MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Pak Lah struggles for a voice that continues to elude

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, still struggles for a voice. He makes promises and orders on the fly, but with little to show for it. His anti-corruption campaign is dead. It cannot be otherwise, unless he is prepared to have too many high ranking and politically important UMNO leaders face the music. He has yet to find his ground, the victory that was to be his is mired in controversy and doubt that his National Front (BN) victory in the March general election could not benefit from it. His government drifts as surely as his predecessor's on its last days, and a belief that all is well because Pak Lah says so. His overwhelming victory is his albatross: the chances he wants to make he cannot, for fear that those he drops could be powerful opponents. So he makes statements that mean little or nothing, but dressed up as the most signficant ever. The mainstream newspapers exaggerate its importance by giving it front page treatment.

So, it did not surprise when he called on the Royal Commission on the Police Force to start putting its "ideas" into action immediately. Good suggestions should be accepted, and implemented, if they can be without amending laws. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Lim Kit Siang, accepts it with alacrity. How did this come about? The Royal Commission chairman, Tun Dzaiddin Abdullah, suggested it when he met the IGP, Dato' Seri Mohamed Bakri Omar, and other senior police officers, and relayed what they had received. This seems to be out of line. The Royal Commission is not at liberty to talk about its hearings before it presents its report to the Yang Dipertuan Agung. Pak Lah, by suggesting it, is out of line. Whatever comes out should be in the report when it is submitted and published. The conditions of the Commission would have been clearly spelt out; there is no provision for its findings to be enforced in stages. Besides, must the Royal Commission share its preliminary findings with the police in the course of its investigations? What the Commission unearths is nothing new. The police know of it. Why cannot it do so on its own bat, and no demean the Royal Commission needlessly.

The Royal Commission was set up in December to meet rising charges of corruption, brutality and indifferent behaviour in the police force. But as is usual in Malaysia it was not properly thought out, and its members were drawn from NGOs and others, besides a smattering of officialdom's brightest and the best, but a group nevertheless that does not have a clue to what is expected of it. Nothing since suggests it is meant to improve what it aims for. But the BN government is caught in its own propaganda. It cannot act decisively, as it must, without the political dangers emanating from the UMNO elections later this year. The extraordinary success in the general elections has made it more so. No changes can be made if it causes a drift away from Pak Lah's attempt to be UMNO president. So, all that matters is what the leader can get away with. He always can. What he says is the Gospel. No one would challenge it. But that it sometimes makes him look a fool is ignored.

But it is this that makes him look so bad. He drowns in his own success. He is too unsure in his seat to take the firm actions he must. And so he resorts to platitudes and aimless plans and ideas. As if to suggest that if his name appears in the newspapers every day, it suggests he is doing a good job. It would for a while. But when he keeps resorting to this, and his ministers follow suit, it reveals a government run out of ideas, strength, and mortified by the monumental tasks ahead of him. When this is combined with mishandling, as in the southern Thai episode, when the Thai prime minister, Mr Thaksin Shinawatra, had to force himself upon Pak Lah to brief him of events there. He was let down also by his foreign minister, Dato' Seri Syed Abdul Hamid Albar, who was caught flatfooted when the crisis broke out, and never did recover from it.

The infighting within UMNO, in the cabinet and without, is so fierce that little can be done. The prime minister and his deputy are at loggerheads, with each looking at a different direction, and often are forced into positions to strengthen themselves than the government or the party. The animosity between the forces of Pak Lah and his deputy, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, is too entrenched to be dismissed as a fable. The rigor mortis in the cabinet is the norm: the ministers do not read their briefs, but decide on policy on what is explained to them in formal briefings. These briefings cannot be relied upon for accuracy if only because these are occasions for civil servants to impress on their ministers on the need for more funds for projects, often the same funds the Treasury had rejected when compiling the budget. The ministers want to hit their new portfolios running, and quickly vomit what they are told to gullible reporters, who faithfully report it. What they reveal is a discordant cabinet in which individual cabinet ministers want their own way.

But this is not Pak Lah's only difficulty. He has problems with the mentris besar too. The view within the BN and UMNO is he is weak, has yet to find his ground, does not use his clout to put the leaders in line. And these leaders, dubbed the warlords, are not prepared to let Pak Lah have his way. It is more serious than I describe it. For the longer Pak Lah desists controlling them, the more difficult he would find after he is formally installed. Already the first signs of rebellion are evident: there is talk of challenge. The UMNO supreme council does not want the two top positions to be challenged; but enough leaders think they must be. It is proving to be intractible. Pak Lah however stays out of the fray. This is a big mistake. He is letting go by default. His deputy, Dato' Seri Najib, is a good man to have in a crisis. And he could help Pak Lah strengthen his position. But he is distrusted. And so the leaders wander headless into the looming crisis Malaysia is headed for. All this is ignored, and all that matters is "look good" statements that mean nothing, or implementing policies that should not require a royal commission to point out.

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