MGG Pillai Commentary View

<< Previous || Next >>

The return of the prodigal leader

The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, returns from a holiday he had to take after a threat to resign, so recalcitrant UMNO delegates would ask him to stay on, backfired. He cried, resigned, and finding the delegates unenthusiastic about it, was persuaded to return. He left stealthily on holiday immediately after, like a thief in the night, and returns this morning (03 July 2002) to an engineered reception of 10,000 UMNO members to welcome him home. He travels out of the country at least twice a month (he leaves within a day for an official visit to Thailand), and such welcome homes are rare.

Unless it is to drive home that the Prime Minister is lord of all he surveys when he is not. Threatening to resign and cry is, for Dr Mahathir, routine at UMNO gatherings. This is not the first UMNO general assembly he has cried. He succeeds because in the Malay worldview, having an elder, especially the feudal leader, if proof not of his failings but of their "kurang ajar" that he had to. He understands the Malay psyche so well and leads them by the nose with such applomb. But one can cry wolf once too often. As he.

This UMNO welcome charade to assure him more than Malaysians Dr Mahathir Mohamed is as strong as ever masks the reality of an UMNO palace coup. The reality of that sunk in after he was escorted to an antechamber at the PWTC conference hall, where the UMNO general assembly was held. His wife, Datin Seri Siti Hasmah Ali, thought something amiss and ordered a doctor to attend to him. During his sojourn overseas, UMNO all but ignored him. The Malaysian media consigned him to an oblivion normally reserved for opposition leaders. UMNO leaders meanwhile pop up ever so often to say he is indispensible, a makebelief that maskes the UMNO acceptance he is thoroughly dispensible. As others, like Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, his resignation wishes must be respected. If Dr Mahathir was in control, the Hermit of Langgak Golf would have kept his silence.

Dr Mahathir is too shrewd a political strategist and tactician to believe he could continue in office for another 15 months as powerful as he was. When a retirement is pegged to a distant event, in his case the OIC summit, it is proof of his current political impotence. But UMNO cannot admit it. Malaysians and Malays do not discuss issues in depth, so the mainstream media strains to insist, in treacle, how indespensible he is, so it could consign him to history's black hole. The longer he stays on, the sooner the feudal pressures on him. >From now on, his foreign official visits would be to keep him out of the country not because he wants to.

The 10,000-strong rent-a-crowd UMNO brings to the RMAF Subang base at Subang is to show Dr Mahathir he is loved. A T-shirt is promised to any in the Klang Valley who joins this crowd when Dr Mahathir's private aircraft touches down. He would hold a press conference to which local and foreign journalists are invited. There is a need to assure the world he is in control, but Malaysians know he has had his wings drastically clipped. If he had not resigned and is at the height of his powers, as UMNO leaders pretend he is, why this need for Malaysians to be told he is as popular as ever? The diplomatic corps, by and large, believe his resignation was a brilliant "sandiwara", that he had no thought to resign, and is as strong as ever. But then how could an ambassador, after glowing reports to his foreign ministry, of a man so absolutely in power say he is a washout in the next? One told me the Old Man would return to power with relative ease as before. He is not alone.

But Dr Mahathir is prevented from returning to centre stage after his resignation charade, and all his statements in the crucial 16 hours before he left on holiday, were through Dato' Seri Abdullah. UMNO leaders could not trust him not to make a fool of himself on stage if he returned from his abberation; besides, his family was concerned he was so sick he needed medical attention. That he did not return after his breakdown -- which was not how he wanted it -- put paid to his dominant role in UMNO and Malaysian politics. Opposing a feudal leader is treachery, which is why Malays would not overthrow a leader who wants to stay on. When they are fed up with him, they sit on the fence, as UMNO now of his leadership, and go in for the kill only when it is safe to do so. And most dangerous for a feudal leader. This was how Tengku Abdul Rahman and Tun Hussein Onn, the first and third prime ministers, were forced out. Dr Mahathir is as vulnerable as the two at the point of their dismissal.

Most do not understand the prevailing cultural conditions which prevent his return. Dr Mahathir survived as long for he governed as a Malay feudal leader. When he fell foul of his fedual obligations, his decline began. He survived by a ruthlessness in politics as shrewdly as Mr Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, the knuckle duster continuing his rule long after his feudal grip was no more. He humiliated his designated successor. His second was to talk to the Malays as an uncouth "kurang ajar", telling them bluntly to wallow in their oldfashioned world and be marginalised.

(To be fair to him, he referred to the crony Malays who shortchanged him; but that does not excuse him, for his criticisms showed a man who showed his lack of breeding in what he said.) This put paid to any pretense he could continue in office. He will stay on. He is so involved in what went wrong that it is as tedious for him to retract as advance. The knives are out for him. The fight to succeed him is the only game in town. Every one expects the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, to succeed him. The longer Dr Mahathir clings to office, the more difficult it would be for Dato' Seri Abdullah. All that matters now is when he would leave. And that could be sooner than later.

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