It's been an incredible week in Malaysian politics with Anwar Ibrahim's six month suspension from parliament, which prompted a walkout by supporters and resulted in "pandemonium" among members.
Anwar's position as opposition leader in Malaysia has been weakened, to say the least, over the past several months. The public relations damage of the departure of the respected Zaid Ibrahim, flagging poll numbers, growing attacks from the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition and other incidents have all contributed to sustained internal strife within the opposition groups.
Anwar's role at the center of this maelstrom took a new tone with the decision to levy this suspension. The background is fascinating and odd: essentially, Anwar claimed that the 1Malaysia slogan used by the ruling coalition (primarily to send a PR message of unity for an ethnically diverse nation) was devised as an imitation of a slogan used by Israel's Ehud Barak roughly a decade ago.
This prompted a series of paper-waving incidents, climaxing with this one by Nazri Abdul Aziz, who presented a letter from political adviser Bob Shrum (who created the Israeli campaign) as evidence to refute Anwar's claims.
Yet the question now becomes: is suspension really all that bad for Anwar? Will he be able to connect with his constituents as a weakened leader, or will they gather to his side as a martyr for the cause? He and his allies are currently fighting the matter in the courts, but that may be needlessly messy. For a political leader who has based much of his appeal on a degree of victimhood, some of it real and some not (we have those in America, too), this could turn out to be, as Joe Fernandez suggests, a blessing in disguise.
Of course, that may require a large degree of political patience, and only time will tell if that is something Anwar is willing to embrace. But one thing we know from history is that how politicians respond to censure (even politically motivated censure) by their peers can determine a great deal about the future of their careers.
(AP Photo)
