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UMNO sacks an editor-in-chief as its new president tightens his hold

THERE IS NOTHING SURPRISING at the immediate sacking last week (20 November 2003) of the New Straits Times Press group editor-in-chief, Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad or Dollah Kok Lanas as he is more well-known. The new UMNO president wants his own around in key positions. The NSTP is its public relations arm. Pak Lah does not want his predecessor's men around, certainly not a 'loose cannon' his aides believe Tan Sri Abdullah is. When I asked him at a diplomatic function early October, how long he had left at the NSTP. He enigmatically shrugged his shoulders. Within a month he is out. The official reason of a Saudi Arabian objection to an article he wrote about the monarchy is at best specious. The government, not UMNO, would have complained to the NSTP board. He was sacked after the UMNO management committee met. I heard of it a few hours later, in the middle of the night. Since the article appeared a week earlier, why this rush to sack a man without giving him a chance to be heard? He was in Hong Kong when he was sacked.

Pak Lah's advisers and media handlers looked aghast as DKL in the fading days and weeks of the Mahathir epoch decided to play the game which in the 1970s landed him in Kamunting under the Internal Security Act. He did not understand that when you are a combatant, you are like to get hurt. He decided instead to put in his oar to tell Pak Lah who his deputy should be. He is always an enigma in UMNO. His post-detention high profile is a plotter's hand to bring him back to centre-stage. One must not forget that in this Tun Razak-led plot to force the then Prime Minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, from office, two plotters were Tun Mahathir and DKL. He stayed in detention until a fortnight after Dr Mahathir took office in 1981. I have known him for more than three decades. His biggest failing is that he is not his own man, but a formidable behind-the-scenes operator who could frighten the opponents of whoever he works for into rigor mortis. When Tun Razak died in 1976, he was naked to the world, with no protection and no likelihood anyone would rush in to save him. His enemies, including the former home minister, Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, would see to that.

He decided, in his fading weeks and days at the NSTP, to strike a blow for the ancien regime and repay his debt to Tun Razak by pushing the claims of his son, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, as the new deputy prime minister. Pak Lah, rightly, thought it a needless interference. Indeed, this was the only reason given by the UMNO man-in-the-know who called me to tell me what happened. Knowing the man, he could well have planned his own departure. The different accounts of why he was sacked, and the second guessing within the Pak Lah camp about him is proof that in a perverse way DKL can hold his head high. Especially since the NSTP had improved beyond recognition during his editorship. It had gone a long way to reverse the sharp decline in circulation, and catch up with the Star, which is today the most profitable newspaper in Malaysia. He brought in different voices, views, and columnists. Occasionally, he even tried to be a good editor.

But he was there for his political reliability to whoever is UMNO president. When the trust disappears, he is out. As now. His term ended on 31 October 2003, when Dr Mahathir stepped down. On hindsight, he should have too. But he believed he could strike a deal with Pak Lah. How could he when it is political suicide for Pak Lah to be seen as a Mahathir holdover. He knew the musical chairs would begin soon enough, but I suspect he was shocked at the speed of his sacking. He can hold his high if only because he has been done in with a blunderbass not a rapier. That suggests Pak Lah did not expect it to happen so soon. A general election beckons, one which would put his leadership to the test, Pak Lah must have total control of the newspapers in UMNO's stable. Does he have the men to run it? I doubt it. He has to recycle old editors-in-chief or safe journalists who can be relied upon to demeam themselves as they praise UMNO and Pak Lah.

That is what happens when newspapers decide their role is to support the government, not as a conscious editorial decision but that the governing party owns it. The mainstream newspapers in Malaysia are all owned by groups linked to the governing BN coalition. The NSTP is one. DKL's strength is that he gave it a life of its own while he remained the lap dog of the Prime Minister of the day. He would have been a good man to have on Pak Lah's corner as he fought to be UMNO president. That is now not possible. DKL is not one who would fade away into the sunset. I can see him planning his next move. If Pak Lah is not careful, he could, in the right circumstances, be a formidable man to have crossed. Would the right circumstances come? Nothing in the horizon suggests it would! He forgot one important fact of life as an editor: his is a political appointment, there for a specific reason none of which has to do with his competence or flair as an editor. His is a political appointement which ends under a new UMNO president or he presumes to give him unasked advice.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com