Anwar Ibrahim’s radioactive cult of personality...

After Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was sworn in this morning as MP for Permatang Pauh and immediately assumed the position of Parliament Opposition Leader, a depressing scenario may have confronted the Barisan Nasional MPs, Government and backbenchers alike, especially the ones with immense loathing molded on their faces the moment Anwar comfortably eased himself into the custodial seat reserved for an elected representative like him: how do you contain a radioactive moving target?

If there was anything that the BN learnt in the 10 years they tried to handle, check, curb, neutralise and combat Anwar is that absolutely nothing – no penal code and no media attacks – can contain him. Detain him and jail him, yes but containing his ideas, his influence, his reach and his seductive charisma are beyond the failed conventional containment tactics (general election, by-election, TV debate, mass media et al). Even unconventional tactics sputtered, if you add in the sordid mix a convicted power abuse charge, a convicted sodomy charge and a pending but tenuous sodomy charge.

Anwar engages attacks of all persuasions like a “nuclear demon”, absorbing the battering with sly counter-tactics of his own while growing stronger by each defensive maneuvre. The way he has slickly and aggressively operated, the BN could have dropped a political nuclear bomb with enough yield to destroy or at least debilitate most powerful overlords (think Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah) and yet Anwar scraped through, emerging like the Terminator emerges from a lethal crossfire, bruised, bloodied and savaged perhaps but intact, never annihilated and more determined.

If anything, the attacks against him and the perceived setbacks that threatened to scuttle his homecoming today served as “nuclear fuel” that boosted his “irradiating radioactiveness”. Anwar’s millions of supplicants will ensure that he transcends beyond mere politics – he has constructed for himself a newfangled cult of personality even the mullahs of Pas would kill to emulate.

Following the BN’s general election debacle and the Permatang Pauh by-election that had odds stacked against them, there appears to be little the coalition could envisioned to accost Anwar’s warring juggernaut towards that Malaysian political nirvana – the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is the closest foe that could have taken on Anwar on a hand-to-hand political combat but the ex-PM is a fading spirit even if his acidic blog musters massive devoted fans and antagonising critiques are spot on.

So, the dynamics inside the House’s political divide have verily transformed, even if the BN-Pakatan Rakyat balance of power still stands at 140–82. What does Anwar bring to shift the dynamics? For starters, that Sept 16 Malaysia Day date, predestined (hyped beyond belief by Anwar’s spinmeistering is more like it) as the moment the PKR supremo takes over the Federal Government, assuming that he has secured adequate BN MPs to defect to the PR and all BN’s efforts to dissuade the desertion have troublingly failed.

The Sept 16 pre-destiny also works on the tactic of “danger by proximity” – the fact that Anwar is a whisper away from these shifty Sabah MPs adds a toxic value to BN’s ability to preserve the House political equation. While in the past Anwar had to travel all the way to Kota Kinabalu or where he could hold private consultations, now he can simply invite them to his Opposition Leader’s office in Parliament for tea and muffins during breaks and work his charm offensive.

If ever Anwar’s charm offensive works, then he would certainly resuscitate the niggling vote of no-confidence against the Prime Minister after the motion presented by his wife and erstwhile Opposition Leader Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Ismail on June 23 was stopped in its tracks by the Speaker. This time though, a fresh motion of similar disruption may conjure better leverage that would seek to embarrass the BN Government and assuage their credibility before the alleged mass defection ensues.

But for now, these are all speculative drivel, political mindgames for the bored and idle, and a guessing game befitting a poker session that Anwar has nonchalantly called and raised. Is he upping the ante with a potent hand or might it be that he, like any good poker player, is "bluffing"? Nonetheless, it is a bluff that the Abdullah Administration is furiously trying to neutralise, though the bookies have likely placed favourable odds on Anwar. But does it mean that the BN simply falter and allow the defections to topple their 51-year invincibility? Hardly. There are powerful constitutional options that could be deployed although it carries a certain risk but may yet be functional for the coalition to survive Anwar’s brutal assault.

Even if we are able to dismiss all these conjecture as aggrandising junk, Anwar in the Lower House is still a feisty and frisky prospect. Let’s not ignore his fundamental House responsibility – represent his constituency, debate new laws and keep the Government honest with pointed questions and even pointed remarks on any credulous issue of the day.

In his triumphant homecoming just now after serving a 10-year sentence in the desolation of bewildering mass of a political outcast, Anwar Ibrahim was sworn-in as the MP for Permatang Pauh before the Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia at exactly 10.05am to the cheering crescendos of his Opposition colleagues and family, and a ghostly representation of the Government, represented by Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim and Datuk Mustapa Mohamed and a half-full complement of backbenchers. The oath taking didn’t make it on live TV, the excuse being that coverage was only for the question and answer session. Anwar has gotten use to that.

Ten minutes later outside the House, with the media horde clambering for position to record his initial utterances of erudition and enlightenment, it could be adduced that the burden of pariahdom has levitated from Anwar and in its place, a pervasive sense of vindication. "I was touched and vindicated coming back to Parliament after 10 years. After all that I had gone through in that time, now it feels good to be back. It is my right,” he said so with feeling.

Then, around noon, he blasted away the calibre of showmanship and articulation that he was accustomed to in dealing with plebeians in the BN backbenchers’ ranks, sounding off briefly in the debate on the disputatious DNA Identification Bill. Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud (PAS-Kota Raja) was arguing passionately on why the DNA Identification Bill should be gutted on the account that the Bar Council had grave reservations over the proposed law when BN perennial slugger, Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman (BN-Pasir Salak), interrupted and demanded Siti Mariah to pronounce whether the Bar Council was a credible body to cast doubts on the Bill.

Wait for it...here it comes...Anwar cooly stood up, perhaps remembering how this moment, no matter how impossible and how incredible, had played in his mind for countless of times during his definition of the persecuted decade. In his sonorous and quick tenor, he cut in: “Doesn’t Yang Berhormat agree with me that the one with no credibility is the corruption-ridden Government? This is the Government which tabled a Bill last Monday, giving no opportunity to MPs, including those of friends from the other side, to study it, and presented it with malicious intention. This is a Bill opposed by both the Bar Council and non-Governmental groups. The Opposition would support any Bill that would benefit the people. But we are against the method employed by the Government to push this Bill through without taking heed of the public's voice.”

Any longer than those breathless sentences he expertly uttered and somebody might swoon and faint in the House but Anwar would have enjoyed this little stretch of time for himself, even if he was aware that the proposed Bill was grated by the Opposition as being "politically motivated" to meet his scheduled sodomy trial. Soon after, and perhaps to impress Anwar with their oratorical proficiency, Dr Hatta Ramli (Pas-Kuala Krai), Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor) and Dr Lo' Lo' Ghazali (PAS-Titiwangsa) jumped into the cacophonic circus with the defiant Tajuddin.

And what was Anwar state of mind when he observed the exchange of candour? Amused and probably feeling that he has finally come home to rule and his foes would have to come to the horrific terms that one day in the near future, he just might sit on the opposite end of the current seating structure. -Azmi Anshar (New Straits Times 29.08.2008)