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A KeADILan defection to UMNO that is not

UMNO HAS IN RECENT months did what it always does before an election: get opposition members to cross over, who would attack the leaders of the party they defected from, the newspapers would give it the publicity, the Malaysians will think, or UMNO hopes they would, the Opposition parties cannot be trusted. The dark side to it, never mentioned, is what UMNO paid to get them across. Where once, especially in Sabah, millions of ringgit changed hands, today it is rarely more than RM50,000 and a promise of more after the election. The economy is good, but there is no money, small cash problems that is only too normal these days. Several of those who crossed over often found, to their horror, that the promise is often not fulfilled. There is no principle involved, often the stated reason to defect is their inability to get on with party leaders or the sudden unprincipled belief that UMNO is what it claims, and they are happy to be part of it.

What is not mentioned, there is traffic the other way, often far larger than UMNO's claims of its opposition recruits, but they are rarely mentioned. So, it does not surprise that 70 National Justice Party (KeADILan) leaders and members crossed over to UMNO. But unlike in the past, it gave UMNO more trouble than it now is worth. First 12 walked over, followed by the 58. The dozen would have been a catch in the past. This time it questioned UMNO's motives, especially one who refused to defect squealed about the sordid money transactions leading to it. That reduced the impact of the defections.

The UMNO acting deputy president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, who was midwife to the defections, realised he had made a mistake, and told his staff the dozen are "useless" and of "no worth to UMNO". The other 58 were non-entities even in KeADILan and helped only to add to the numbers. Several in fact had resigned from the party or had not renewed their membership and technically were not KeADILan members. So that fell flat. UMNO needs a high profile defector. The New Straits Times yesterday (28 February 2004, p7) reported the KeADILan vice-president and Kedah state assemblyman for Lunas, Mr Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, could well defect to UMNO. This is why he had met the Prime Minister and UMNO president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Sources told the NST he had "declared to Abdullah that he was ready to jump ship", that he is "said to be disillusioned" with the Opposition.

His UMNO past is brought up for favourable mention: he was a "staunch" UMNO supporter, an assistant secretary of UMNO youth "who was expelled from UMNO on Oct 6, 1998 for taking part in anti-UMNO activities and later joined KeADILan". How could a staunch UMNO member be expelled for anti-UMNO activities? But let us not quibble over it. The report further states that he "has campaigned aggressively" to reinstate Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim as deputy prime minister and UMNO deputy president. To make this defection feasible, the NST adds that a KeADILan 'bigwig' would defect. Then it puts the knife in with a gratuitous comment: With general elections due soon, even KeADILan leaders believe the party is a spent force and would not hold its own at the polls. So, it infers but does not say so outright that Mr Saifuddin has seen the light and would join UMNO.

There is only one problem with this report. It is untrue. Mr Saifuddin did not call on Pak Lah to talk about joining UMNO. He had gone to request Pak Lah's help to allow Dato' Seri Anwar get urgent medical attention. The medical specialists had warned the director of Sungei Buloh prison of Dato' Seri Anwar's deteriorating medical condition, but his hands were tied. Only the Minister of Home Affairs could allow it. Since Mr Saifuddin is still on good terms with Pak Lah, Dato' Seri Anwar asked him to request permission for treatment. Mr Saifuddin agreed to keep the meeting with Pak Lah secret. He kept his promise until the NST report yesterday. His aides clearly did not think so, and tried to impute into the meet what was not.

Pak Lah, at the meeting, said the Anwar matter is not for him to decide. It is a matter between his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, and Dato' Seri Anwar. He would not interfere. Does this mean he would not to right a wrong of his predecessor? Or that he is still beholden to his retired successor? Or that what is Tun Mahathir's preserve continues to be his, even if he cannot do a thing about it, as in this instance of Dato' Seri Anwar's medical treatment? Besides, he said Dato' Seri Anwar had once dismissed him, when in political limbo, as "ikan kering" (dried fish). But the prisoner in Sungei Buloh insists he said no such thing.

No, he would not interfere or use his discretion to allow the request for medical attention. Dato' Seri Anwar is faking his illness, showed photographs of him in his cell apparently walking about with ease, and he saw no reason to intervene. The courts and the police, not he, would decide. And this is now in limbo. The prison director cannot act because the home minister would not; neither would the police and the courts. Besides, Pak Lah insists Dato' Seri Anwar caused his own misfortune, and gets what he deserves. So he would not get the medical treatment he needs. And that is that. They met for about an hour, between 7.30 and 8.30 pm on Friday, 27 February 2004. They could well have bantered about Mr Saifuddin about joining UMNO, as Pak Lah often has in past meetings with him. But how does that become a fact that it was the main item in the radio and television network news yesterday?

So another general election comes after his arrest in 1998. The National Front (BN) and UMNO has decided, for this general election, he is a spent force. But both cannot understand why, on the ground, especially in the Malay heartland, he remains a potent issue. They cannot understand how, from his prison cell, he is still a potent symbol of resistance. He is also the architect of UMNO's lack of focus in Malaysian politics. Every effort to sideline him as a political figure and icon has failed. They have decided, rightly, that KeADILan is his vehicle, but not that it is also the successor to what UMNO once was for the Malays who believed in Malay culture in which Islam played an important but not a dominant part. With the Democratic Action Party (DAP) shooting itself in the foot, the non-Malays move to KeADILan. To UMNO, KeADILan is the more dangerous, in the short term, than PAS. So, it has to be destroyed. Hence this concern for high-ranking defectors. But if you scratch the defectors, you would find, as former UMNO stalwarts, they had bank loans owing in the millions. The threat is clear: if they did not defect, the banks would make them bankrupt and worse. But the BN and UMNO still does not have the edge. One can understand their frustration. Is that why false news of defections take pride of place in local news broadcasts and in mainstream newspapers? Meanwhile, Pak Lah is reported in the Star today (29 February 2004) that this is a rumour; but the NST, owned and controlled by UMNO, however said nothing about it.

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