Fight ahead for political middle ground

MAN-of-the-hour Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim came across as a pugilistic street fighter who fought with raw intensity during the tense, action-packed court battle to stave off an allegation of sodomy that gripped the world.

Sodomy II — conceived by his ex-aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan and embraced by detractors of the 64-year-old opposition leader — reached and maintained such a level of raw might that it is regarded by an overwhelming majority of respected observers as the most brutal of all political fights.

Anwar soaked gleefully in the river of compassion that ceaselessly flowed his way.

He was revered as a martyr and yesterday a struggle over human rights and democracy was to have come to a head.

It never did. Anwar was freed of sodomy after a two-year trial that polarised multi-ethnic Malaysia. He didn’t get martyred.

The not guilty verdict was widely not expected and even Anwar had alleged that a guilty verdict was predetermined.

The plus points to the verdict are there. One upside, the government says, is the verdict has positively transformed public opinion of Malaysia’s forbidding judicial system.

More interestingly, the acquittal opened up Malaysia’s political middle ground — a grim political milieu that split voters and had both the Barisan Nasional and the opposition Pakatan Rakyat fighting for their attention.

Sensational issues might have appealed to this segment of voters but the two political rivals should perhaps focus more on economic and political reforms to take the nation to greater heights.

There is now a real chance for the rivals to disengage from gutter politics and address the real issues. That would be politically refreshing.

Pakatan Rakyat didn’t get its martyr in Anwar and, surely, can’t pin its hopes on public sympathy anymore.

Now a free man, Anwar cannot present himself as a martyr anymore. That would bode well for many of us as the next general election would be more issue-based rather than personality-littered.

Whether those politicians, who have been so engrossed in dirty politics, can navigate the intellectual course of proper governance and nation development to woo voters is left to be seen.

There’s a real chance for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to reclaim the middle ground of Malaysian politics after major inroads were made by PR parties in GE 2008.

To be sure, the verdict has heightened Najib’s role as reformer as he has not interfered in the court process and the judiciary is independent in this case. He, however, risks repercussions from the more conservative elements in Umno.

Internationally, the verdict put paid to an expected flood of sympathy for Anwar from abroad. He had been touted as one of the best-known advocates for liberal democracy in the Muslim world.

The Washington Post editorialised on the eve of Sodomy II verdict that the coalition Anwar had fashioned of secular, Muslim and ethnic Chinese groups could make Malaysia the second majority-Muslim country in Asia, after Indonesia, to become a working democracy.

It read: “Anwar is not perfect: Lashing out at Najib after his arrest, he employed ugly anti-Israel rhetoric, for which he later apologised. He nevertheless deserves support from the United States and other nations seeking to broaden human rights in the Muslim world.

“So far, the Obama administration’s stance has been weak. The State Department says that it has ‘closely followed the prosecution’ and raised the case ‘regularly in Kuala Lumpur and in Washington’.

“But there has been little overt pressure; when President Barack Obama met with Najib in November, he said nothing publicly about human rights or democracy. Instead he heaped praise on the prime minister for ‘the extraordinary cooperation that we’ve received on a whole range of issues’.

“In fact, Malaysia has been a modest help on terrorism cases and it forms part of the administration’s strategy for bolstering its position in Asia. That, however, is not a rationale to step aside as Anwar, and the country’s hopes for democracy, are crushed.

“The US State Department has said the Anwar case was ‘a test of Malaysia’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law’.

“If the verdict fails that test, there should be consequences for Najib’s relations with Washington.”

Looks like the US has to sit this one out.