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I refer to the Malaysiakini report PKR supremo gears up for make-or-break sodomy trial .

Some twelve years ago, Anwar Ibrahim, then deputy prime minister of Malaysia from 1993 to 1998, was charged for corruption and sodomy and sentenced to jail in 1999. He was sentenced to six years in prison for corruption and in 2000, to another nine years for sodomy. In 2004, the federal court reversed the second conviction and he was released.

I do not know (how much) in history - if ever - a serving deputy prime minister had been beaten and punched on his face by his very own inspector-general of police before being charged and brought to court. While he was in prison and the many times he was brought to court to stand before a judge Augustine Paul Sinnappan (who has since then died of an unknown ailment), he suffered utter and delirious humiliation and affront and insult to the very own position he had had held in high esteem let alone himself.

The other day, as I was praying. I thought it would be very necessary to pray for Anwar Ibrahim every day. So now in my prayer I mention his dire situation and that the Lord must come to hail him and heal him and save him from the so-called ‘second episode’ of the sodomy charge.

Anwar Ibrahim deserves to be part of our family. When I sometimes return to my very own village in India, I do stay with my childhood friend Mohamad Akbar and go around the places I love very much.

If this country’s history will be written by a historian who had worked on the life of Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela, of course he will consider Anwar Ibrahim as the most influential person of this country in the category of world’s great leaders. Anwar Ibrahim if he had wanted be, could have been the next prime minister after Dr Mahathir Mohamad. But only if he had rubbed shoulders with people like VK.Lingam and many like him.

But he preferred to be away from that coterie and thought about the direction of the nation. When I met him as the research officer of the Selangor Consumer Association in 1987 when he was then the minister of agriculture and invited him to open a two-day seminar on ‘Occupational Safety and Health in the Use of Agrochemicals’ particularly spearheading for the ban on the use of paraquat which was then taking the lives of thousands of plantation workers, he so graciously said, ‘ I will come and I will make sure this issue is dealt with in the right way’.

Paraquat was subsequently banned in Malaysia. But it required ministers who had the people in mind. Anwar Ibrahim had always thought that this nation belonged to its people whether they may have special rights or not. A nation must be a nation of people and not a nation for businessmen.

Anwar Ibrahim realised when he was deputy prime minister that cronyism had become a cancer and a gangrene unto the government and the state. He decided otherwise and hence the ‘A’ was subsequently given to another person, who liked to sleep most of the time in his cabinet meetings and for the next five years too.

While PKR was being formed in 1999 at the house of Professor Sabaruddin with a few of us around namely Irene Fernandez, myself, Xavier Jayakumar, Ananda Krishnan, and others who attended the talk given by Wan Ismail, Anwar Ibrahim’s father-in-law, the whole country was in the spirit of ‘reformasi’.

Wan Ismail said this movement must become a political party and it did. The current Kulim MP Zulkifli Noordin was a ‘reformasi’ man. He may be eccentric in his statements but I think I do trust him to be a strong supporter of the movement and he will stand by the party, However, he may not stand by Pakatan Rakyat. Hence a supporter of PKR may not be a supporter of Pakatan Rakyat.

I personally do not attend the rallies and speeches of the DAP leaders. I may sometimes listen to the PAS leaders and most often make myself very clear to be a member of PKR. I have a lot of respect for Tok Guru Aziz and wonder how many leaders live like him in the Islamic world. There is so much to emulate him.

That, however, does not mean PKR will have to submit to PAS. Zulfkifli Noordin’s position in the party is very clear. This party belongs to the members of the ‘reformasi’. For those who left Umno such as Zaid Ibrahim, he (Zul) may be a hindrance to his (Zaid) own aspirations but PKR is ultimately the child of the ‘reformasi’ movement and those who do not subscribe to that spirit may not be able to withstand the pressure of sensitivities of ‘reformasi’ itself.

We do respect Khalid Samad. He is a wonderful person and an intelligent lawmaker but he does not belong to PKR. Zaid Ibrahim should not have hailed him so much in the midst of putting our own man too low. Zulkifli will stand by PKR but Zaid may leave. That is the truth and the stand of the party for now.

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