Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), which translates into People’s Justice Party, held a convention on April 21 to celebrate its Silver Jubilee, where members reflected on the past and discussed the future of the party.
The party was formed on April 4, 1999 largely to save Anwar Ibrahim – who had been sacked as deputy prime minister and Umno deputy president and was then on trial for offences which many believed were trumped up.
The party was also formed to rid national politics of corruption, cronyism and nepotism.
Its “reformasi” cry resonated with his followers and civil society organisations which dreamed of a more democratic nation where citizen’s rights and freedoms would be respected.
The then prime minister and Umno president Dr Mahathir Mohamad was too autocratic for them.
In kicking off the convention, PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail recounted the early days of the party, even reading letters he had received from Anwar in early 1999 when the latter was in prison.
I remember those tumultuous times.
Just days before he was arrested, Anwar received a rousing reception from supporters at his Permatang Pauh family home. I was there, reporting for the New Straits Times.
None of the state’s leaders – who were only months earlier running after him -was there. The only leader present was state executive councillor Toh Kin Woon, an honest politician if ever there was one.
Top Umno leaders in Penang were not to be seen; so too the top civil servants and leaders of various organisations who had previously courted him.
On Sept 3, 1998, a day after he was sacked from the government, Anwar said he had been given an ultimatum by Mahathir to resign or face the consequences of “being sacked and possibly have charges levelled against me” but that he chose not to “submit to this conspiracy, a political conspiracy to undermine my position and defeat me through nasty schemes”.
He said he was shocked at the “extent that the instruments of government can be used to frame and fabricate” evidence against him, the deputy prime minister.
Anwar added: “I’m still the deputy president of the party. I hope I won’t be barred from attending the meeting today or tonight.”
He was expelled from Umno that very day.
Anwar then held a series of rallies, mostly in Kuala Lumpur, to mobilise support. Such huge political rallies had never been seen in Malaysia, with people screaming “reformasi” and urging Mahathir to resign.
The protesters were emboldened by events in neighbouring Indonesia where the 32-year long presidency of Suharto came crashing down after he was forced to resign on May 21, 1998 in the wake of a people’s uprising.
Police clashed with protesters at most of these rallies in support of Anwar, firing tear gas and using water cannons when they refused to disperse. Dozens of protesters were arrested.
Anwar himself was arrested on Sept 20, shortly after addressing a rally of about 30,000 in Kuala Lumpur.
In the final hours before his arrest, Anwar issued a statement directed at his family and Malaysians.
Beginning with, “I expect to be arrested very soon,”, he told his children to remember that “your father is a fighter for the truth who has tried to champion the poor, protect the dignity of the nation, and spread the message of Islam”.
In upholding what was right, he explained, he had “unsettled many people and these are the people who have plotted against me in a high-level conspiracy involving even the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir”.
After explaining at length the “conspiracy” against him, Anwar said: “The reason they are so afraid of me is that I know too many of their secrets.”
He added: “The system of dictatorship and the ironfist policy, which allow robbery at the people’s expense, must be stopped. There is enough wealth in our economy for everyone; let’s not allow a few individuals to take it all, even if they claim to be genuine champions of the people.”
On Sept 29, Anwar was brought to court and charged with corruption and sodomy.
That was when Malaysians, and the world, saw that one of his eyes was blue-black and his neck bruised.
Anwar told the court that he had been blindfolded and beaten.
“I was boxed very hard on my lower jaw and left eye. I was also boxed on the right of my head and they hit me on the left side of my neck very hard.
“I was then slapped very hard left and right until blood came out from my nose and my lips cracked. Because of this, I could not see and walk properly.”
The sight of Anwar with a blue-black eye shocked Malaysians. Mahathir and some in the administration initially hinted that Anwar could have done it to himself to gain sympathy.
But everything became clear when then inspector-general of police Rahim Noor admitted to giving Anwar the black eye.
I believe it was at this juncture that PKR was really born, because it galvanised his supporters and brought even more people to his side.
Many, like my late mother, became sympathetic.
She was horrified over the movement of a mattress in and out of court during Anwar’s sodomy trial – details of which were broadcast over TV and splashed in the newspapers – and kept complaining about it to me. “Why do they need to show the mattress so often? Don’t they know children will be watching?”
PKR, in fact, cleverly incorporated the eye into its logo.
Anwar, who rose up the ranks of Umno at speed after joining the party in 1982 and winning the Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat the same year, was jailed six years on four charges of corruption on April 14, 1999.
On Aug 9, 2000, Anwar, the once-favoured successor to Mahathir, was jailed nine months for sodomy, with the jail term to be served at the end of his six-year corruption conviction.
Several others close to him, including leaders of Abim, which Anwar had founded years earlier, and the then Umno Youth leader Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, were also arrested under the Internal Security Act.
Yes, the same Zahid who is now the deputy prime minister. He was one of the most vocal supporters of Anwar in Umno in the 1990s, which perhaps explains why Umno under his presidency decided to team up with the Anwar-led PH to form the government in 2022.
Several others played leading roles in the formation of PKR, especially Anwar’s wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and activist Tian Chua. Perhaps I’ll write about it another day.
Anwar’s black eye and the arrest of those close to him further galvanised his supporters, opposition political parties and civil society organisations to push for change, and Malaysia witnessed mass open defiance of the government and the police.
For a while at least, all groups opposing the government or seeking reform – including Islamist party PAS and Chinese-majority DAP – forgot about race and religion and came together to fight the Mahathir administration.
The political foment not only gave birth to PKR but also to a new political consciousness among the people. It gave them hope that change was possible.
Today, the change has come. Mahathir is gone and Anwar is prime minister.
Yet, not everyone who cheered for Anwar in those days is happy as some key reforms remain unfulfilled and certain political and judicial developments have been disconcerting.
On Sept 12, 1998, Anwar and his supporters unveiled the Permatang Pauh Declaration which launched the reform movement.
“We the citizens of Malaysia of all cultural and religious backgrounds are determined to launch a movement for comprehensive reform” it said, going on to delineate what it hoped to achieve in a new Malaysia.
Now that Anwar and PKR are in power, Malaysians are waiting and hoping the “comprehensive reform” will come sooner than later. - FMT
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
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