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The New Cabinet Ministers: Badawi protesteth too much

Did the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, consult, let alone inform, the man who would succeed him in less than a year about the new cabinet appointments? Yes, he was informed and twice, says the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The Prime Miniter can appoint any one he wants, and who is he, as deputy prime minister, to question that? "Sometime ago, he informed me about his intention but said he had yet to find the right candidate. And recently, he told me he had made a decision and I agreed. He told me of his decision not only to fill the Second Finance Minister's post but also other vacancies in the Cabinet." Clearly annoyed he is asked about it, he retorts: "Why is it so important to ask that question? It is the prerogative of the Prime Minister to appoint anyone." In other words, he was not consulted, let alone informed, until after the fact. If he had been informed, his immediate advisers would not be telephone around to find more about it. However much he protests, for a man who is about to be prime minister, he is kept clueless by the man he would succeed in eleven months.

Two days ago (20 November 2002), the Prime Minister appointed two cabinet ministers and a deputy minister, all from his party, UMNO. They are his loyalists, there not for their competence or expertise but for an anti-Badawi, and anti-Anwar Ibrahim, faction in the cabinet when he is prime minister. All three are beholden to Malaysia's Tweedledum and Tweedledee: Dr Mahathir and the former finance miinister, Tun Daim Zainuddin. They had another link they would not like to be reminded of: the jailed deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, whom they deserted in 1998 when he was sacked and damned in a political ploy that even today, five years later, UMNO leaders must look over their shoulders for fear of what he and his backers have in store for them. It makes them all, in UMNO, very uncomfortable.

The Prime Minister appointed them without consulting UMNO, the National Front, his deputy prime minister, or anyone else. He invites all to take or lump it. Even if Dato' Seri Abdullah is so inclined, which he is not, he could not, except at huge political cost to himself, pardon or otherwise resolve the Anwar affair. As Dr Mahathir prepares for his swansong or, as some loyal backers naively hope, be dictator for life, the Anwar affair remains a miasma of contradictions. He is, like the Hermit of Langgak Golf aka Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, one who has, or has not, a political future. Events will determine which. But the political party he spawned, Parti Keadilan Nasional or Keadilan, especially after its merger with Parti Rakyat Malaysia -- disparate, disordered, disorganised -- is a potent threat to UMNO and its future, and frightens it no end. Dr Mahathir knows it only too well. His actions attest to it.

To hide one lie he has had to tell a thousand lies. It becomes clear as the Mahathir epoch comes to an end that there was a conspiracy to sink Dato' Seri Anwar politically. To be fair to Dr Mahathir, he did not want it the way it turned out. granted even the animus he had for his protege after his open revolt. But Dato' Seri Anwar had, and has, powerful enemies, notably Tun Daim, who used Dr Mahathir's shoulders to confront him. Once sucked into it, he became central to the conspiracy. It would have succeeded brilliantly if Dr Mahathir had not taken it personally, and removed him in a manner Malay feudal mores would not allow. He pays the price.

However vehemently Dr Mahathir and his conspirators deny it, there was a conspiracy. Just one episode will suffice. In 1998, before Dato' Seri Anwar's sacking, six men -- Two Tuns, two Tengkus, two Junids -- met in London. It was they who decided on the Khalid Jefri book, "Fifty Reasons why Dato' Seri Anwar cannot be PM". They are cabinet minister Tun Daim Zainuddin, former deputy prime minister, Tun Ghafar Baba, the new cabinet minister, Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, former cabinet minister, Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Ayob and the former cabinet minister and former mentri besar of Kedah, Tan Sri Sanusi Junid. Tengku Razaleigh, when I asked him about it at the time, said he was in London at the time and had run into them. Tan Sri Sanusi Junid was, and is, loyal to Dr Mahathir and has told me, he is "Dr Mahathir's Gurkha", that he has no animus towards Dato' Seri Anwar but in a clash between the two, it is Dr Mahathir he backs.

That that meeting took place is not in doubt. The six met even if all were not part of the conspiracy. What no one anticipated was Dato' Seri Anwar's spirited defence and how the ground reacted in revulsion towards UMNO and the Prime Minister. This is when Dr Mahathir lost control. Every political and administrative action since is not so he can move forward but to prevent the Anwar supporters from checkmating him. The years have worn him down. Far from governing the country, he is reduced to react in isolation and narrow the circle of governance to how he can remain in power unchallenged until he decides to call it a day. He cannot visit his constituency except in heavy security, as many in his cabinet and party. The underlying fear, as one senior UMNO apparatchik told me recently, is not knowing how they fare in their constituencies and divisions.

With this view comes another: make hay while the sun shines. It is every man for himself. Projects and plans for billions or ringgit are announced not for its relevance or utility but for the kickbacks that only the government insists is not paid. UMNO is short of funds, and needs to replenish its treasury. The huge war chest it had, running at one into several billions of ringgit, has disappeared. UMNO itself awaits its own demise. How else it not be otherwise when the government ignores it except when it cannot. What saves it is the utter disorientation of the Opposition. UMNO exists so one man can survive. So, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi protesteth too much about the new cabinet appointments. All his outburst showed is his continuing irrelevance in the government headed by Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed. He walks on hot coals with every move he makes. And Dr Mahathir does not mince his words when Dato' Seri Abdullah does something he does not like. One example again: the appointment of the some-time journalist, Dato' Khalimullah Hassan, as the new chairman of Bernama and who not so long ago was his financial advisor.

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