MGG Pillai Commentary View

<< Previous || Next >>

Government Insecurity Over Anwar's Medical Treatment

The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, does not want to leave well enough alone. The Hospital Kuala Lumpur has told his jailed precedessor, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, he must have his operation or face the consequences. The prison department is worried it has cost RM60,000 so far (and this does not cost the government subsidies involved) to keep him at the HKL, in a first class ward to boot. To put matters in perspective, one lunch at a first class hotel of senior civil servants was just short of what it has cost to keep him in hospital so far. And the fake bond scam involving high ranking officials a mere US$5 billion.

The government has briefed diplomats, including one last week where the health minister, Dato' Chua Jui Meng, and 14 specialists, most of whom not specialists in the medical problem Dato' Seri Anwar has, held forth. Even the specialists he consulted are brought to back up the government's claims. Now, Dato' Seri Abdullah justifies the humane treatment it metes out to him. It is for Dato' Seri Anwar to decide on how he would be treated, he assures UMNO members. But somehow the more he and his colleagues talk about it, the more they are disbelieved.

For the Anwar problem is what destabilises the government. UMNO leaders, especially in government, must talk about it, as if to convince themselves that they have done the right thing. But they paint themselves into a corner. It takes decisions that can redound on them. Dato' Seri Anwar's medical condition is serious. He now wears a neck brace to ease the pain which has gone to his neck. He moves about in a wheelchair. Now, the government wants to send him back to Sungei Buloh prison, and would if he does not agree to an operation with a greater chance of being paralysed. And it he does not, he takes full responsibility for what happens thereafter.

Unfortunately, for the government, it is not that simple. It insists on keeping Dato' Seri Anwar in the public eye. The government proceeds with the other five charges of sodomy and corruption against him. It was to have been mentioned on Saturday, but he was in excruciating pain. He would be brought in a wheel chair when the court sits in a fortnight. People would compare this with how he was the last time he appeared in court. It had, in a sense, succeeded in diverting attention from him to his ailments. Now it brings him into the focus.

This is perhaps deliberate. If anything, the numbers that now sympathise with the jailed deputy prime minister is more than it every was. Not in political, but in human, terms. Every action the government takes to put him into a strait jacket, it loses more support. That UMNO leaders must talk about Dato' Seri Anwar whenever they address an UMNO meeting indicates the problem. In Malaysian politics today, only one thing matters: the Mahathir-Anwar confrontation. Everything else takes second place.

The government therefore looks upon his medical problems politically, echoing what Dato' Seri Anwar has done. But with this one difference: he is prepared to face the consequences of his action; the government has no option but to turn it into a political issue. So far, it does not succeed. Dato' Seri Anwar accepts he could become paralysed or even a quadriplegic, and fights a different battle, knowing that if he does, both Dato' Seri Mahathir and the government loses. He turns every confrontation into a political test of wills in which the outcome has a clear winner and a clear loser. The government is forced to respond, but losing ground with every step. The cabinet and UMNO leaders are afraid of losing their positions, Dato' Seri Anwar, in the public belief, is not afraid to die.

It ties UMNO in diabolical knots. The UMNO divisional elections would probably have more Anwar supporters elected than in the previous. The Fauzi Abdul Rahman affair in Kuantan showed that there are Anwar supporters in UMNO prepared to stand up and be counted. The fallout of that is so severe that the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalid Yaakub, could well resign. Rumour has it that Dato' Seri Mahathir demanded his resignation. The Prime Minister considers appointing a known Anwar-supporting MP into the cabinet. It is now abundantly clear that whatever happens, UMNO will not have a smooth ride if He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost is. I note a hint of desparation in UMNO.

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