Published by thespec.com
By Gwynne Dyer
Independent

July 5, 2008

Reading the first reports about the accusations against Malaysia's opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, I had to check the date at the top of the page. Had there been a time-slip? Was this file 10 years old? For Anwar to be accused of sodomy again, 10 years after he last challenged the position of Malaysia's prime minister and ended up in jail for sodomy (a crime in Malaysia), stretches the notion of coincidence to the breaking point.

Ten years ago the prime minister was Mahathir Mohamad, the long-ruling autocratic leader who had made Anwar his deputy prime minister. The two men fell out over economic policy and Anwar's too-obvious ambition, so Anwar was charged with corruption -- and, for good measure, with sodomy.

Anwar is a married man with six children. That does not mean he could not be guilty of homosexual rape, but there were many questionable elements of the case, including the fact that he was beaten almost to death by the national chief of police after he was arrested.

Nevertheless, Anwar was convicted and sent to prison. His political career seemed over.

Mahathir finally retired at the age of 78 in 2003, and the courts overturned Anwar's conviction for sodomy the following year. He was freed from jail, but because the corruption conviction was not also quashed, he was still banned from running for office for five more years. But the opposition coalition had come to see him as a leader, and his wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, became the head of the opposition in parliament.

Then, in the March election, the ruling National Front lost the two-thirds majority in the national parliament it had held for the past 40 years, emerging with a narrow majority that could easily crumble if only a couple of dozen of its members defect to the opposition. As they well might, given the way Malaysian politics is played.

Both the ruling National Front and the opposition alliance led by Anwar are coalitions of parties representing Malaysia's three main ethnic groups: Malays, Chinese and Indians. To some extent they are just the "ins" and the "outs" -- many leading members of the opposition coalition, like Anwar himself, once belonged to the National Front, but were disappointed in their ambitions -- but some of the opposition parties also want to overthrow Malaysia's entire ethnic settlement.

The dominant population in most of Malaysia is the Malays. But under British rule, huge numbers of Chinese and Indian workers were imported -- and their descendants now account for 40 per cent of the country's 26 million people.

The immigrants quickly came to dominate the economy, while the Malay majority remained mostly rural, less educated and much poorer. Malay resentment erupted into bloody race riots that almost tore the new country apart in 1969 -- and so the New Economic Policy of 1970 gave preference to Malays for government jobs, university places and business licences.

Malaysia has prospered greatly since then -- but the National Front that was created to preserve this deal was always in power, and the country was not really a full democracy. Much time has passed, and last March's election showed how much has changed. The new state government in Penang cancelled the Malay preference rule when it took power last March, and last month, Anwar claimed 30 National Front members of parliament were ready to defect to his coalition, which would give the opposition a majority.

Moreover, the legal ban on Anwar's participation in public life expired in April, and he was clearly going to seek a parliamentary seat in a byelection soon. He might have been prime minister by September. It would have been a revolution in Malaysian politics.

Then suddenly last week, a 23-year-old man who volunteered to work for the opposition during the election earlier this year, and then became an assistant to Anwar, accused him of sodomy. Anwar immediately took refuge in the Turkish embassy, fearing the next step would be assassination.

Anwar left the embassy after getting a promise from Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that he would not be harmed, but he could be arrested at any time.

The National Front government, even if it did not set the whole thing up, certainly plans to let it play out. When Badawi was asked what he thought about Anwar's denials, he said it "was common for an accused person" to claim he was innocent.

This is a very dangerous game. The blood and fire of 1969 seem far away from the prosperity of modern Malaysia, but it was the pro-Malay preferences of the 1970 deal that made it stable. Now that deal has to be reshaped into something less unfair to the minorities. Malaysia can do it the easy way, or the hard way. It may choose the hard way.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.