AFTER a botched bid to oust the government in September, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim will likely have to bide his time until elections in 2012-13 before making another bid for power. From watershed elections in March to his triumphant return to parliament after a decade's absence, Anwar dominated the headlines. Even his arrest and trial failed to thwart his campaign to topple the government by his self-imposed deadline of Sept. 16. Victory seemed within his grasp when the government apparently felt compelled to ship 40 MPs to Taiwan on a “study trip” in mid-September to prevent them from defecting to Anwar's camp and thus giving him a majority in parliament. The deadline passed. Financial turmoil swept the globe, and with an economic slowdown looming, voters in this Asian country of 27 million people suddenly had more immediate worries than Malaysia's chronic political intrigue. Now the 61-year-old Anwar, whose People's Justice Party holds its annual convention this weekend, has to explain why he is not addressing the meeting as the new prime minister of Malaysia. “His (Anwar's) strategy of haste that he adopted after March 8 (elections) stopped working after Abdullah was forced to retire,” said Ooi Kee Beng, an analyst at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. “Now, he has to do it the patient way.” Lackluster Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi essentially derailed Anwar's express train to power by deciding to hand power to his more assured deputy, Najib Razak, earlier than planned. Affirmative action Abdullah's National Front coalition, which has ruled uninterrupted for 51 years, stopped being transfixed by Anwar and started making policies to deal with an economy that is expected to grow by only 1.5 percent next year from 5.4 percent this year. Najib, 55, will take office in March when he becomes president of the United Malays National Organization, the dominant party in the 13-party National Front. Najib, who is deputy premier and finance minister, has taken the fight to Anwar by linking him to unpopular measures proposed by the International Monetary Fund when Anwar was finance minister during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, while projecting an aura of economic competence himself. He has announced some measures to offset lower economic growth, but hasn't raided the treasury to do so, putting $2 billion saved from petrol subsidies into pump-priming measures. Najib even stole some of Anwar's thunder by relaxing a requirement that ethnic Malays have to own 30 percent of companies - one of the affirmative action programs that aim to uplift Malays who constitute 60 percent of the population. Anwar's opposition coalition had campaigned for abolition of those programs in the March elections. Inflation is falling rapidly from a peak of 8.5 percent in midyear and the central bank on Monday unexpectedly cut interest rates for the first time in five years. “There's a widespread acceptance that Anwar will no longer take over the country,” said an investment analyst at a foreign bank in Singapore. “Being PM is out of the question right now.” “Najib is reinforcing his power base. He's the new face of Malaysia,” he said.
