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Blaming The Prime Minister

At a Christmas Party in the house of a prominent Malaysian, a dato', the Malaysian Indian Congress president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, was at his usual best and vitriolic. To the 30 or so guests who surrounded him as vultures to carrion, he said one man caused the Lunas byelection defeat, the Prime Minister no less. He, of course, wriggles out of responsibility, as indeed every National Front leader does, and blames it on someone else. Dato' Seri Samy Vellu is true to form: he takes the credit and others the blame. It is safe to assume the Prime Minister is aware of it; it could well be why a new deputy minister is not from MIC but from the PPP.

Obviously, it is fair game, even in his cabinet, for the Prime Minister to be blamed for what goes wrong. So, when UMNO accuses Asiaweek for blaming the Prime Minister for the Lunas defeat, it is disingenious. Tengku Adnan bin Tengku Mansor, UMNO executive secretary and now deputy minister, said the report is "to put UMNO leaders at loggerheads". Is UMNO then so insecure that a report about an election defeat destroy the party leadership?

But the Lunas byelection defeat destroyed not only UMNO's but the National Front's political equinamity. The Supreme Council meeting Asiaweek quotes was as it describes, the Prime Minister defensive at the criticisms proferred. The Supreme Council critic, Dato' Shahrir Samad, led the charge, as at another meeting, another former cabinet minister, Dato' Annuar Musa, annoyed the Prime Minister with his prescriptions for UMNO's future, in which he had five options in none of which he figures.

Any one who criticises the leader in the open is sharply cut down to size. The threat is alone enough to have normally astute and powerful man freeze into shellshock when he wants to criticise the leaders. That the jailed former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, could and get away with it is proof enough that in the Malay cultural worldview the Prime Minister is damned. That UMNO supreme council members now openly criticise the Prime Minister to his face is proof of the growing Malay opposition to him.

The Prime Minister thought he could overcome this erosion of Malay support by banking on the Chinese. But that clearly did not work. He now goes over the heads of his critics by appealing for Malay unity. Groups formed by discredited UMNO politicians rise to defend Malay unity in huge gatherings for which the police clearly have allowed. One does not see the police bureaucracy at work when the opposition wants to hold a gathering. When the Prime Minister is to be supported, there is no problem with police permits. When the opposition wants to hold a Raya gathering, all available stadia and halls are either booked or closed for renovation. And, mark you, when Chinese parents question why a school has to close down, it is political; but Malay unity gatherings, as one discredited UMNO leader tells the world, are not.

All this is the fallout from Lunas. Tengku Adnan believes the only report from Lunas acceptable to UMNO is one in which the opposition cheated to win, that it is the wronged party, the Malay, Chinese, Indian voters conspired to deprive the MIC to continue to ignore the constituency as it always has. He wants the editor of Asiaweek to be "responsible and objective" when reporting on UMNO in the future. He is right, of course. But then is that not what Asiaweek does all the time?

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my