Anwar rejoins Parliament after 10 years

MALAYSIA: Malaysia’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim took another step towards his goal of bringing down the government and implementing ambitious reforms when he rejoined parliament on Thursday after a decade’s absence.

Anwar, once the protege of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, was forced from office in 1998 on corruption and sodomy charges that he denounced as part of a conspiracy to ruin his political ambitions.

Ten years on, he is being backed by the biggest number of opposition MPs in Malaysia’s history in his quest to oust the Barisan Nasional coalition that has ruled the country for the past 50 years.

To do this he must win the backing of 30 legislators from the ruling coalition to get a majority in the 222-member parliament. At the same time, he must hold together his sometimes fractious coalition of 82 MPs comprising reformers, Islamists and an ethnic Chinese party.

Anwar must also fight another charge of sodomy in a court case due to start on Sept. 10. All homosexual sex is illegal in this mainly Muslim nation of 27 million people.

He denies the new charge and said on Thursday he was confident he could achieve his aim of taking power by Sept. 16.

“I feel vindicated. I feel great that I am back,” Anwar told reporters after he was sworn in a day before the government unveils the 2009 budget widely expected to contain populist spending measures.

Cracks started to appear in the ruling coalition on Wednesday when there were calls for Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to quit.

Top leaders from the United Malays National Organisation, the biggest government party, were to meet later on Thursday but the meeting was later cancelled. It was not immediately clear why. Kuala Lumpur, Thursday, Reuters