Opinion polls show most people believe Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim did not commit sodomy against an aide after he was jailed on a similar charge seen as politically motivated before it was overturned.
A small survey by the independent Merdeka Center research firm found that just 6 percent of respondents believed the allegations, and nearly 60 percent viewed it as politically motivated.
“It’s going to be an uphill battle for the government because you are facing a more cynical public,” said the firm’s pollster, Ibrahim Suffian. The survey polled 225 ethnic Malays aged 20 and above.
A separate survey by the independent news Web site, Malaysiakini, showed that 94.4 percent of its respondents believed the allegation was part of a political conspiracy against Anwar.
The political uncertainty dragged the stock market lower again, with the benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index down 1.7 percent at the midday break. The index has lost about 3 percent so far this week.
Ratings agency Fitch, which has a positive outlook for Malaysia’s foreign currency rating and a stable outlook for the local currency, said it was monitoring the impact of the political situation on economic policies.
“The concern that we have would be that the political situation begins to affect the policy outlook. There is not really much evidence of that just yet,” said James McCormack, head of Asia sovereign ratings at Fitch.
“It appears to us there is a political transition of sorts under way in Malaysia. The question is how fast does that move and how significant is it. And I think some of those answers are still unclear,” he said.
More than 7,000 people turned up at an impromptu rally late on Tuesday night in the biggest show of support for Anwar since the aide complained to police at the weekend about an alleged assault at a luxury Kuala Lumpur apartment last Thursday.
Police have yet to question Anwar, who has dismissed the allegation as a top-level political conspiracy to keep him from standing for parliament, and to stymie his campaign aimed at wooing defectors from the ruling National Front coalition.
Winning a seat in parliament would be the first step on the road to Anwar’s wider ambition of leading the opposition to power for the first time in Malaysian history.
The sodomy case emerged at a time when Abdullah’s UMNO party has been riven by dissent and the loose opposition alliance was making a bid to take power. The three-party alliance made historic gains in a March 8 general election, winning five of 13 state governments and coming within 30 seats of taking control of the 222-member parliament.
Anwar was jailed for six years on a charge of sodomy with an aide and a family driver after he broke with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad over the handling of the 1998 Asian financial crisis. The Federal Court overturned the conviction in 2004. Sodomy is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison in mainly Muslim Malaysia.
Anwar has said he planned to file a legal deposition soon demonstrating that his accuser, Saiful Bukhari, had close ties with Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and his staff.
At the rally, Anwar said he would not sit quietly and allow a repeat of what happened to him 10 years ago. The crowd, who had gathered at the indoor stadium in Shah Alam just outside the capital two hours before he turned up late at night, chanted “Reformasi,” the battle cry of his reform movement.
“The National Front is in turmoil, with enemies from within and attacks from outside,” Anwar said. “If the elections had been free and fair, the opposition would be in power, not the National Front.”
The National Front has run the government since independence in 1957, and an opposition leadership was unthinkable until this year.
Most of those at Anwar’s rally were Malays, who heard him talk about subjects that touch their daily lives, including inflation, which is expected to top 5 percent this year following the hike in fuel prices.
“Prices of everything are soaring. We cannot leave the situation to these people. We say now, no more chances, time is up, you get out!” Anwar said.
“We will fight. When we take over the country, the first thing we will do is to bring down the price of fuel,” he said.
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