Anwar above the Law?

According to the article, Anwar Ibrahim has said that he hopes to run for Prime Minister in elections that could be held by the end of this year. However, to accomplish this, he would have to break the law.

The law says that he cannot hold any political office until April 2008. And in order to run for Prime Minister, he will first need to secure the backing of PKR as party president. Then, he will need to actually be voted into parliament. Next, the opposition would need to have enough seats in parliament to form the electoral college for Prime Minister. Finally, they would need to support him to be the Prime Minister.

He is currently the party's adviser while his wife is the president. The party elections are being held in May. However, other people have also indicated their interest in running for president. As a political tool, he has served his purpose. However, he doesn't automagically qualify to be the party president just because he was *their* cause. He still needs to show that he can lead the party to victory.

If he were to make a successful bid for the party presidency, that would make him in violation of TheLaw. He says that our current Prime Minister could make an exemption for him but I highly doubt that happening. Alternatively, Anwar plans to challenge the law in the courts. This is a possibility but dragging the law through the courts will take a while, and it's unlikely to succeed. So, if he stubbornly pursues his plans, I'm sure that he'll only end up in prison again.

However, imprisonment is possibly a GoodThing(tm). It will give the flagging PKR their true *cause* once again. Anwar seems to have developed this little martyr complex after his previous ordeal. If their party president is put behind bars, it might even help them get a few sympathy votes in the next election. I do believe that this is a very positive way for him to contribute to the party. Possibly better than leading a party without a platform.

The article also mentions that he hopes to bolster PKR with a platform of economic growth, institutional reform and tackling graft. These phrases sound extremely familiar. I wonder which PM of ours ran on the exact same platform, won a landslide victory but failed to deliver. Anwar needs to find some new material to work with. Voters are less likely to be fooled the second time around.

All this is moot if the general elections are held in 2008. However, my rear-end tells me that the general elections are at the end of this year. And I don't really like the idea of someone, who thinks that he is above the law, making a bid to lead the country. It just doesn't smell right.