Asia

Asia

Malaysia Parliament Suspends Opposition’s Anwar

17 December 2010 01:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Malaysia’s ruling coalition won a parliamentary vote Thursday to ban opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim from the legislature for six months, adding to a litany of problems for the government critic, including a schism within his main opposition party and sodomy charges that continue to plague him, APA reports quoting The Wall Street Journal.
Government lawmakers voted to bar Mr. Anwar, 63 years old, after he was accused of making misleading statements in parliament that linked a government public-relations campaign to a similar political campaign in the 1999 Israeli general election. Three other opposition lawmakers were also suspended for six months for allegedly leaking information from a parliamentary inquiry into whether Mr. Anwar misled the legislatureâ€”a move that allows the ruling National Front coalition to regain a two-thirds parliamentary majority, which is enough to change electoral boundaries and other election procedures to its advantage.
Any reference to Israel in Muslim-majority Malaysia is potentially explosive. The country doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Israel and supports the creation of a Palestinian state. Against that backdrop, Mr. Anwar in March accused the government and public relations firm APCO Worldwide Inc. of modeling Prime Minister Najib Razak’s "1Malaysia" campaign for racial unity on former Israeli premier Ehud Barak’s moves to build a "One Israel" coalition around his Labor Party.
APCO has previously denied Mr. Anwar’s claim. So too has Mr. Najib’s government, which dismissed Mr. Anwar’s allegation as a political stunt before government lawmakers began moves to censure him.
That culminated in a chaotic session in parliament Thursday. Opposition lawmakers held up placards saying "Save Parliament" while pro-and-anti-government legislators yelled at each other amid opposition complaints that the vote was being made without any debate.
Mr. Anwar described the vote against him and the three other opposition lawmakers as "blatantly biased" while other opposition members of parliament later walked out in protest.
Pro-government lawmaker Khairy Jamaluddin, meanwhile, said the raucous protests prevented any discussion of the case against Mr. Anwar.
While the ban on Mr. Anwar entering or voting in parliament won’t limit his ability to campaign outside the legislature, Thursday’s vote worsens both his political problems and those of the opposition, political analysts say. There is growing speculation that Mr. Najib, who took power in April 2009, will call an early election to firm up his own mandate and also to take advantage of discord in an opposition alliance headed by Mr. Anwar’s People’s Justice Party. In recent weeks, some key members have left the opposition party complaining about a lack of transparency. One, former law minister Zaid Ibrahim, has urged Mr. Anwar to resign.
Gaining a two-thirds majority in parliament, some analysts say, might help Mr. Najib’s government argue that it is regaining the political momentum in Malaysia after losing several key seats and state governments to the opposition in national elections in 2008.
Mr. Anwar is also fighting a legal battle to avoid being convicted for allegedly sodomizing a former male aideâ€”an allegation Mr. Anwar has repeatedly denied and one he describes as a government conspiracy. He could spend 20 years in jail if found guilty of sodomy, a crime in Malaysia. He was convicted on a sodomy charge in 2000, which he also denied, and sentenced to nine years in prison, but was freed in 2004 after a court overturned that conviction.