A tale of a good apple and a not so good orange

I am just wondering what the DAP is up to now? Have a read at this news report:

Anwar to be PM, even from jail

GEORGE TOWN: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will be Prime Minister if Pakatan Rakyat forms the next government, says DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

Lim said this in response to MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek’s question of who is going to be Prime Minister should Pakatan Rakyat win the general election.

“The answer is obvious. It is very clear that it will be Anwar as decided by all three parties,” Lim said after presenting RM100,000 to the Kong Hock Keong board of trustees chairman Datuk Lam Wu Chong for the restoration of the Goddess of Mercy temple on Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling.

When asked what would happen if Anwar were to be jailed, Lim said he would still be Prime Minister, citing Turkey as an example.

“Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan couldn’t contest because he was in jail.

“But when they won, they allowed him to contest and he became Prime Minister,” said Lim, who is also Penang chief minister.

Guan Eng citing the case of distinguished Turkish PM Erdogan going to prison and then emerging triumphant as PM when his party won  is too much for me bear. No, its not the going to the prison part, but what the two men were prosecuted for before they got into prison that set them far apart and what makes Erdogan a  great Turkish PM and Anwar just a PM in waiting whose time will not come. Its like comparing a good apple and a not so good orange.

For starters Erdogan went to jail for reading a poem banned by the then Turkish Government:

excerpts from BBC News, read in full here.

"Conviction

But his pro-Islamist sympathies earned him a conviction in 1998 for inciting religious hatred.

He had publicly read an Islamic poem including the lines: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers..."

He was sentenced to 10 months in jail, but was freed after four.

However, because of his "criminal" record, he was barred from standing in elections or holding political office.

Parliament last year changed the constitution to allow Mr Erdogan to stand for a parliamentary seat." Source BBC News

On the other hand, among others, Anwar Ibrahim was imprisoned because he committed crimes under the Malaysian Penal Code, he was initially prosecuted on four counts of corrupt practice under section 2(1) of the Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance No 22 of 1970 (the Ordinance), on 5th October 1998 found guilty by the High Court and was found guilty on all four charges, as amended at the close of the prosecution case, by the High Court. He was convicted and sentence to six years imprisonment on each of the amended charges, the sentences to run concurrently, to take effect from the date of conviction. He appealed all the way to the Federal Court but was unsuccessful. Source here.

Anwar was also prosecuted for sodomising his driver, Azizan Abu Bakar, excerpts from Big Dog blog (a letter by lawyer Mathias Chang):

Yes the Federal Court which let Anwar free from the sodomy charge on his driver made a very pertinent finding:

“even though reading the appeal record, we find evidence to confirm that the appellants were involved in homosexual activities and we are more inclined to believe that the alleged incident at Tivoli Villa did happen, sometime, this court, as a court of law, may only convict the appellants if the prosecution has successfully proved that the alleged offences as stated in the charges, beyond reasonable doubt.”

After serving time in prison for criminal wrong doing and released in 2004, Anwar Ibrahim was charged for sodomy this time with a former assistant Mohd Saiful in 2008:

The sodomy trial has just been completed and await final submission by both the prosecution and the defence likely on 23 and 24 November 2011. The High Court Judge's decision is expected to be by the end of December 2011. Anwar faces a maximum of 20 years jail if found guilty. Read here.

Now I would like to tell the Pakatan leaders to please spare us the agony of trying to equate Anwar's predicament with that of the distinguished Turkish Prime Minister. You guys can try but it would not stick, I can tell Guan Eng that. 

Again I just wonder why the DAP is so adamant to have a convict, convicted for committing corrupt practises when he was the deputy PM to lead the Pakatan. Death Wish? Suggestions any one?