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Ketari V: Democracy In Restricted Residence

The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, on his visit to Russia last week, said and did what he would not admit at home. He said Russia should return as a superpower for the world is diminished with only one superpower to contend. The world is too dangerous in the grip of a single superpower. If you extend this argument to Malaysian politics, he implies a single party or coalition should not dominate the country, that parliament and state assemblies need more opposition members to keep his National Front (BN) coalition should be kept on his toes. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The dangers of a monopolar world in the international arena is as true in his own bailliwick. Only he eschews it. Here he believes in the BN's right to govern without an opposition keeping it on its toes. When President Bush cannot have his way, he threatens to to use nuclear weapons. Likewise, Dr Mahathir happily use the Internal Security Act (ISA) to lock up those who question his rule. For he, and President Bush, operates by the old rule that what is allowed Zeus is disallowed the cow.

So, his comments on a sole superpower is not meant to be applied at home, especially if it strengthens democracy. Democracy in Malaysia is in chains, hobbled, in restricted residence, like the regime's enemies, obeys only the whip of its master in Malaysia, the National Front, and occasionally bashed up by the police as the jailed former deputy prime minister once was. As the world must pay homage, if it wants to or not, to the United States after an unprecedented challenged to its power last September caused it to go berserk, so the country to BN. Any sustained opposition attempt to wound the BN's underbelly causes a retaliation as serious as President Bush's threat to deploy nuclear weapons against its enemies.

The BN would rather not have this byelection. The political superpower in Malaysia, whatever its leader's view on the global superpower's stranglehold, does not want the opposition, whom it views as anti-national, to balance power in Malaysia. So, it detains those opposition politicians who upset its national equanimity under detention-without-trial laws as the USA. It harasses those who defect from it to the opposition. It is, like the United States, nervous of meeting its opponents headon, and would rather attack than discuss. So in Ketari. The Gerakan president, Dato' Seri Lim Kheng Yaik, is nervous. The MCA is caught in a fratricidal limbo which it must set aside to campaign. UMNO does not want PAS to parade its flag on Nomination Day, so the police disallows non-DAP flags in the opposition ranks. The BN is allowed to have its component party flags even if the candidate, from the Gerakan, stands on a BN ticket.

Since the 1999 general elections, UMNO, MCA, MIC, and now Gerakan, have had to face byelections under trying circumstances. The prospect of another causes even Dr Mahathir to shiver: the Pahang state assemblyman, Dato' Fauzi Abdul Rahman, an avowed supporter of jailed deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, threatens to resign his seat in a squabble with Pahang UMNO. UMNO and BN does not relish the prospect. Even UMNO strategists admit PAS could just win it. UMNO cannot afford that, and would rather let sleeping dogs lie. And cross their fingers he would not resign before 30 November this year. After that, no beyelections can be held. Malaysian electoral laws prohibit byelections in the final two years of parliament and the state assemblies.

The other surprise of his visit to Russia is his decision to buy 30 Sukhoi jet aircraft. There is nothing wrong with it but it raises eyebrows when the identity of the Malaysian agent is known. The ultimate "dalang" (puppet master) of defence agents in Malaysia is Datin Seri Rosmah Yaakob, the wife of the defence minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak. The Soviet Union, and later, Russia, do not have exclusive agents for its defence equipment as Western countries, and they hand out agencies to anyone who asks for it, paying what it is due to the one who brings the orders. Datin Seri Rosmah brought them all under her charge. With a husband to shepherd it through, it was easy. Dr Mahathir at one time found this so distasteful that he transferred him to education, where she also spread her spell to be commission agent for computer software for its touted-but-failed "smart schools". (The software is still not ready, years after the promised date).

But Dato' Seri Najib became an useful ally in his perennial search for a successor, and he was brought back to defence. He closes his eyes to what the minister's wife does. In Malaysia, all is forgiven if on the side of He Who Thinks He Is Lord Of All He Surveys. Corruption it is if you and I or Dato' Seri Anwar did but not those basking in the Great Man's benevolent gaze. So, Dato' Seri Anwar goes to jail for what the MCA president and transport minister, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, is lauded. Sergeant Senapang bin Peluru goes to Sungei Buloh or Kajang for which Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz goes to Putra Jaya.

This cynicism surfaces in every political statement by BN leaders, especially with byelections in the air. The BN believes the best way to be returned in Ketari is to attack the DAP even before nomination. Instead of the high road and moral ground, Gerakan descends into the gutter. The political superpower cannot afford even a nick on its hold on power. And turns into a wounded raging tiger when its equinamity is disturbed. The BN's terrorist attacks a la 11 September is the Anwar imbroglio. The BN behaved then as Washington now. Which is why Dr Mahathir, like President Bush, takes contradictory positions before different audiences, to prove that a superpower, political or global, have rights others do not have.

What allows the BN and Dr Mahathir to go its way without the opposition President Bush has is the utter irrelevance of the opposition in Malaysia. As the National Literateur and PAS MP, Shahnon Ahmad, noted in a recent issue of the PAS journal, "Harakah", UMNO hijacked Malay feudal mores these past 55 years to seep into the Malaysian body politic as feudal overlord that even non-Malay political parties, in BN and Opposition, are forced to comply. Politics is made irrelevant. What challenged it is the cultural earthquake amongst the Malays after the Anwar imbroglio. UMNO attempts to reorganise the political debate and feudal hegemony by reducing the role of the rulers and the ulama.

When UMNO hitched its star to Malay feudal mores, it was imperative it accepted feudalism's dictates. It did not, faces the penalty of disenchantment, and reacts in rage. Dr Mahathir, as the Malay leader, is not challenged -- his feudal leadership sustained not by form and custom but by power and force as feudal power slips him by -- as President Bush is by his Muslim terror enemies. So he struts the world's stage to argue the US not be allowed to be the sole superpower, confident in his own bailliwick none of that internationalist nonsense would be given serious play there.

So, while one can extend his premise in Moscow into local politics, he has no intention, like his promise on Chinese schools, to apply to him in Malaysia. So you cannot even look to Dr Mahathir's lips to say if he is telling the truth. The truth is what he decides it is at the moment of his telling. The theory of Dr Mahathir wanting the opposition to win in Ketari is not matched by reality. So, if DAP should win, the outcome is more serious than anyone could anticipate.

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