Word: malaysia
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...case of déjà vu. On June 28, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was accused in a police report of forcing himself sexually on a 23-year-old male aide. Sodomy, even under consensual circumstances, can garner a 20-year prison sentence in Muslim-majority Malaysia. Anwar, a married father of six, denies the allegation, and characterizes the legal action as political retribution for the opposition's breakthrough victories in the general elections in March...
...years ago, when Anwar was Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister and a star in the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the dominant political party in the ruling National Front coalition, he launched a challenge against the long rule of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. In short order, Anwar was sacked and charged with sodomy and abuse of power. Although the sex charge was overturned in 2004, the man once presumed to become Malaysia's next Prime Minister languished in prison for six years...
...Jail time didn't diminish Anwar's political fervor. In March, he helped orchestrate an electoral embarrassment of the National Front by an unwieldy opposition consisting of, among others, Muslim Malays who believe Shari'a law could wipe out social ills and Chinese who advocate a secular Malaysia. But Anwar wasn't finished yet. In recent weeks he has aggressively courted parliamentary defectors from the National Front and vows to form a new government by mid-September...
...campaign against Abdullah. Anwar recently said the opposition needs only 28 members of parliament to defect from the ruling coalition in order for the opposition to take power. He has been aggressively courting crossovers among political representatives from the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak, which are among Malaysia's poorest despite plentiful natural resources...
...Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Sunday denied any link between the sodomy charge and Anwar's political comeback. But there's no question Abdullah's government is increasingly under fire. In recent weeks, cuts in fuel subsidies have sent usually quiescent Malaysians to the streets in protest and more citizens are criticizing the government's race-based affirmative-action system, which gives Malays privileges in everything from university places to government contracts. The ruling coalition has lost its usual cohesion. The Sabah Progressive Party, a tiny member of the coalition, called in mid-June for a parliamentary...