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Pak Lah, a new DPM and a professional in tow, prepares for general election

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has appointed a deputy prime minister (on 7 January 2004) and a professional to his recycled Cabinet. He wanted Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin but had to settle for Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak. The former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, whose choice Dato' Seri Najib is, also wanted his economic adviser in office, Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcob, as second finance minister, and so he is. Two key men in two key positions - and both not Pak Lah's choice. If that is not a burden enough, Pak Lah reappoints the Mahathir cabinet, with more than half past their sell-by date. He makes a few cosmetic changes but otherwise left the team as it is. Tan Sri Nor Mohamed is the only new appointment.

But this is enough for the National Front (BN) and UMNO publicity machine to work doubly hard to show Pak Lah could not have done better. The superlatives flew fast and furious. There could not be a better team than Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib. Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcob is, we are told, the ultimate professional's professional, so precious that he would remain in the cabinet through the Senate, and not do what politicians must, nurse a constituency and stand for elections. As if on cue, all BN leaders, their jobs at stake if they dissent, rose to the occasion, singing praises of the new cabinet. One BN leader, past his sell-by date by a decade and not a Pak Lah favourite, did not join in.

The minor cabinet changes are nothing to write home about. Tan Sri Muhiyuddin goes to agriculture where as a new broom he has instant plans for a better deal for the farmers. It is a dead end for him. His place in domestic trade and consumer affairs is taken by Dato' Jamaluddin, who sees it as a promotion since he now has a ministry to administer whereas he was only the second finance minister. The agriculture minister, Dato' Effendi Nawawi, moves to the Prime Minister's Department, that trash can for those cabinet ministers the Prime Minister does not know what to do with.

The mainstream newspapers are full of why the Pak Lah Cabinet is the most perfect. But they are written to convince themselves, not the readers. One would have thought Pak Lah would have used the occasion to present his plans for the future. But all he did was to join in the exaggerated praise for his new deputy prime minister and second finance minister. Missed in this euphoria of sycophancy is why if Tan Sri Nor Mohamed is the ultimate professional, he is the second, not the first, finance minister. His great claim to fame at Bank Negara Malaysia is how he caused Malaysia an ultimate loss of RM33 billion in the 1990s, when he gambled on the international currency markets.

He is praised as he is because Pak Lah's remarks that as a professional, he need not bother about elections and petty UMNO politics, has not gone down well with the UMNO ground, pointing to electoral trouble ahead. But he is not the first senator so appointed. So far, besides emphasising he is a professional, and the currency deal that went sour was not his responsibility alone, that he acted under orders, he has yet to give a convincing appraisal of his plans to turn this country's fiscal policies around. His role, in the present set-up, is no more than be the fall-guy for the first finance minister. He will learn that soon enough. If he is all Pak Lah says he is, why does he not give up the finance ministry to him?

Pak Lah has a tall order to fulfill. His first act is to prepare for general election. He could not cull the Mahathir cabinet for fear those dropped could turn against him. He is unsure of his ground. He must strengthen it before he can act decisively. Now he has an added burden: he is now viewed as a Mahathir puppet. But he cannot postpone the general election. He must hold it before the UMNO party elections in June so he could present himself at the UMNO general assembly as a Prime Minister in his own right. He would undoubtedly be returned even with a two-thirds majority, but he must ensure that PAS should not gain more ground. PAS hopes to form the government in at least one more state besides Kelantan and Trengganu. Three BN-run states are said to be shaky. But the BN could assuage the loss of one state if, so many think, it can retake Trengganu from PAS. The BN is better organised than the Opposition. The Opposition coalition is still ad hoc - for no reason than the BN government would not allow it to be registered - group of parties led by PAS. But it cannot be written off. It prepares now for the future, which is what few political parties in Malaysia do.

Looking farther ahead, Pak Lah has bought him some time. Dato' Seri Najib had threatened to stand against Pak Lah for the UMNO presidency if he is not appointed the deputy prime minister. Now he would not. But he can expect to be challenged for the deputy presidency. As it now stands, so would Pak Lah. Unless he wins so handsomely in the general election that that would give him the right to his own term as UMNO president. But if he stumbles to the UMNO election, Pak Lah also could be challenged.

What is strange about this is that his mind is centred on what UMNO and the Malays think of him, but his public attention is on the Chinese community. The Malay ground is split, after the Anwar Ibrahim episode, and cannot be depended upon. That does not give PAS comfort either. For the Malay sits on the sidelines, waiting to see who would gain the upper hand before he chooses. UMNO is burdened with its former, and present, leader's assault on Malay cultural traditions. That would remain so long as Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim is in jail. It does not matter, as is argued persuasively by UMNO leaders and others, that he is forgotten, and has no role in Malaysian politics. Even if he should be released, it would be five years more before he could play a role. But this is to miss the point. He could be written off in Malaysian politics, but he remains an unwelcome ghost in every UMNO discussion. He has re-engineered himself as Malaysia's Nelson Mandela. That is not to UMNO's gain.

The Malaysian youth of all races are, on the main, not in tune with the BN political parties of their community. The youth in each community is alienated from his communal party in BN. Tun Mahathir did not heed the warnings, and used the stick to keep them in line. The universities are in ferment that few UMNO leaders can venture into the campuses in most Malaysian universities. There are not enough Chinese and Indians in them to protest at the MCA or MIC leaders, but the two parties accept the dangers without knowing how to come to terms with them. It is one thing to say they are the hope of tomorrow, another to accept the reality that the hope of tomorrow, well qualified as he is, cannot get a job. About 100,000 university graduates cannot get a job, and the number is rising with each year. This is not so high as to put the BN into a corner, but in time, perhaps at the election after the next, it would.

Pak Lah has to shake out of his lethargy and act firmly and decisively. He has yet to. He had a chance to put his mark with his Cabinet. He chose not to. There is a different Malaysian out there. He will insist on being consulted, and his views asked, and would not accept what is told him without question. The voter today is different from one a decade ago. He is faced with a multitude of problems and unresolved issues for which there are no solutions, he is harrassed and marginalised every day of the year by the authorities, and he is at the point of revolt. The BN's good luck is that he has not reached breaking point, as the Iraqis have at the American occupation. But it showed a frightening side during the "reformasi" demonstrations before and after Dato' Seri Anwar was arrested in 1998. That remains in the background, and could yet come to the forefront if the people's anger continues unabated.

It is not Pak Lah that is the issue. It is the BN government. Tun Mahathir personalised it into his government. He is gone. Pak Lah heads the BN government and it is the BN government that would take the praise or blame for what happens. Tun Mahathir distanced himself from the people, and that allowed him to be imperious as he was throughout his 22 years in office. Pak Lah, more down to earth, cannot behave as such. But on him stands the future of BN and UMNO. He cannot afford to fail. For it would destroy more than him. If the BN and UMNO is to remain in power, he must come down to earth. So far there is no sign of that.

[This is my column in Harakah, the PAS organ, in its latest issue out today, 13 January 2004]

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