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KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 27 (Reuters) Malaysia's Islamist party, a key partner in Anwar Ibrahim's opposition coalition, moved quickly to endorse him today, removing a major obstacle in his push to win power.
The move came after Anwar secured a convincing victory in a by-election yesterday which will see him return to parliament after a decade-long absence following convictions on sodomy and corruption charges and a bar on holding office.
''As a member of the (opposition alliance) Pakatan Rakyat, we will agree to support Anwar as opposition leader to replace his wife,'' Kamarudin Jaffar, the secretary general of Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), said in a statement.
Anwar is part of a coalition that includes an ethnic Chinese party and the Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS). The coalition controls 82 seats in the 222-member parliament.
The PAS has 23 seats in the coalition. Its push for an Islamic state in this Asian country of 27 million people puts it in an uneasy alliance with Anwar's reformist Keadilan Party and the mainly Chinese Democratic Action Party.
The endorsement from PAS, whose conservatives have often expressed reservations about diluting their core Islamic values, means Anwar can press on with plans to lure 30 government legislators to join his alliance.
Anwar has said he would be in a position to take power from the government, which has ruled Malaysia for 50 years, via a parliamentary confidence vote he has set for September.
However, he faces a key obstacle in a court case on September 10 in which he has been charged with sodomising a male aide, a reprise of the charge in the late 1990s.
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