climb was nothing short of meteoric.
Within a decade after abandoning a career as a firebrand Islamic leader in 1982, he became Umno’s undisputed number two, but soon had a falling out with Umno’s top leaders.
In 1998, he was arrested and while in police custody, he was beaten. The following year, he was jailed and disgraced with corruption and sodomy charges following a trial.
After his 2004 acquittal, Anwar, who is often described as an “incorrigible optimist”, made a stunning comeback.
Now 68, he is fighting what could be his final battle.
Not only is age catching up with him, new players and younger ones have also entered the domestic political scene.
The international political scene has also changed – his foreign friends have either left office, retired or left in disgrace.
Anwar has also lost his old magic to rally the crowds and he blames the second sodomy case on political machinations, as he had successfully labelled the first sodomy case.
His ability to unleash Reformasi 2 street demonstrations is also curtailed simply because the majority of young Malays have moved on.
A new generation of Malays have left Anwar, his sodomy problems and reformasi behind them.
Put together, the Anwar of today is different from the Anwar of yesteryear.
How the Federal Court decides could either give the “incorrigible optimist” a new lease of political life at 68, or permanently derail his political ambitions and that of Pakatan.
