The Malaysian opposition leader's daughter has lashed out at what she alleges are “vilification tactics” by the government to destroy its political enemies, exhibiting the mettle and charisma that many expect will take her to the top of the country's political ladder in years to come.
Nurul Izzah, the 34-year-old daughter of Anwar Ibrahim and current People’s Justice Party (PKR) president Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, told the Anadolu Agency in an exclusive interview this week that such attacks are "something new" to the country.
All reason has been lost, she added, "[if] leaders feel it is necessary to attack and defame one’s character in order to destroy his or her particular popularity.”
Her father, seen as the key challenger to the ruling party, has repeatedly been accused of sodomy and corruption by the government in proceedings widely believed to be unfair. He spent six years in jail before the Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 2004.
In 2008, he was again accused of having sex with a male aide. After a High Court cleared him of the charges in 2012, citing a lack of evidence, he then led the opposition to its strongest ever performance in the May 2013 general elections. The government appealed the High Court’s verdict, the Court of Appeal overturning the acquittal March 7 this year, sentencing Anwar to five years in jail.
Both opposition and human rights groups have described the charges as a political vendetta by the governing party, with Human Rights Watch calling it “a dark day for the Malaysia judiciary.”
Nurul was a senior high school student when her father was sacked from his deputy prime minister position in 1998 after a fall-out with former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad. From that moment, Nurul was plunged into the murky waters of Malaysian politics, campaigning for the release of her father.
In 2004, Nurul graduated from university with a Bachelor degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, studying her Masters at Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. where she graduated in 2007 with a Masters in International Relations.
She entered politics in 2008, contesting against three other candidates for a seat in the parliamentary constituency of Lembah Pantai in the southwest of the capital, Kuala Lumpur, where she was quick to reject claims that she was purely running with the intention of handing the seat to her father, who had been disqualified from running for office. Despite expectations that the three-term incumbent Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, the Minister for Women, Family and Community Development in the Barisan Nasional coalition government, would retain the seat, Nurul won 21,728 votes to Shahrizat's 18,833, and was elected as the new MP. The defeat was one of many surprises in that year's vote, which saw significant losses of seats by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the ruling party led by Prime Minister Najib Razak.
In November 2010, Nurul was elected one of the Vice Presidents of PKR.
Malays have since seen her as a fresh face in a political scene tainted by allegations of ethnic bias and a lack of transparency.
Nathaniel Tan, a Malaysian writer who has published several books on Malaysian politics, told AA that Nurul has the potential to be an important politician.
"She is intelligent, and her ideology is moderate, reasoned and sound. One of her main strengths is her public appeal,” he said. “She has a good grasp of the main issues Malaysians are facing."
Talking to AA this week, Nurul expressed great disappointment at what she claimed is a "campaign" being waged against her father by the UMNO.
“They feel that if Anwar is ever made the head of the country, then their own future would be destroyed,” Nurul said at her modest office in Lembah Pantai.
Stating that “Malaysia has had a stunted democratic growth,” she highlighted the government’s excessive influence on the judiciary and the way elections are organized.
“Things have really degraded overtime, particularly after Anwar’s sacking in 1998,” she said, mourning the former British colony’s loss of its long and distinguished tradition of exemplary judges and lawyers. “And nothing was done to cure the ills. Malaysia does not have separation of powers.”
She joked that that the country's intertwined political and judicial system would be a good model for anyone anywhere wishing to seize undisputed influence or power "because it is so soft.”
“How does the government control power over the past more than 50 years? It is based on gerrymandering and re-delineating of constituencies. Academic studies showcase every single time there is a re-delineation process, it will always benefit the ruling party.”
Nurul Izzah also criticized the lack of freedom of the press in Malaysia, and what she claimed was a strong pro-government bias.
She said that one of the most daunting problems facing the country is the problem of “race-based politics,” a system by which she claimed political parties are promoting the sole interests of specific ethnic groups of the country – where the population is 62 percent Malay, 24 percent Chinese and 7 percent Indian.
“The government thinks it is easier to bank on the insecurity of the Malay majority, on their feeling of being victimized and unable to keep up with globalization,” said Nurul Izzah, herself of mixed Malay-Chinese descent.
Malaysia’s affirmative action system, implemented after violent race riots in 1969, grants special privileges - such as university access, bank loans and housing - to Malay to help them catch up with the economically more dynamic Chinese population.
Nurul Izzah defined the PKR party as multiracial in comparison to the “race-based parties” that she says form the governing National Front coalition, which has led the country since its independence in 1957.
She has called for inclusive politics - for the country to unite, not, as she claims, for the democracy to be governed by one ethnic race, and the national agenda built on that.
“From 1999, my message has been that multiracialism is far more important than winning elections," she said. "I want this to survive. Race-based parties have no longer a place in my future.”
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