Extract from article in AUST today: AS PM, ANWAR LOSES HIS...

Extract from article in AUST today:
AS PM, ANWAR LOSES HIS REFORMIST SHINE
Amanda Hodge
Was it only last November that Malaysian reformists were cheering the political victory of Anwar Ibrahim, the great democracy champion elected on a promise to battle graft and govern for all regardless of religion or ethnicity?
Barely 10 months later the 76-year-old Prime Minister – for 20 years a symbol of Malaysia’s struggle for clean and accountable government – has alienated key elements of his support base with policies critics say protect the corrupt and move the country further to the Islamic right.
Many Anwar stalwarts are aghast at his compromises, beginning with an alliance with the graft-tainted UMNO party to form government and keep hardline Islamists out of power.
A series of moves since then – including the Attorney-General’s decision last week to drop 47 graft charges against his deputy and UMNO party chief Zahid Hamidi – has only heightened the sense of political betrayal. Zahid’s exoneration was widely anticipated as a quid pro quo for his United Malays National Organisation – the party that lost government in 2018 over the misappropriation of more than $US4.5bn ($7bn) from the 1MDB state development fund – joining Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan coalition.
Still, it prompted the youth-oriented Malaysian United Democratic Alliance to say on Sunday it was leaving the ruling coalition rather than “allow Malaysia to normalise corruption”.
“Anwar has squandered all his moral capital as an anti-graft champion,” political science professor Wong Chin-Huat told The Australian. “By letting his deputy off; his coalition has lost its credentials as a reformist bloc.”
Then on Tuesday, the appeals court upheld former prime minister Najib Razak’s acquittal for audit tampering in the 1MDB scandal after prosecutors let the deadline pass for filing. Najib was jailed for 12 years in 2022 for corruption – and faces more charges still – though there are concerns those convictions could soon be overturned.
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