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Red card won't harm election chances, says bullish Anwar
Agence France Presse - December 16, 2010
Beh Lih Yi, Kuala Lumpur – Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and three of his allies were suspended from Parliament for six months on Thursday in votes that triggered pandemonium and an opposition walkout.
Anwar, who is also facing trial on sodomy charges that he says are a political conspiracy, was this week found guilty of misleading members in a row over a national unity slogan.
He had criticized the state's "One Malaysia" banner aimed at uniting the multiracial nation, which he said had been copied from the "One Israel" political alliance of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 1999.
The charge is highly sensitive in Muslim-majority Malaysia, which has no diplomatic relations with Israel and is a supporter of a Palestinian state.
The government had on Wednesday cited three senior opposition MPs for contempt for criticizing the parliamentary disciplinary probe against Anwar, and demanded that they also serve six-month suspensions.
"It's so clear, it's blatantly biased," Anwar said after the suspension votes against the four were carried in Parliament, where the ruling coalition has a clear majority. "It's a mockery of the entire proceedings."
The votes were held after chaotic scenes where debate was drowned out by a half-hour shouting match, and opposition lawmakers unfurled placards reading "Save the Parliament" and "Rule of Kangaroo". They later staged a walkout, chanting, "Shame on you."
Anwar was once a deputy prime minister in the ruling coalition but was sacked and jailed a decade ago on separate sodomy and corruption charges widely seen as politically motivated.
He spent six years in jail before the original sex conviction was overturned, and returned to Parliament at the helm of a reinvigorated opposition which made huge strides in the 2008 polls.
The suspensions have heightened political tension in the Southeast Asian country, where new elections are expected to be held early next year, well ahead of a 2013 deadline.
The move will bar Anwar from attending parliamentary debates, but the opposition leader said it would not sideline him or affect his election preparations.
"Now we have to move on, we will have to work harder, to go back to the people," he said, adding that he would use the six months to travel around the country on a campaigning tour.
"The judiciary, the police, the anti-corruption commission and now the Parliament – the only option is to change the system and the government. Enough is enough," he said.
Karpal Singh, a veteran lawmaker suspended along with Anwar, said the opposition alliance would consider challenging the suspensions in court. "What has happened is counterproductive for the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition. The people are unhappy," he said.
The opposition seized control of five states and a third of parliamentary seats in 2008, but since then, it has been beset by infighting and defections that have dimmed its appeal for voters.
Malaysia's minorities – ethnic Chinese and Indians – deserted the government in the last elections but there are signs they have been lured back, partly because of the "One Malaysia" initiative.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who came to power last year, is expected to seize on the disarray within the opposition, and call snap elections next year.
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