Anwar Ibrahim's wife tests political waters

Anwar Ibrahim's wife tests political waters

By Nelson Graves

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): She has a following and a cause, but
there is no guarantee that Wan Azizah Wan Ismail will be the Cory
Aquino of Malaysian politics.

Anwar Ibrahim's wife has gained international prominence since
her husband was sacked, arrested, beaten and indicted.

Now she has embarked on a nationwide tour to test the
political waters and may run head-to-head against her husband's
former mentor, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, in elections that
must be held by April 2000.

Few deny this articulate woman with a grievance would make a
formidable candidate. But while her husband's case provides her
with a springboard, it is also her dilemma.

Anwar, although excommunicated from Mahathir's United Malays
National Organization (UNMO), refuses to cut his ties to the
party which has led every governing coalition since independence
in 1957.

UMNO is the political umbrella for mainstream Malays -- the
dominant ethnic group -- and the linchpin of the Barisan Nasional
(National Front) coalition that governs all but one state and
controls a four-fifths majority in the lower house of parliament.

Anwar, who was one small step from the prime minister's post
before he was summarily sacked in September, knows his most
realistic hope of ever attaining power is through UMNO.

But the failure of a dissident strand that emerged from a
split in UMNO in the late 1980s and early 1990s to oust Mahathir
is a powerful reminder of the upward struggle facing Anwar,
notwithstanding the threat of a prolonged jail term.

Wan Azizah -- seen by Anwar's supporters as an innocent victim
of power politics -- commands a ready following. She has drawn
thousands to gatherings around the country, including more than
10,000 in Mahathir's own constituency last week.

"It seems as if it's the only thing people have been talking
about," a woman resident of Kubang Pasu district in the northern
state of Kedah, Mahathir's political base, said last week. Other
residents spoke openly of mounting dissatisfaction with Mahathir.

Wan Azizah said there was a very good chance she would run
against Mahathir but had not yet made up her mind.

No sooner had she dipped her toe into Kedah politics than it
was announced Mahathir had appointed a new strategist in Kubang
Pasu, former state chief minister Osman Aroff.

Osman, who replaces the district UMNO chief as Mahathir's
personal representative, said last Saturday the prime minister
had told him to gear up the election machinery. He shrugged off
Wan Azizah's potential challenge.

"There is no problem if she wants to contest there, but I
don't think she can win," he said.

Mahathir's party appears most threatened in the Moslem Malay
rural heartland where the fundamentalist Parti Islam se-Malaysia
(PAS) is strongest. PAS already controls the northeastern state
of Kelantan, and is setting its sights on the nearby provinces of
Terengganu, Perlis and Kedah.

A devout Moslem married to a politician who started his career
in the Islamic youth movement, Wan Azizah might seem a natural
PAS candidate.

But unless Anwar breaks with UMNO, which he has resolutely
refused to do despite being expelled and charged with crimes, she
must keep PAS at arm's length, depriving the opposition of a
unifying force.

In any case, PAS leaders have said the party is not ready for
a woman prime minister.

Although Anwar's case has given the opposition a shot in the
arm, it remains deeply fragmented. Opposition parties have linked
together along with a dozen odd non-governmental organizations to
form a coalition, Gerak, to denounce alleged rights abuses.

But the two main opposition parties -- PAS and the largely
urban Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP) -- remain suspicious
of each other and an electoral alliance is still a distant dream.

DAP chief Lim Kit Siang predicts the opposition will make a
dent in the Barisan Nasional's huge four-fifths majority and may
even deprive it of the two-thirds needed for critical
parliamentary votes.

But he remains skeptical that the opposition can take power.

"The groundswell for change is there but in terms of electoral
gains, it's very hard to say," Lim said.