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Harakah COLUMN Was Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim Sacked For Sodomy? M.G.G. Pillai The Prime Minister, to justify
expelling his deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, from UMNO
without due process and sacking him from office in 1998, said, with inappropriate
hand gestures, he was a sodomist morally unfit to lead Malaysia. He
kept up the refrain, in press conferences at home and aborad, while the two
questionable trials for misuse of office and sodomy could only convict him to
keep him in jail till 2015. Now that the trials are over,
even if the appeals are not over, he and UMNO in a spot with the Malay
ground, he changes tack. In an interview with Asiaweek last month, he accuses
Dato' Seri Anwar of political ambition, of wanting to displace him, and of
other normal political activities. Not once did he talk of Dato' Seri Anwar's
moral unfitness for office nor of the sodomy for which he was convicted. In
other words, it was ambition which brought Dato' Seri Anwar down. The very essence of politics is
conflict when men of ambition fight the greasy pole up to the top. For
any organisation to succeed, it must have at its helm men of ambition and
even greed. You enter politics to achieve your ambition whatever it
is. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's was to lead Malaysia and put the gross
injustices to right. The Prime Minister felt the heat, his acolytes
felt the heat, and they ganged up on him. Tan Sri Musa Hitam and Tengku
Razaleigh Hamzah were also ambitious men who was sidelined because the Prime Minister
did not humiliate them as he did Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. But he and
UMNO could not also sustain this excoriation. Now even the Prime
Minister cannot repeat his oft-repeated allegations of corruption and sodomy
without losing further ground, not only his but UMNO's as well. No wonder the Malay ground is
so incensed with the Prime Minister. Cardinal Richeliu, in a famous
aphorism said, "Give me two sentences by a honest man and I would have
enough to have him hung from the nearest gibbet." So, the sodomy
and corruption was an excuse to have him removed from the political scene in
disgrace. But it backfired. Two years on, Dato' Seri Anwar in jail is
more credible than the Prime Minister outside. The Asiaweek interview all but
destroys the Prime Minister politically. He must now state, address
Anwar's alleged sodomy once and for all. He should clearly and unequivocally,
for the public record, why he was humiliated. The courts struck out Dato'
Seri Anwar's defamation suit against the Prime Minister. The decision
is appealed but the courts were wrong to strike it out. As the days wear on, the Prime
Minister loses ground as Dato' Seri Anwars gains. Malay unity, the
subject of talks between UMNO and PAS hinges on how Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim can
be whisked out of jail without damaging UMNO. In other words, whatever
complusions for Malay unity, that must wait until the Anwar Ibrahim problem
is solved. He has, willy nilly, become the human face of Malay
unity. The Prime Minister must take the credit for that. But the Prime Minister would
well have had no choice now than to paint Dato' Seri Anwar as an ambitious politician.
I am told representatives of the two men meet to seek a way out of the
impasse, that the Prime Minister is prepared to offer a free pardon but that
Dato' Seri Anwar insists upon that with a royal commission into the two trials,
and the right, should he so desire, to contest the presidency of UMNO. Self-interest puts the
proverbial cat amongst the pigeons over it. But UMNO's, and the Prime
Minister's, dilemma is that so long as he remains in jail, future is at stake
so long as the man remains in jail. UMNO and the Prime Minister in a
dilemma: he is dangerous in and more dangerous out. He has become
the key figure in this UMNO quest for Malay unity. When, if, PAS and
UMNO presidents meet over it, they must agree on what to do with Dato' Seri Anwar
before they go on to substantive issues. Indeed what Dato' Seri Anwar in
jail ensures it the growing irrelevance of UMNO in national life.
Within UMNO, about two-thirds are against the leadership, roughly one-third
backing the Hermit of Langgak Golf, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, and the other
third Dato' Seri Anwar and others opposed. It is for this that the
election proceedures are made so complicated. The bigger danger for UMNO is
for members to drift towards the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) or the
National Justice Party,(KeADILan). The focus of UMNO's disaffection with
the Malay ground is one man: the Prime Minister. It is a view
that gets a more public airing these days. The Malay Action Front, at
its tamasha at the Putra World Trade Centre yesterday (04 February 01) said
so with such force that UMNO handlers at one time seriously thought of having
UMNO members walk out when the Prime Minister was attacked. What has this got to do with
Dato' Seri Anwar's conviction for misuse of office and sodomy?
Everything. If he had not been expelled and dismissed for sodomy, as now appears
from the Prime Minister's own words, the Prime Ministe and UMNO would not be
in the spot they are these days, the Malay ground would have remained intact,
UMNO would have drifted along, indeed the crowds would have been throwing
stones at Dato' Seri Anwar, as the Prime Minister's successor. Instead, the country cannot
forgive the Prime Minister for humiliating his former deputy. And the deputy holds all the aces now in
this UMNO search for Malay unity. So much so that the Prime Minister
cannot even repeat for the record that Dato' Seri Anwar is a sodomist, a view
he is convinced of, without more calumny thrown on to him. It now
appears he is where he is for his ambition. Does ambition, in the Prime
Minister's view, equal sodomy? M.G.G. Pillai |