Anwar’s rallying cry — Merdeka!

PERMATANG PAUH, Aug 20 — Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim yesterday launched his main campaign theme of Merdeka (independence), as his party moves to steer voter attention away from issues that have put him on the defensive since campaigning began.

Standing atop the flatbed of a truck at an open-air carpark, Anwar said voting for him meant voting to be independent of joblessness, crime and corruption.

“Merdeka means whether rich or poor, factory worker or ministers, all are the same,” he bellowed through the microphone to the crowd of about 100 people.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat workers, meanwhile, passed car stickers, pamphlets and schedules for his campaign stops to onlookers.

An aide to the former deputy prime minister said the campaign needed to move away from issues that have him on the ropes and which are being gleefully played up in the mainstream media.

The Merdeka theme is apt, he added, because Malaysia will celebrate its independence on Aug 31, five days after the Permatang Pauh by-election.

Anwar has been bombarded in local newspapers and on TV for selling out Malays by promoting multiracialism and for refusing to take an oath on the Quran, as was done by his former aide, who has accused the opposition leader of sodomising him.

Asked these questions again yesterday, he denied the sodomy charges. There was no need for him to take an oath, he added, as many clerics said it was unnecessary, and he had already reported his case to the Islamic court.

On the issue of selling out Malays, he accused Umno of poisoning minds, saying that all races could be helped together.

After speaking for 20 minutes, he held a quick press conference, sitting on a small table beside his wife Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Ismail.

Anwar has at least five engagements a day. Yesterday alone, he visited a business centre and a night market, said prayers at a villager's house, ate dinner with Chinese residents and spoke at three rallies in the evening.

Usually arriving in a convoy of cars and four-wheel drive vehicles, he left for another ceramah, or rally, as soon as he finished at one.

The real worry for Anwar is not that he will lose, but that he will win by a thinner margin than his wife did.

Dr Wan Azizah polled a 13,388-vote majority from more than 58,000 voters in March. Now, her husband wants to win by a bigger margin to show that people really want him in Parliament, and as the country's next prime minister.

What is also worrying is that because polling day is on a Tuesday, many voters working in factories in the district or outside the constituency might not turn up.

Such challenges form a reminder to the 2,000 PKR campaign workers not to be complacent.

“We want to show that even one vote is important, otherwise people will feel that he has won and might not come out to vote,” said PKR Penang assemblyman Law Choo Kiang.

-TMI