How the stormy career of Anwar Ibrahim gripped Malaysia
Could Malaysia's opposition draw strength from the imprisonment of its leader Anwar Ibrahim? He has bounced back from adversity before
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 10 February, 2015, 11:21pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 10 February, 2015, 11:29pm
Agence France-Presse in Kuala Lumpur
A police van carrying Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim leaves court in Putrajaya on Monday. Photo: Reuters
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy conviction is the latest dramatic setback for a charismatic figure who has been jailed three times in a turbulent career that has profoundly changed Malaysia.
Anwar's political triumphs and legal tribulations have riveted and appalled Malaysians since the 1990s, when he soared to national power and then fell spectacularly in a power struggle, only to rise again at the head of a history-making opposition.
But his hopes of leading Malaysia's first-ever change of government since independence in 1957 suffered a severe blow yesterday when the country's top court upheld a controversial conviction and five-year sentence on charges of sodomising a young male aide, a ruling that could mark the end of his career.
In his four decades in politics, Anwar has changed his colours with the readiness of a chameleon in an ambitious pursuit of leadership in the multi-ethnic, Muslim-majority country.
He first rose to prominence in the 1970s as a radical Islamic student leader, taking part in protests over rural hunger that earned the first of his three jailings by the authoritarian regime. He was held for 20 months under a draconian security law.
Anwar, fired as deputy PM
But he later shocked many by joining the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), and eventually caught the eye of tough former leader Mahathir Mohamad, who dominated politics from 1981 to 2003.
Anwar rose quickly, heading various ministries including the finance portfolio starting in 1991, while re-inventing himself as a reformist praised in the West. Two years later, his ascension to deputy prime minister all but anointed him as a future leader.
But differences with Mahathir over how to respond to the 1998 Asian financial crisis escalated into a bitter rift as Anwar's call for reform and an end to UMNO corruption and nepotism enraged his boss. Anwar was sacked and charged with corruption and sodomy. He was brought to court with a black eye after a beating from the country's police chief.
The bruising fall from grace was widely seen as politically motivated and triggered unprecedented protests in a country where dissent was, and is, routinely suppressed.
Jailed for six years, Anwar says he was kept in solitary confinement, singing 1960s pop tunes to stay sane and reading anything he could get his hands on, including the Koran, the Bible, and Shakespeare.
Released in poor health in 2004 when his first sodomy charge was overturned, he spent a few years recuperating and working as an academic before he eventually joined the anti-government movement, which used his star power to unite the opposition.
Anwar with a police-inflicted black eye in 1998
The three-party alliance has capitalised on rising anger over corruption and UMNO's oppressive tactics to shock the regime in recent elections, winning 52 per cent of the popular vote in 2013. It failed, however, to take parliament due to the government's alleged gerrymandering.
Anwar's Pakatan Rakyat (People's Pact) opposition coalition brings together strange bedfellows - an ethnic Chinese pro-democracy party, the conservative Islamic PAS, and Anwar's racially diverse party.
With his broad appeal across Malaysia's various ethnic communities, Anwar has long been considered the glue holding together an unlikely alliance, and his incarceration is a cause of deep concern in the movement.
However, some observers believe Anwar's return to jail could once again make him a martyr who could spur the opposition to finally take power - even with its figurehead behind bars.
