By Jalil Hamid
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Opinion polls show most peoplebelieve Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim did notcommit sodomy against an aide after he was jailed on a similarcharge seen as politically motivated before it was overturned.
A small survey by the independent Merdeka Centre researchfirm found just 6 percent of respondents believed theallegations, and nearly 60 percent viewed it as politicallymotivated.
"It's going to be an uphill battle for the governmentbecause you are facing a more cynical public," said the firm'spollster, Ibrahim Suffian. The survey polled 225 ethnic Malaysaged 20 and above.
A separate survey by the independent news website,Malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com), showed that 94.4 percentof its respondents believed the allegation was part of apolitical conspiracy against Anwar.
The political uncertainty dragged the stock market loweragain, with the benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index down 1.7percent at the midday break. The index has lost about 3 percentso far this week.
Ratings agency Fitch, which has a positive outlook forMalaysia's foreign currency rating and a stable outlook for thelocal currency, said it was monitoring the impact of thepolitical situation on economic policies.
"The concern that we have would be that the politicalsituation begins to affect the policy outlook. There is notreally much evidence of that just yet," James McCormack, headof Asia sovereign ratings at Fitch, told Reuters.
"It appears to us there is a political transition of sortsunder way in Malaysia. The question is how fast does that moveand how significant is it. And I think some of those answersare still unclear," he said.
SHOW OF SUPPORT
More than 7,000 people turned up at an impromptu rally lateon Tuesday night in the biggest show of support for Anwar sincethe aide complained to police at the weekend about an allegedassault at a luxury Kuala Lumpur apartment last Thursday.
Police have yet to question Anwar, who has dismissed theallegation as a top-level political conspiracy to keep him fromstanding for parliament, and to stymie his campaign aimed atwooing defectors from the ruling National Front coalition.
Winning a seat in parliament would be the first step on theroad to Anwar's wider ambition of leading the opposition topower for the first time in Malaysian history.
The sodomy case emerged at a time when Abdullah's UMNOparty has been riven by dissent and the loose oppositionalliance was making a bid to take power. The three-partyalliance made historic gains in a March 8 general election,winning five of 13 state governments and coming within 30 seatsof taking control of the 222-member parliament.
Anwar was jailed for six years on a charge of committingsodomy with an aide and a family driver after he broke withPrime Minister Mahathir Mohamad over the handling of the 1998Asian financial crisis. The Federal Court overturned theconviction in 2004. Sodomy is a crime punishable by up to 20years in prison in mainly Muslim Malaysia.
Anwar has said he planned to file a legal deposition soondemonstrating that his accuser, Saiful Bukhari, had close tieswith Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and his staff.
At the rally, Anwar said he would not sit quietly and allowa repeat of what happened to him 10 years ago. The crowd, whohad gathered at the indoor stadium in Shah Alam just outsidethe capital two hours before he turned up late at night,chanted "Reformasi", the battle cry of his reform movement.
"We will fight. When we take over the country, the firstthing we will do is to bring down the price of fuel," Anwarsaid.
(Additional reporting by Faisal Aziz; Editing by BillTarrant and Ben Tan)
