Anwar seeks return to power

By Tom Burgis in London
Financial Times
Anwar Ibrahim, the former golden boy of Malaysian politics, said on Thursday he hopes to stand for prime minister in elections that could be held by the end of this year.
The former deputy prime minister spent five years in prison convicted of sodomy and corruption after accusing his government colleagues of graft.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Anwar said he would stand in May for the presidency of the opposition Keadilan party, a post currently held by his wife. He said he would seek the premiership in elections late this year or early next, provided he wins the backing of his party’s allies.
Either ambition could put him in violation of a ban on holding political office that lasts until April 2008. The ban was imposed automatically after a corruption conviction that resulted from a widely criticised trial shortly after he was fired as deputy prime minister in 1998 by Mahathir Mohamad, then premier and his erstwhile mentor.
Abdullah Badawi, Mr Mahathir’s successor as prime minister, could lift Mr Anwar’s ban but Mr Anwar said he would challenge the ban in the courts were it not lifted. “I don’t have a choice,” Mr Anwar said during a visit to London. “Either I opt out and stay overseas or return to Malaysia and work with my friends...I hope not to return to jail but it is a risk I have to take.”
Mr Anwar, 59, ruled out a return to the ruling Umno party, describing it as “corrupt to the core”. Currently an adviser to the World Bank, he hopes to bolster Keadilan’s flagging fortunes with a platform of economic growth, institutional reform and tackling graft.
However, Tamara Lynch, research analyst at Chatham House, a London think-tank, said Mr Anwar’s moment may have passed. ”His supporters saw him as a Nelson Mandela of Malaysia who would come to power and change everything. But now not that much needs to change.”
For a man who adhered to the Washington Consensus of fiscal austerity as finance minister during the Asian financial crisis, Mr Anwar has travelled a long way. If elected, he said he would use the soaring profits of Petronas, the state oil company, to fund a rural education drive and other soc
Separately, Mr Anwar also revealed he had written to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s anti-bribery committee in his role as president of the British-based AccountAbility think-tank. His letter denounced the British government’s much-criticised role in the cancellation of the Serious Fraud Office’s investigation into alleged corruption in arms deals between BAE and Saudi Arabia.

tunku: yes he was a former golden boy but today an ex prisoner of corruption and sodomy case.Now he's only cowdung boy.He said Umno is corrupt to the core, what have you done when you were there, you hold such big post and what you did, you enrich your cronies, your father even made a director in I0I. Your proxy company Abrar cash rich that till today they still can sponsor you. How you play dirty and make Tun Ghaffar resigned from his post, you are the one who starts money politic in Umno.You think Malaysian is stupid to make you their PM, oh no , not with your past records.By they way anwar is getting financial aids from friends such as Paul Wolfowitz(the bad creature).Otherwise how to run a party.There's 1001 reason why Malaysian should get rid this kind of person.Anwar you better go overseas and settle there, WE DON'T NEED YOU HERE.