“Not just Anwar, Tommy Thomas should reflect on himself too”

“Not just Anwar, Tommy Thomas should reflect on himself too”

by Prof Ramasamy Palanisamy




FORMER Attorney-General Tommy Thomas is seemingly sad and curious as to why PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is yet to become the prime minister.

Thomas stated recently that he was upset that Anwar got sent to prison on sodomy and corruption charges in the past, while serving as deputy prime minister under Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s first tenure as prime minister.

And the Port Dickson MP still failed to get the job during the Pakatan Harapan administration, during Mahathir’s second tenure as prime minister.

But I guess Thomas does not grasp how volatile our political climate is. This is evident when he asked Anwar to reflect on why the latter could not get the top job.

Thomas appears to suggest that Anwar’s main stumbling block was Anwar himself. In my view, whether the metaphor is appropriate to be used on Anwar remains to be seen.

In my view, it is not that Anwar never made mistakes in the past but it is just that circumstances were not conducive to his rise.

Yes, he should look into the mirror not once but many times but there are others who directly and indirectly derailed Anwar’s ascension must also look in the mirror too.

For that matter, Thomas who resigned as the AG after 22 months must also look in the mirror to answer some questions related to the arrest and detention of 12 individuals under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma) on charges of links with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) in 2019.

This came after even after the LLTE was defeated in 2009 in Sri Lanka, and became virtually non-existent!

Why charge them in the first place when there was no evidence? Was Thomas under pressure from the racist politicians like Mahathir and then-home minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin?

Anwar was betrayed…twice

And finally, why release them when they should not have been detained in the first place, just before his resignation?

These are some of the questions that were not answered in his recent book.

Maybe the time has come for Thomas to come out in the open about these LTTE detentions. I suggest that Thomas himself should look in the mirror to explain the anomalies of their arrest, detention and release.

As for Anwar, he became victim to Mahathir’s vindictive politics, second time around. The nonagenarian reneged on his promise to hand over the post to the PKR supremo as promised.

Unfortunately, other Pakatan Harapan leaders became too obsequious to Mahathir and failed to ensure Anwar’s political ascendancy.

In the post Pakatan period, the likelihood of Anwar becoming the prime minster seems to be shrouded in the ambiguous game of getting the required numbers and so on.

While I agree the chances for Anwar becoming the prime minister is getting slimmer, we should not discount any possibility of it happening either. – June 11, 2022