Malaysia’s old guard stares defeat in the face

London: Anwar Ebrahim, Malaysia’s opposition leader, stands tantalisingly close to seizing power from the longest continually elected governing coalition in the world in Sunday’s election.

It would be a remarkable comeback for the 65-year-old, who has twice been imprisoned on sodomy charges, beaten while in custody and twice exonerated and who now faces the fight of his political life.

If history were the only guide, the National Front (Barisan Nasional) would succeed in clinging on to govern for a further five years. It has ruled the country with an iron fist since independence from Britain in 1957.

However, after unprecedented gains in the 2008 election, where his People’s Pact (Pakatan Rakyat) was victorious in five of the nation’s 12 states, Ebrahim now genuinely believes his moment has come.

An independent poll released on Friday backed up his optimism, showing for the first time the opposition ahead of the National Front by 42 to 41 per cent, with 17 per cent of voters still undecided.

Call for change

Ebrahim’s campaign, which has used online blogs and social media to circumvent the country’s lack of a free press, is based around his call for ubah (change) from the pro-ethnic Malay policies of the National Front.

This time round, 2.6 million new voters have registered, out of a total of 13.3 million — many of them young, hopeful, ethnically diverse and Twitter-savvy. “This is our best chance,” Ebrahim told The Daily Telegraph. “There has been a huge upsurge in anti-establishment feeling since 2008. It is not just among the youth, but people in rural areas too are very enthusiastic. I am very optimistic we can win.”

But some within the opposition fear that even if defeated, the National Front — which has close ties to the military — may not give up power.

The People’s Pact claims that the National Front has flown more than 40,000 voters, whose credentials are suspect, from the government strongholds of Sabah and Sarawak in Borneo to the mainland, where several seats are being fiercely contested.

Ebrahim outlined three concerns — “the fact that 15 flights a day are flying thousands of voters into the mainland, whether the indelible ink used in postal voting is actually indelible and the fact that we have had no media coverage — not one minute of airtime on state TV”.

The office of the prime minister, Najeeb Razzaq, 59, has strongly denied “any involvement in these flights”.

Mohammad on campaign trail

The National Front has been forced to turn for help to Mahathir Mohammad, the former prime minister, who ruled Malaysia from 1981 until he retired in 2003. The 87-year-old has been firing up the Malay vote on the campaign trail, breaking off only to attend Baroness Thatcher’s funeral last month.

Ebrahim, once a lecturer at St Antony’s College, Oxford, was deputy prime minister and heavily tipped to take over from Mohammad. However, he fell out with his political patron. He was sacked, charged with corruption and sodomy and jailed in 1999 — only to be cleared in 2004. He was jailed under the same charge after the 2008 election, but was again cleared four years later.

The country’s sodomy and homosexuality laws are among the first that Ebrahim would reform if he wins.

“My coalition stands for responsible governance. My first task will be to give freedom to the press, to tackle the country’s discriminatory and draconian laws and to stop the corruption that has blighted the country,” he said.

In jail 16 months ago, Ebrahim must have wondered if this chance would ever come.

“There were bad moments, bad times, but I was always optimistic,” he said. “Nevertheless, I couldn’t have imagined the kind of support I have received. I am very humbled.”