Conspiracy against Anwar seen as confirmed

Blogger Shahbudin says Umno has trapped itself with its continuing vilification of the opposition leader.

PETALING JAYA: Umno’s continuing vilification of Anwar Ibrahim makes it clear to even the most uneducated person that there is a political conspiracy against the jailed opposition leader, according to analyst Shahbudin Husin.

“Umno is caught in a trap of its own making,” he says in a blog entry criticising the party’s programme of explaining Anwar’s conviction to the public. Lawyer Shafee Abdullah, who served as prosecutor in the case, has been enlisted as the main speaker at events associated with the programme.

In the first place, Shahbudin says, the Attorney-General’s decision to appoint Shafee, a private lawyer, to take his place in the case already smacked of a political motive and bolstered the conspiracy theory already given credence by Saiful Bukhari’s meeting with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak before he made the police report alleging that Anwar had sodomised him.

He points out that Umno tried for years to deny the conspiracy theory and has not achieved much success from that tremendous effort. Now, he says, it looks like it won’t be able to deny it anymore with its continued campaign against Anwar even as he lies in prison.

“Shafee’s current willingness to speak in public and to give details of the alleged sodomy has convinced the public that this was the real purpose of making him the prosecutor in the case,” he writes. “If it had been the Attorney-General himself who had led the prosecution, we would not expect him to continue making media statements and speaking at political forums about the case after it is done with.”

Shahbudin expects Shafee to continue giving sensational speeches full of obscene details in the planned Umno Youth road show that he is participating in.

“The purpose is to denigrate Anwar and isolate him from public support. Isn’t that politics?”

Shahbudin also notes that Information Minister Shabery Cheek has offered a time slot on RTM for a forum or debate on Anwar’s case, with Shafee as the potential star.

“Certainly,” he says, “the purpose is to spread the sensational stories further afield. And certainly it is with Umno’s political gain in view.

“However, now that Hanipa Maidin of the PAS Central Committee has answered the challenge to a debate, we will have to wait and see whether the offer of air time is still open.”