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
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
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.