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Is Malay power sustainable as UMNO declines in political power?

THE NATIONAL FRONT (BN) system is strained. In fear. An important Indian group, the Indian Progressive Party (IPF), could not join the BN because the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) fears its potential strength. The recent Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) leadership crisis could not be resolved except in how it was. The president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, had to resign, but he could not be succeeded by any other than his designated successor. Again, in fear. When Dato' Leo Moggie is forced out as president of his Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS), he should have resigned as cabinet minister. No, says the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, and the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Party leaders can be kicked out by the members, but it is the Prime Minister who decides who would be in his cabinet. He could not care less if who he selects has no role in the party he represents in his government. The BN Prime Minister changes the rules as he likes, for fear of what could happen if he followed them.

The UMNO president, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, could not have allowed the changes for that could redound on how UMNO conducts its affairs. The status quo is opted in fear. But it makes nonsense of the BN rule that the individual parties nominate its candidates for cabinet and other office. Dr Mahathir and Pak Lah now says the Prime Minister could defy the parties since cabinet ministers are appointed as individuals not as party officials. The UMNO president is fearful for if he could not, it could force him to change UMNO cabinet ministers even if he does not want to. So, he hopes only the status quo matters. At the cost of the the old BN consensus.

That is not the only change. Dr Mahathir made it clear he does not expect the cabinet to resign with him in October. There is no need, he says, making nonsense of the cabinet government we follow. This makes it difficult for Pak Lah to reconstitute his cabinet when he is Prime Minister. Anyone he wants retired could well mount a challenge from within, and his election as UMNO president, as almost certainly he would be challenged, is tougher than he anticipates. But it also gives Pak Lah a way out. He can name whom he likes from the BN parties. Indeed, if he wants to control the BN, he must. He can replace the party representatives in his cabinet with others, since the principle in Dato' Leo Moggie's case justifies it. But would it keep BN together.

Revolt is already in their minds. In the contretemps between Dr Ling and Pak Lah over the MCA presidency, Dato' Seri Ong bluntly told Pak Lah that if they did not have their way, they could well join the Opposition. UMNO is weak enough to be frightened of that. But could MCA, however strong it is, survive in the Opposition? No. Its success depends on being close to, and in, the levers of powers. But the Ong threat should not be taken lightly. The MCA looks at its future more seriously than UMNO does, and it must see the writing on the wall. If UMNO goes, all those backing it would too.

What Dato' Seri Ong did was to express an opinion current at all levels in the party that it must look elsewhere for its political future. But the party leaders are not strong enough to take such a drastic step. And if Pak Lah decides to make an issue of it, as he must if he is to show he is charge, the MCA and even the MIC has no case to answer. If Pak Lah were to use the Leo Moggie example and decide to appoint the MIC deputy president, Dato' Seri S. Subramaniam, as a cabinet minister and drop Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, the MIC could do nothing about it.

UMNO and BN reacts in fear of its own ground because they decided power was its own strength and should be held as undemocratically as possible. That power is now devalued. The Malay ground, which is what matters, is dissipated, UMNO humiliated one of its chieftains in ways Malay cultural mores would not allow, and pays the price for it. UMNO has not recovered from that, nor has it attempted to right that wrong. The former UMNO deputy president, Tan Sri Musa Hitam, thought, after the 1999 general elections, the Anwar Ibrahim affair had so shaken the party that it could not survive the second election after it. UMNO could well disappear, he said.

In 1987, the then UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Sanusi Junid, provoked a wider theory of the decline of Malay power. In his thesis, which he spoke at length up and down the country amidst the impending split in UMNO then, Malay power had steadily declined, in 18-year cycles, since the four Malay states of Yala, Narathiwat, Songkhla and Pattani were ceded to Thailand in 1897. In 1915, the Malay states accepted the institution of British advisers. In 1933, British policy, after the Big Slump, encouraged the Chinese to come in as business men, the Indians as labourers and clerks, and the Malays were encouraged to be farmers. In 1951, PAS was formed. In 1969, were the racial riots. In 1987, the UMNO split. Malay power, he argued, could end in 2005.

This controversial thesis upset many in UMNO. The formation of UMNO was irrelevant but not of PAS. Both Tun Ghafar Baba and Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, when deputy prime minister, disagreed with him for they thought it would come to fruit during their Prime Ministership. That was not to be. Pak Lah that must grapple with it. Theories like these cannot fit into a pattern of 18 years just because it did in the early years. One should look at this decade that could destroy that Malay power. Be that as it may, there is a similarity between Tan Sri Musa's thesis and Tan Sri Sanusi's. The Malay Tan Sri Sanusi talks of is the cultural Malay not the theocratic Malay of PAS. And he looks at UMNO as the archetypal cultural Malay. But there is a transformation within PAS which pits the cultural Malay, a refugee from UMNO and other Malay parties, with the theocratic wing, and the outcome of this Malay fight for hegemony and continued rule would depend on that than UMNO's own internal convulsions over it. UMNO made a mistake to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state. By that, it lost the advantage of dictating policy. Its dissonance over the casino licences in Bukit Tinggi and in Pulau Tioman is only one of many confrontations it could not overcome.

Could UMNO survive without drastic reforms? No. Could Pak Lah and his camp undertake them? No. They do not think about it, except esoterically and in passing. Can UMNO be reformed? Yes. By a leader who comes in with no purpose than to set matters right. It has to be someone uninvolved in the mess of the Mahathir years, who is prepared to court enemies, political and personal, to shake up UMNO and the government so dramatically that he cannot survive more than one term in office. But one term is enough to set the course right. Is there such a person? Yes. Would he take the bait? Not the last time I spoke to him. What next, then?

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