Malaysian Opposition Figure In Comeback; Many Ties To The Global Muslim Brotherhood

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Global media is widely reporting that Anwar Ibrahim, a Malaysian opposition politician closely associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood, has won a seat in the Malaysian parliament. According to one report:

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on Wednesday celebrated an election victory that will return him to parliament, boosting his plan to seize power after a decade-long political exile. Anwar, who had already led a revitalised opposition to unprecedented gains in March general elections, insists he is on track to topple the government by mid-September with the help of defecting lawmakers. The charismatic 61-year-old won Tuesday’s by-election in his home state of Penang despite an intense campaign mounted by the Barisan Nasional coalition, which has ruled Malaysia for half a century since independence from Britain. “I share in the joy felt by all Malaysians on this historic day. This is a victory for the people. And it’s great to be back,” said Anwar, a former deputy premier who was sacked in 1998 and jailed on sodomy and corruption charges. “We will restore the integrity of the judiciary, fight corruption and build a truly unified nation,” he said in a statement.

Previous posts have discussed Ibrahim’s recent arrest on sodomy charges in a seeming repeat of the events of 1998.

Ibrahim has many known ties to the global U.S Muslim Brotherhood include helping to found the International Institute of Islamic Thought where he currently serves as a director, representing Asian youth and serving as a trustee for the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) during the 1970’s and early 1980’s, and appearances at numerous Brotherhood-linked conferences. As a previous post noted, Ibrahim was scheduled to speak last December at a conference in Istanbul that featured a large number of prominent speakers with ties to the global Muslim Brotherhood. Another recent post also discussed Ibrahim’s appearance at a Saudi economic forum. The current media coverage on Ibrahim appear to be ignoring this history which may be explained by a recent article from the Malaysian media on how Ibrahim has reinvented himself:

DATUK Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who started as a firebrand Islamic student activist, reinvented himself as a Malay nationalist after joining Umno in 1982 while continuing to promote and defend Islam. In 1999 after he was sacked, jailed and desperately fighting to save his political career, he had a difficult and momentous choice to make between forming a Malay-only nationalist party or a multi-racial party as his future political vehicle. Considering the need to show a united, strong political face – both to Malaysians and his legions of foreign supporters, Anwar chose a multi-racial platform. It was a “politically correct” decision and successfully piled the pressure to free him and return him to the political mainstream. But in the process Anwar lost the two main planks he had rode to come within a whisker of becoming Prime Minister – as champion of Malay nationalism and promoter and defender of Islam. Now, as a leader of a multi-racial party, he cannot speak exclusively about Malay nationalism or about Islam but has to present himself as a Malaysian leader and stand on a platform of equality, justice and fairness for all Malaysian races.

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