No doubting it but Anwar Ibrahim has to be the ‘Marathon Man’ of Malaysian politics if he’s to succeed at running the gauntlet of legal, political, and even, physical obstacles to Putrajaya.

Yesterday was a case in point.

Anwar’s already obstacle-strewn path to power was made more carking by three police road blocks on the North-South Highway which delayed his appearance at a PKR gathering, billed ‘Gempita Perak ke Putrajaya’, in Taiping.

NONE The English rendition roughly translates as ‘Perak Tremors for Putrajaya’. No doubt the contest for power in Malaysia has had an inventive effect on the Malay language.

Would something as salutary rub off on certain quarters in this fight? They seem bereft of creative ideas to counter their opponents, resorting instead to the petty and the crass.

Road blocks at Tapah, Simpang Pulai and Kuala Kangsar on the highway forced the PKR supremo to tactics of evasion.

His motorcade diverged to trunk roads before rejoining the highway to make his appointment, albeit two hours late, at the Dewan Chen Chi Zong Ci in Simpang, Taiping.

The delay had the obverse effect on the crowd that had started to gather from late afternoon to hear him.

It swelled by evening, aided by a shower that briefly cooled the heat of the earlier part and brought the people out who might otherwise have kept away because of the sultry conditions.  

Had Anwar been on time he would have been received by a smaller crowd.

In the event, his enforced tardiness and the sudden change in the weather combined nicely to fill the hall to overflowing, as about 2,000 people assembled to hear him.

Though the public address system was not good and the acoustics of the hall poor, the mainly Malay crowd, with proportions of Chinese and Indians cognate to their percentages in the overall population, just wanted to see and hear him, after having witnessed a retinue of Chinese lion dancers, Indian drummers and Malay kompang beaters, take pulsating turns to give Anwar a welcome suitable for a head of state.              

The late start meant that Anwar was hastened to the podium where he preferred a rapier tipped with wit and sarcasm to the bludgeon.

Anwar slams Perkasa

Inevitably, the Perkasa gathering earlier in the day in Kuala Lumpur received the brunt of his scorn.

He said the so-called defenders of Malay rights only speak up for poor Malays when their power to appropriate the wealth of the country for themselves is threatened.

Otherwise, Anwar said, they are silent, conniving at the disproportionate allocation of the nation’s wealth from its timber resources, oil and gas deposits, and corporate profits to a plutocratic few.

He said none of the Pakatan component parties had been on record as questioning the role of the Malay rulers, position of Islam, and special status of bumiputeras, but this portrait of them as a menace, promoted by a manipulative mainstream media, is drummed into the public mind.

Fortunately, he said, the alternative media of the Internet was available to counter this BN propaganda and so their prudent stances and the good deeds of the Pakatan state governments could be highlighted to the people.   

Otherwise, he said, the country would have been at the mercy of a well-connected few who pretend to be defenders of the Malays when it suits them while their children and cronies helped themselves to wealth they don’t deserve.

“Under such a regime, what we call corruption, they call commission that runs into hundreds of millions,” said Anwar, using key terms which the crowd recognises as connoting the misdeeds of the BN government.

He added that these pretenders to the role of protectors of the Malays also talked of defending Islam, while holding shares in companies that produced alcohol and promoted gambling.

Next stop, Bagan Serai

This crack brought titters of laughter among the crowd, indicating they have been keeping abreast of the stories on the Internet that highlighted the discrepancy.      

But one got the impression that this narrative of BN misrule was not what the crowd wanted to hear, that it was deja vu to them.

They had essentially come to see Anwar, how he is standing up to the pressure of multi-pronged targeting of him, whether he is intact, physically, morally et al. 

The moment he ended his speech, they dispersed quickly, apparently satisfied that their expectation of wholesomeness in the man was confirmed. 

It sustained the impression that the more his adversaries targeted him, the more popular a draw he becomes.

That was probably why though wan, weary, and late, from all the campaigning, he was off to the next stop of the day in Bagan Serai, where the MP Mohsin Fadzli Samsuri, formerly of PKR, has not been seen since deserting the party to become an independent.

The turnout for Anwar at Bagan Serai was impressively large, many of them Banjarese who are said to be angry with clansman, Mohsin, who is secretary-general of the Malaysian Banjarese Association.