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An MCA manouevre in Penang shocks the Gerakan and the DPM

IF ONE SCRATCHES A LITTLE behind the news, one finds dirt, lots of it, of a kind we are told does not exist, not in the National Front (BN) paradise we are born lucky, so we are ordered to believe ad naseum, to live in. The average Malaysian does not believe any of this dirt as he wallows in his narrow world of absolute belief in his government and is on his high horse only when an old episode of his favourite TV programme is repeated when he expectantly awaits the next. The political skullduggery has therefore no place in the make-belief world we live in.

When the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, pole-valuted into Penang last month to demand the sacking, no less, of two MCA state assemblymen for abstaining on a routine opposition motion in the Penang state assembly, it raised eyebrows for he ignored every rule in how BN operates. From then on, it was a comedy of errors. The matter is resolved in the usual BN way, clumsily, the indefinite suspension evoking more horrors to its unity and the component parties ignoring the party constitution to demand that the MCA, in this case, could not be trusted to discipline its own members. The BN, in the end, turns out to be less than the sum of its coalition parties.

There is more. Gerakan, the BN partner which has run Penang for 30 years, and a consortium led by Dato' Seri Abdullah's son, Kamal, and the son-in-law of a Badawi acolyte, one Mokhzani Mahathir -- yes, you are right! Che Det's son -- are involved in two land deals each worth RM1 billion, in which the original owners are unhappy with how they are asked to give away title, although they were given government land of equal size in less desirable areas on the mainland in replacement. The two groups would in the end walk away with a clear profit of RM500 million each. For Gerakan, it would be a welcome windfall of the cash it needs for the coming general elections, and, let us not be coy about it, the enrichment of a few party leaders. For the Kamal-Mokhzani consortium, a bonus for who they are. It confirms the enduring principle of Malaysia Boleh! which hurtles this blessed land to bankruptcy and worse down the road.

The Penang Turf Club occupies about ten acres of prime land on the island, on Batu Gantung, which covetous eyes have wanted for years to turn into billions of ringgit in cash. The chief minister, Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon, asked the man who successfully transferred the Kuala Lumpur Turf Club grounds, where the KLCC now stands, to Sungei Besi, Mr T. Anantha Krishnan, to do that in Penang as well. He reluctantly agreed because the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, so wished it. But his heart was not in it.

As this pantomime played itself out, the Kamal-Mokhzani consortium stepped in with a bid to develop the turf club. Tan Sri Koh objected to this proposal, but not for long. He was offered a deal he could not refuse. The consortium bought out members of the turf club by buying their memberships for RM20,000, not by choice but with the usual heavy handedness. Tan Sri Koh was told Gerakan could have control of a large parcel of trust land in Burmah Road if the state would alienate a like area on the mainland to replace the trust land and the turf club land. As always, when big money is involved, the trustees were put to great pressure to agree. It was a deal both parties could benefit, with the loser the state, the trustees and the Penang Turf Club.

The underlying presumption here is that the Abdullah Badawi forces are in cahoots with Gerakan in Penang, reinforced by the land deals that would sustain itself in the post-Mahathir years. It was this the MCA disturbed when its two state assemblymen, in a power play of its own to seize control, that upset Dato' Seri Abdullah. The issue was the controversial RM1.2 billion 17 km-stretch of the Penang Outer Ring Road, which Tan Sri Koh and his state administration wants, but not the people nor anyone else who believe it is unnecesarily costly (at RM800 million a kilometre), destroys the environment, puts potentially dangerous pressures on the land and surroundings.

But reason and good sense have not prevented any BN government in the state and in the centre to modify a project if it means its cronies, siblings and courtiers stand to lose. The PORR is vehemently opposed by numerous NGOs, who have built an impressive network of local groups, and to which the Opposition political parties, especially the DAP, have latched on to. And the government is on the defensive. It is not a federal-funded project, even if Kuala Lumpur wants it to justify its equally expensive and tolled link roads between the mainland and the island.

The first tolled bridge -- as expensive and controversial when it was built -- is now considered inadequate, and a second is planned. In this mad rush to build the first bridge, no thought was given to ensure the island was ready to receive the influx. So, from the first day of the opening of the bridge, Penang has had traffic jams not even seen in the Klang Valley. Without resolving the internal traffic mess, and with PORR up and running, the second link cannot proceed. This is where Tan Sri Koh is pushed to the wall. When on a routine opposition motion in the Penang state assembly, at its last sitting, the two MCA state assemblymen opted out by abstaining, it brought all the fears, real and imagined, to the fore that necessarily forced Dato' Seri Abdullah to rush to Tan Sri Koh's aid.

Suddenly, it was not the minor matter of an irrelevant revolt. If that revolt was allowed to fester, more than seats and power would be lost for both the Gerakan and the deputy prime minister. What made it worse is that all parties in this conflict jumped into the fray, without having thought through its commitment, and having planned an escape route should matters fail. Decisions and plans are done not as it should, but on the belief that since it is a BN project it cannot fail. But it does. Every major project the BN is involved in, especially since Dr Mahathir became UMNO president and Malaysian prime minister in 1981, is a cropper. He was the oracle that superseded plans and projects, and if he said it would work, it would. So, it was believed. One barely noticed that a decade or so later, the government would pick up the pieces, and the billions of ringgit in debt these plans and projects ran up.

When the Mahathir years is accounted for, it would show not the enhancing of the Malaysian state, but one laddled with debt grandchildren of Malaysians now living cannot repay, with a standard of living far less than when he took over the reins of government in 1981. As his retirement approaches, every one of his policies have failed, or is about to, with the cost to the Treasury horrendous. His successor, or one we are told is, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is a less dominant figure than who he would, he expects, succeed, without the widespread support Dr Mahathir undoubtedly had and has. He is backed by a cabal more intent on seeing Dr Mahathir cut to size than to repair the damage he has caused. There is one man in the wings who could bring the country back to normal, but Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah shows no sign of emerging from his hermitage on Langgak Golf.

[I wrote this for my column in the 7 January 2003 issue of Seruan Keadilan, the official organ of Parti Keadilan Nasional]

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