The site is not Egypt or Turkey but Malaysia, a country of 28 million that, as it has prospered economically, has grown an opposition movement that is pressing an authoritarian regime to share power.
The opposition’s leader is Anwar Ibrahim, whose multiethnic alliance shocked the ruling party in several state elections in 2008 and who has a chance to oust Prime Minister Najib Razak in national elections expected in the next few months, if the vote is free and fair.
All that explains why on Monday Mr. Anwar will find himself not on the campaign trail but in a courtroom, where he is likely to be given a lengthy prison sentence. The charge is homosexual sodomy, which Malaysia shamefully still treats as a crime.
Read the rest online: A ‘test’ of democracy Malaysia might fail
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