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A Prime Minister With Much On His Mind

He could not in 21 years, but he must in 16 months. He retires in 16 months, but he must select candidates for a general elections where he may not be a candidate. He must revise the constitutionally guaranteed Malay special privileges, but he must make haste slowly: "If we do things without thinking of the consequences, it will be retrogressive." UMNO is in dire straits, the Malay inveighs against it for a cultural hurt that hurtles it into political oblivion. But the Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, is not easily fazed. No one believes or follows him, but the form that he is in control is nurtured evey morning of the year. The newspapers discuss his thoughts and his actions as if he is ruler of all he surveys, that he remains the force he was, with the power to decide the deputy prime minister's deputy prime minister and what policies and strategies his successor ought to, must, follow.

So, the UMNO supreme councillor and the Hermit of Langgak Golf, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, cannot think of a fairer man in Malaysia who could decide on which BN party gets which constituency to contest, and the candidate to go with it. He is so fair, says the Tengku, that none should dispute his decision. As the National Front (BN) chairman, it is his right. Questioning it is "derhaka", he implies. But none need worry. A formula is agreed, one that is fairness itself. He echoes Dr Mahathir's own advice to BN parties that he should be obeyed on this without question. He knows what is best for UMNO, BN, Malaysia. Those who disagree are traitors. There is much on his plate, so much to do and so little time, that he rides at speed to do what he must before he retires. He does not trust his successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and UMNO, to initiate policies he could not, so he must. Malay privileges is one. Islam as the official religion another. He is worried when he leaves his successors may have a different agenda. That would destroy what he wrought. That he cannot allow.

Besides, the Malay ground is not so enamoured of UMNO as he wants it to. He must take credit for that. What frightens UMNO and him is that that cultural hurt -- the dismissal, humiliation, jailing of a former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim -- is subsumed now in a larger cultural angst. PAS leads it in the absence of a cultural leader. The Pendang and Anak Bukit bye-elections affirmed it. PAS challenges it so vehemently that UMNO must wish it had more time to campaign. But it cannot extend the fortnight's campaigning during elections. For if it does, it blinks. Besides, the opposition would welcome the longer campaign. That UMNO could not wrest the Anak Bukit state assembly constituency in Kedah, and with it to wrest the two-thirds majority it lost in an earlier bye-elections is a body blow to its hold on the Kedah electorate. It is also where Dr Mahathir has his home. Should Dr Mahathir stand for re-election, he must anticipate a result that would destroy his political and cultural standing for ever.

But Dr Mahathir misread the signs. He should have walked away when he, in pique, resigned in his final remarks to the UMNO general assembly in June. But he has made himself the primary and central object of Malaysia's political and social system in which all else, including the sanctity of the state, is irrelevant and self-serving. The BN is caught in a warp, unable to adjust and change, for in his personalised rule, he reduced the institutions of the state and the party to rubble, without replacing them.

When in his personalised rule, he became the demagogue a' la Sukarno, administration went out the window. What is said was right, even if wrong. Parliament is reduced to a rubber stamp which the government consults if it is in the mood to. Government is run without Parliamentary oversight, as it spends of tens of billions of ringgit in development and privatisation projects. Putra Jaya, billed as Malaysia's new capital, is built without Parliamentary oversight, the funds coming from an off-budget agency, Petronas. None mentions it is not a capital but a gamble that the underlying land would rise in price so high that profit could be made, its development as skewed as, say, the Bakun hydroelectric project. There is no accountability, and no one cares if there is.

The BN government looks upon it as unchallengeable. With it comes an arrogance lower down, and a civil service which feathers its own nest and ignores what they are paid to do: to be of service of Malaysians. It is now an inalienable pattern to issue a departmental instruction in the morning only to have it revised and corrected in the afternoon. If routine circulars must be revised as soon as it is issued, is it any wonder more weighty policies are adopted only to be amended as quickly. No one discusses issues any more, not even those who must initiate and implement them.

Look at how English is forced into the school curriculum. The Prime Minister decided it must, the UMNO supreme council decided it could only be to teach science and mathematics, the government accepted that, and it now policy. No one has worked out what it cost, how it could be implemented, how effective it could be, if even mathematics and science could be taught with the Esperanto English that is the officially encouraged norm. In this English, encouraged by Dr Mahathir himself when he was education minister, in 1975, "I go Singapore" or "I sleeping now" is correct; the nuances that come with "I shall go to Singapore" or "I ought to go to Singapore" or "I shall sleep" or "I think I had better sleep" missed. No one is interested, then and now, if it is. One Old Man decided it must be, so it is. Whether it could or not.

When power is personalised as in Malaysia, it is transferred to the new leader, who must use it to strengthen himself or be cast aside. Dr Mahathir personified this power and arrogated to him the right to decide what the Malay and non-Malay must be. It is not for them to decide what they want. It is for him and him only. It worked so long as he was accepted as Prime Minister. Malaysians are at best lemmings who pledge their last dollar on a man who would lead them to Valhalla. He convinced them he would, and they followed him without thinking into this mad rush to certain suicide. We do not argue our premises as we must, thinking is hard work and could get you into trouble, so let others think for us. The Prime Minister is not averse to threaten political opponents if he is disobeyed or challenged -- the Operation Lallang arrests 14 years ago, the peremptory arrests of those who distort his worldview, the recent ISA arrests of opposition figures, and, of course, the fate of Dato' Seri Anwar -- but he realises now that when underlying assumptions are challenged, it is trouble. As now.

UMNO behaves as now for it knows not what to do. The new UMNO president, and Prime Minister, must unravel the mess Dr Mahathir leaves behind. The longer Dr Mahathir delays his departure, the more difficult for his successor. But he also knows that UMNO political wolves bay for his blood. The political pressures mesh in with an administration gone to pot that can only weaken his hand. The succession is not smooth, and cannot be if Dr Mahathir continues to second-guess him. Dr Mahathir's greatest service to UMNO and Malaysia was to have gone quietly when he resigned. That he did surprised even him. It shocked his successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and others. He could not leave now without a civil war for the succession. He knows it. UMNO knows it. Dato' Seri Abdullah could not, he knew, yet take over.

So what we see is a shadow play for the public to be lulled into a confident stupor amidst behind-the-scenes manoeuvring for a sellable modus vivendi. It is not to show how powerful Dr Mahathir is but, paradoxically, to sell the idea that he is the cause of UMNO's current misfortunes. It is important now for UMNO and the power seekers that he stay. Which is why he is lauded as irreplaceable. For UMNO knows more than ever that the edifice could well collapse if he should depart. But he cannot be allowed to continue for 16 months. If UMNO misreads it, it would not be long before its president is His Majesty's Leader of the Opposition.

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