[This is my column in Seruan Keadilan, the official organ of the Parti Keadilan Nasional, and appeared in its latest edition, out today, 28 January 2003]

[I wrote this for my column in "Seruan Keadilan", the official organ of the Parti Keadilan Nasional, for its 21 January 2003]

[I wrote this for my column in the 7 January 2003 issue of Seruan Keadilan, the official organ of Parti Keadilan Nasional]

[This is my column in the Seruan Keadilan, the organ of Parti Keadilan Nasional, and appears in its second issue of December 2002]

WHEN THE PRIME MINISTER, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, called upon the Opposition parties, especially PAS and Keadilan, to forget the past, and unite with the National Front (BN), which he and UMNO leads, to fight for the national interest and create a Malaysia as UMNO saw it, he spoke not from strength but weakness. Since the cataclysmic events of 1998, when he set upon to destroy his own ordained successor in ways which offended the cultural sensitivities of the Malay, he attempts to strengthen, so far unsuccessfully, UMNO by destroying the Malay opposition. Indeed, UMNO is weaker now than at any time in its 56 years. When once the Malay ground automatically veered towards UMNO, today it is the other way around. The Opposition Malay parties, especially PAS, and for a decade, an UMNO offshoot called Semangat '46, could not overcome this natural Malay gravitation towards UMNO. UMNO, in the Malay mind, was both its political and cultural feudal umbrella. That is no more. UMNO now must, as UMNO and other Malay parties in the past, battles for that Malay support. So PAS is prepared to consider it only after the next general elections. And Parti Keadilan is ambivalent.

The Prime Minister appointed them without consulting UMNO, the National Front, his deputy prime minister, or anyone else. He invites all to take or lump it. Even if Dato' Seri Abdullah is so inclined, which he is not, he could not, except at huge political cost to himself, pardon or otherwise resolve the Anwar affair. As Dr Mahathir prepares for his swansong or, as some loyal backers naively hope, be dictator for life, the Anwar affair remains a miasma of contradictions. He is, like the Hermit of Langgak Golf aka Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, one who has, or has not, a political future. Events will determine which. But the political party he spawned, Parti Keadilan Nasional or Keadilan, especially after its merger with Parti Rakyat Malaysia -- disparate, disordered, disorganised -- is a potent threat to UMNO and its future, and frightens it no end. Dr Mahathir knows it only too well. His actions attest to it.

That is the crisis in Malaysia today. The BN's insists it should remain in power by osmosis especially when leaders of its component parties are is under siege. So the citizen is deliberately warned off from voting for the Opposition. The targets you would notice are Parti Keadilan Nasional (Keadilan) and PAS. Recent arrests under the ISA were largely from these two parties. If these two parties can challenge BN, as it now cannot, the BN's days are numbered. The BN realises, too late, that leaders chosen by osmosis can go horribly out of touch and wrong, especially if the leader insists only his men should be elected.

There is one fly in the ointment: Parti Keadilan Nasional (Keadilan). Its recent merger with Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) upsets UMNO's calculations that it is a fly-by-night party. Keadilan can hold the middle ground -- not now, but it can -- between the clashing forces of Islamic politics in UMNO and PAS. It represents a fading force of Malaysian politics -- sanity, multiracial polity, the rights of non-Muslims and non-Malays, a secular state. UMNO fears that Malays who object to a theocratic state in UMNO's and PAS's agenda, and non-Malays, would flock to it to form a rational alternative. That was once the DAP's preserve, but like most, it shot itself in the foot. The opposition cannot win without a multiracial coalition. When DAP opted out of the opposition coalition because it objected to PAS's Islamic agenda, it lost ground, perhaps irrevocably.

That it is Parti Keadilan Nasional (Keadilan) leaders who are the target in this detentions the Federal Courts declared unlawful is no accident. While BN focusses its attention on PAS on the issue of an Islamic state in Malaysia, it is Keadilan that frightens UMNO, the main party in BN. The recent announcement that Parti Rakyat Malaysia intends to merge with Keadilan frightens UMNO more than it lets out. UMNO wants the political fight to be between it and PAS, with BN backing UMNO at any cost. But in this fight for an Islamic state, the non-Malays and those Malays who do not want a theocratic state in Malaysia are left rudderless. But with Keadilan providing an alternate voice for this view, it frightens UMNO no end. That it is also the party of Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim even more so.

The great strength of UMNO and its vehicle, the National Front (BN), is how it can turn the country around its finger and go to a general elections with the country behind it. The great weakness of the Opposition is that it does not know if it comes or goes or when BN leads it by its nose, with any attempt at a united front disabled by sudden pangs of ideological purity. So while the BN and UMNO president, and Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, moves swiftly to ensure the BN would romp home, PAS, Parti Keadilan Nasional (KeADILan), and DAP ignores the certain defeat ahead and concentrate on inessentials.

So it does not surprise when Trengganu passed its hudud laws, all were more concerned that rape victims would not be severely punished, not if the laws conflict with the law. The women and family development minister, Datin Shahrizat Abdul Jalil accepts it in principle and only wants the state government to withdraw some provisions that discriminate women. The Parti Keadilan Nasional (KeADILan) women's wing only hopes women would not be unfairly condemned. Wanita MCA's strategic and legal bureau says hudud laws is cruel, oppresses and subjugates women. Wanita Gerakan secretary-general wants women to oppose the Hudud Bill because it contradicts, I kid you not, the Evidence Act. But where was she when similar laws were passed in BN-controlled states? Is there a considered and principled statement yet on whether an Islamic state is desirable in a multi-racial and multiracial country? I have yet to see one.

Miss Nurul Izzah Anwar, the 23-year-old quiet, shy, almost taciturn, eldest daughter of the jailed former deputy prime minister and UMNO deputy president, has blosommed into a young, assertive, confident woman and politician in her own right. She would have ended her life as an engineer and housewife, as her father wanted her to be. He had kept her mother and her sister in the background, but his politically motivated incarceration changed all that. Her mother, Datin Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, marched right into politics, became president of a political party, Parti Keadilan Nasional (KeADILan), succeeded her husband as member of Parliament for Permatang Pauh. In between her undergraduate studies, she helped her mother in her political campaigns, and soon acquired a persona of her own. She is the darling of the crowd now. And this begins to worry the more formidable women in UMNO.

But whatever his success to be President Bush's shadow in this war on terror, he is unnerved by what the hunger strikes means. All six on the hunger strike are officials of the Parti Keadilan Malaysia (KeADILan), and backers of Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, his nemesis. Malaysia's mainstream newspapers ignore it, but two are seriously ill as a result. Upsetting the government even more is the group outside the Kamunting detention camp fasting in sympathy. Even Dato' Seri Anwar joined in. He pulled out when his medical condition, arising from the Inspector-General of Police beating him merciless while he was manacled and blindfolded after his arrest, took a turn for the worse. And now he ordered the six to call it off too. They have, but insist they would eat only what their families bring.

I contributed this for Parti Keadilan's organ, out today, 15 April 2002

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