His Sept 16 gambit failed miserably and he was chastised.
The Barisan, now under a new Prime Minister in Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak sought to return the favour to Anwar and induced three of the state assemblymen in Perak to defect and forced the Pakatan state government to fall.
But all that is in the past.
The same political strategy is being used again. This time Bersih has become Bersih 2.0.
Former Bar Council president Da-tuk Ambiga Sreenivasan is plan- ning to organise a repeat of the massive Bersih rally of November 2007.
The reasons given are the same: failure of the EC to reform the system, fraud and cheating, and the recent Sarawak election is used as a reminder of what can easily go wrong in Malaysia.
The reality is that Anwar is having a second go at it.
He is trying to revive the mass appeal he had before it started to dissipate after Sept 16, 2008.
This time around, he has tried to put a neutral person in Ambiga as chairman to gauge the public mood and prepare the ground for another general election.
But Ambiga is hardly the neutral person.
She spoke at a PKR rally in Brickfields with Anwar and his daughter Nurul Izzah on Sunday.
Besides, newly-minted PAS deputy president and Anwar's old adversary Mohamed Sabu has asked the party's rank and file to take part at the Bersih 2.0 rally on July 9.
In fact, PAS central committee member Dr Hatta Ramli is on record as saying that PAS would send 100,000 supporters to the rally.
The glaring difference between now and November 2007 is that they then wanted to protest with Bersih and Hindraf rallies that to-gether persuaded the public mood to turn against the Government.
This time they are the rulers in four states.
They want to flex their muscles and boost their waning strength, sensing that an early election is on the cards.
The irony is that the electoral system, which they claimed is “unfair”, is the same one that won them the four state!
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