Anwar Ibrahim - we want more than Lingam tape

So Malaysiakini informed us that Anwar Ibrahim has more on the Lingam videotape.

According to the de facto leader of PKR, in the second part of the infamous tape allegedly exposing ‘judicial appointment fixing’ that is yet to be released, the name of Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim was explicitly mentioned.

Note I said ‘... allegedly exposing ...' because in my previous posting Lingam tape - Why was it recorded? I quoted Dr Bakri Musa, a columnist for Malaysiakini, mentioning the possibility of a Lingam pretend-telephone conversation with said CJ, putting on a sandiwara for his videotaping.

Dr Bakri said: “I do not put it below this shyster to put on this monologue with an imagined targeted senior judge at the other end, a la Lat’s old cartoon, and then purposely ‘leaked’ the tape out. It would certainly be a headline grabber. As for a motive, rogues are known to do this to each other when they have a falling out. There is one quick way to check this: examine the tape to determine when it was manufactured.”

I did raise some queries on how we could possibly check that it was a monologue, because unless the videotape could show evidence that there was no one at the other end, we still wouldn't be any wiser.

Indeed even if Anwar Ibrahim’s claim/promise of a second part of the videotape ever comes to fruition, and the name of Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz was mentioned in it, what proof would there be that the whole scene was not as Dr Bakri alleged, a monologue.

It would be based on very flimsy grounds, like Tian Chua's wishful portrait of a French dinner.

... unless of course, the police subpoenaed (would this be the correct word?) Lingam’s phone bill for that period and match its details with the date-time stamp on the videotape for the association to be made between ‘real calls’ (to that judge) at that time, to disprove a monologue - that is, assuming, the videotape has a date-time stamp and which may be proven to be authentic.

My personal suspicion is Dr Bakri’s fourth suggestion, that it was an insider’s job, by someone close to and trusted by the lawyer.

Anyway, let's return back to Anwar Ibrahim and his so-called 2nd part of the Lingam videotape.

Malaysiakini said the (unelected) PKR supremo did not explain in what context Ahmad Fairuz’s name was brought up in the second part.

Anwar was quoted as saying: “In the second part of the clip, there were other personalities shown. In the second part of the clip too, Ahmad Fairuz was mentioned by VK Lingam (the lawyer talking in the clip).”

As I mentioned, so what, if it was a monologue as Dr Bakri put forward as one of his suspicions.

Anwar continued: “It is interesting now that the chief justice has denied (his involvement). I would love to see him defend himself in the dock as to whether he was lying.”

Anwar then said the remaining part of the video clip will be released at “a right time”.

But this is typical Anwar Ibrahim ‘man man’ teasing which we have heard before in Kuching, Kelantan and Ijok but which we’re yet to hear those complete tales from him – read my earlier post The Anwar style of campaigning.

* ‘man man’ = ‘slowly’, implying, in the context of which Anwar had used this Chinese term, that he would ‘eventually release the whole story’

In an earlier post Why we lost faith in the man man lai promise? I quoted Dean Johns, one of my fave columnists in Malaysiakini, stating of Anwar Ibrahim:

If Anwar and PKR are actually the targets, I really don't see the point. As much as I deplored the way Anwar was set-up by Mahathir (on the same sodomy rap ...), I couldn't help feeling that finally at least one Umno big-wig was, however unjustly, getting his desserts.

And as strongly as I sympathized with the man as they paraded their perjured witnesses and the stained mattress, then had him assaulted and shut-up in solitary, I still can't view him entirely as a victim.

Nor can I see him today as anything but a spent force. Or, more accurately, as a misspent force. Frittering-away his new-found moral authority on making the fiery speeches for which he's so justly famous and messing-around in petty party-politics when, if he was truly serious and sincere, he could be bringing one documented charge after another against his former corrupt colleagues and their current successors in the Malaysian and possibly even international criminal courts, as well as the courts of local and world public opinion.

His repeated assertions that he will reveal all he knows and act accordingly "when the time comes" are sounding increasingly hollow, and doing nothing to allay many peoples' suspicions that he is "the same old Anwar" and thus not to be trusted.

In this Lingam videotape case, the problem I have with Anwar Ibrahim is two-fold:

(1) Anwar only releases stuff that may help his personal conviction but nothing else, which as UMNO’s former No 2 man and acting PM he would have plenty of knowledge. Why then not reveal more to discredit the BN? That has been his failing and lack of commitment to the discrediting or exposure of UMNO.

I join Dean Johns in questioning Anwar Ibrahim's sincerity, that "if he was truly serious and sincere, he could be bringing one documented charge after another against his former corrupt colleagues and their current successors in the Malaysian and possibly even international criminal courts, as well as the courts of local and world public opinion." But I won't hold my breath.

(2) I am sick of his ‘man man’ promise which would as usual end up as nothing, the unfulfilled meaningless promises they always had been. Either he puts up or shut up.