Anwar’s Dilema

 

Anwar and PKR are closely aligned with PAS, under what used to be known as BA.

This poses a lot of problems for him personally, especially because he feels he has to engage the world's interest, for instance by meeting right-wing leaders from Washington and shady European think tanks, that would all like to groom him as a "moderate Muslim leader".

Anwar's around-the-world trip to meet political leaders and his friends who occupy key posts in Washington and Europe had a twofold and win-win objective: his recruitment in the West's effort to groom him as an agent of 'change' before he takes power; and to make the point that PAS is not a "fundamentalist" Islamic party, as Western leaders fear, but a liberal and democratic party which the West could "work with" should it come to power.