Anwar demands Malaysia clean-up

Malaysia's former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, who was jailed for six years on trumped-up corruption and sodomy charges, has threatened to overturn the political establishment that imprisoned him.

Two months after his release, the charismatic politician has spelt out a radical plan to replace the 'feudal and corrupt' establishment with a true democracy.

'It's not even the excesses; it's the basic rules we're missing,' he told The Observer in the first interview with a British newspaper since his release. 'The elections are not free and fair, the media is completely controlled, the judiciary is not independent and corruption is endemic.'

Anwar, 57, was regarded in the West as a political prisoner after he was fired by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in 1998 and within days incarcerated on flimsy graft and sodomy charges. He garnered further worldwide sympathy after the national police chief beat him up in custody.

When Abdullah Badawi replaced Mahathir last year, he did not block Anwar's appeal against the sodomy conviction, and he was freed in September, going straight to Germany for spinal surgery.

Now back in Malaysia, Anwar is trying to rally and unify the fragmented opposition and, in the absence of any help from the mainstream media, take his message directly to the people.

Despite Abdullah's control of the media and police, there are already signs that Anwar is making headway.

One is the estimated 20,000 people who flocked to his house last Sunday to offer him traditional greetings at the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

'That was without any publicity and with the omnipresent special branch watching me,' Anwar said. 'There are people out there who want to hear the message of reform.'