How far will one political party go to thwart one politician from an election? United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and the political ambition of the Deputy PM, Najib Razak, clearly view Anwar Ibrahim as a future deadly to their ruling tenure. What is it about Ibrahim, that UMNO has to fabricate the same charges twice in a decade, and pull him off the street using police in ski masks and wielding balaclavas? It just seems the picture of human pettiness.
The arrest does more than smear Mr. Anwar's good name. It also throws a wrench into the young coalition that Mr. Anwar has carefully constructed. The three-party coalition, which includes an ethnic Chinese party and a Muslim party, came together in March elections on an anticorruption, secular platform that called for more freedoms for all Malaysians. The opposition broke the ruling party's two-thirds parliamentary majority and won five of Malaysia's 13 states.
Anwar still polarises opinion. A charismatic «comeback kid», he outshines his rivals in oratory and spin. But he remains an enigma. Some see a genuine democrat, admired by Western liberals. Others recall his youth as an Islamist firebrand, and doubt the sincerity of his transformation. Others see him as simply an ambitious opportunist. The confusion may be helpful: his coalition includes secular liberal democrats, a Malay Islamist party and a mostly ethnic-Chinese party. Anwar is the glue that holds the odd mixture together. Without him it is hard to imagine how the coalition could continue to function or challenge for government.
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