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Monday, May 28, 2012

Malaysia’s political quagmire, Islam and Politics, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Politics
Malaysia’s political quagmire
By Bridget Welsh
22 July 2008

The headlines make any soap-opera pale in comparison. In a déjà vu of the political crisis of 1998, the former deputy prime minister and de facto opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was the target of a highly suspicious legal report of sodomy which led him to take temporary refuge in the Turkish embassy. The report was filed by what appeared to be a plant in his office, a young man close to the incumbent Umno machinery who had met with the current deputy prime minister Najib Tun Razak before filing the damning document. Anwar, wearing a bullet-proof vest, was arrested after leaving the embassy and strip-searched while in custody. He is out of custody as the investigation continues.

The saga's intricacies continued when a crucial witness in the case of the murdered Mongolian model - namely, the private investigator - filed a statutory declaration of the alleged involvement of Najib. One day later the investigator retracted the declaration, and now he and his family are mysteriously missing. These elite attacks have been personal, and sordid. All understand that this saga has been a contest for political power which has pitted incumbents unwilling and unable to reform against those offering a new future for the country that moves its politics away from race-based parties, crony interests and less optimal governance.

http://newageislam.com/malaysia%E2%80%99s-political-quagmire/islam-and-politics/d/285


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