Conversation with outspoken Malaysian politician Anwar Ibrahim

Gulf News

Conversation with outspoken Malaysian politician Anwar Ibrahim. Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim speaks to Gulf News about the controversies that have made him one of the most well-publicised Malaysian personalities. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv

Transcript

00:00It was a pleasant surprise. I say surprise because the entire process was fraudulent.

00:15It went against all standard legal procedure. You entertain a charge without medical notes,

00:29you fabricate evidence, and this all was tolerated by the judge, which shocked many people. So

00:35people therefore would expect an acquittal, but divine intervention. I suppose there was

00:43an acquittal. Alhamdulillah.

00:49The Wall Street Journal, the questions asked in terms of relations, they said as a moderate

00:55you have exchanges with the friends in the Arab world, the Muslim parties in the West.

01:03Why are you so blatantly anti-Israel? I say you should rephrase the question. Why is Israel

01:11continuing with their aggression and occupation and atrocities committed or perpetrated against

01:18Palestinians? Now if this is stopped and you recognise the legitimate aspirations of

01:29the Palestinians, I have no problem about either recognising Israel or protecting the

01:34security of Israel. I'm not here to be anti-Semitic or anti-Jews or anti-Israel for that matter.

01:41What our Malaysian government-controlled media has done is to delete any reference

01:47to Palestinian cause, but just make that statement, ANWR will consider to recognise Israel and

01:54its security. And they went on for weeks.

01:58What do you think of the Israeli government's response to the media?

02:02Announcements are impressive, but the system is still, the laws are archaic, the system

02:07is still oppressive, there's no media access of freedom. Look at what's happening throughout

02:12the world. You have a media completely dominated by the ruling party and establishment. Procurement

02:21policies and privatisation given to family members, cronies, these are actually disturbing.

02:29Malaysia fortunately has a much better starting point, a much better infrastructure compared

02:36to most of the developing economies. But we have lost out in the competitiveness, precisely

02:43because of poor governance and corruption.

02:45How do you see the future of the coalition?

02:49I don't deny that it is a major challenge, but this coalition is not post-elections,

02:55it's pre-elections. And therefore, it is reasonable to expect people to demand that the coalition

03:05must be guided by certain principles and policies, and not just politics of convenience

03:13and expediency. And so, we then took a month, in fact a year, to just formulate what is

03:22our policy on rule of law, economic policies, gender equality, freedom of conscience.

03:29What do you think is the future of the coalition?

03:33It's not Islamic. Turkey is a large Muslim country, it's democratic. Indonesia, culturally,

03:40linguistically, it's the same. They opted for democracy, and we still remain somewhat

03:47behind. The issue is basic freedom, like the issue of gender equality. Why make it so difficult?

03:55They are your sister, your daughter, your wife, or your mother. But the whole discourse

04:02becomes so complex, as if it's going to be a major challenge. It is because of autocratic

04:09rule and corrupt rule. It's vested interest. If you had democracy, the first fair elections,

04:18they would not survive. This issue of moderate Muslim, moderate Islam. Islam must be essentially

04:25moderate because it's ummatan wasata. But then, you cannot condone human rights abuses.

04:33You cannot have legislation that desecrates people's property or faith.

04:40I am an incorrigible optimist. I went through hell, and I think now is opportune time. I'm

04:52very encouraged by the support that I have. Our only concern is whether the elections

05:00will be fair and clean. Assuming the elections are fair and clean, I think they would expect

05:07a change in Malaysia.

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