MGG Pillai Commentary View

<< Previous || Next >>

A detribalised band of Malay Oxbridge graduates holds Pak Lah to ransom

THERE IS NO DOUBT: The most powerful 28-year-old is an Oxbridge graduate with the brilliant foresight to be son-in-law of the Prime Minister. Or at least he was, until his arrogance and his belief that he is God's great gift to Malaysia, for which Malaysians must be eternally grateful, got the better of him. There is no doubt about his qualities: he is brilliant, he is well connected, he upset the UMNO and civil service heirarchy in a much overdue shakeup, his word the last in his father-in-law's office. But he has also the impetuousness of youth, a brilliant Malaysian version of the hapless 21-year-old Lynddie England leading a naked Iraqi prisoner by the leash in Abu Ghraib prison. He stepped on too many toes in his rush to fulfill his declared aim - as he told the television crew of NTV 7 some time ago before their interview with him - of being deputy prime minister before he is 40 and prime minister eight years later. No wonder than that he collects enemies as a dog collects flies. He flaunted his power when and where he could, collecting political enemies for his father-in-law who, to limit the damage, asked those he had, or could not refuse, to meet, to go through a senior civil servant in his office.

Who is this young man who so effortlessly shot himself in the foot? He had had a charmed life. But he is not what we are told he is. The New Sunday Times, long a chronicler of the UMNO president but now a mere amenuansis for Pak Lah, lists his accomplishments in its edition of 16 May 2004: economist (he is not; he has a degree in economics, which does not make him an economist); journalist (he is not); brilliant resolver of Malay-Chinese issues (he is not); is on the UMNO Youth executive committee (nominated, not elected; but then UMNO Youth knows only too well on which side its bread is buttered). He would have stood for parliament in Rembau, Negri Sembilan, in this year's general elections but Pak Lah thought he should not yet (wrong again: the state UMNO objected most strongly to it, and Pak Lah decided, on reflection, discretion is the better part of valour). It puts a stirring defence of this young man who is adrift because anything he touches now would redound on his father-in-law. It has a point, but it cannot be sustained if only because it is too weak, too self-serving, too late. And, in one sense, dishonest. What this account ignored is how this young man wielded himself into the most powerful young man in the Pak Lah administration. He moved in five short years from special assistant to the deputy prime minister, to political secretary to the prime minister, to the civil service as deputy principal private secretary II on a scale reputed to be Staff III, one of only a score or so on that grade.

He was destined to go higher. He left the civil service, giving up a salary of about RM20,000 a month, to be chief executive of Khazanah Holdings, with its RM150 billion in assets. It was not green-eyed monsters, as the NST insists, who deprived him of the job, but a subtle deliberate campaign within the civil service and the UMNO heirarchy that did him in. So, why did he leave in a hurry to a non-existent job? Has it to do with a cabinet minister and a deputy minister visiting Pak Lah with a message he could not ignore? Or that he begins to destroy Pak Lah's political base? I would argue that Mr Khairy could not move to Khazanah Holdings not because news of this appeared in the Asian Wall Street Journal but that ranged against him are forces intent on seeing this young man eat humble pie. Another is appointed, but who baulked at Mr Khairy as chief operating officer. The NST article is a feeble attempt to rescue Pak Lah's son-in-law. It did not work. He still have options left. He wants to be UMNO Youth leader. But that becomes more difficult by the day. When his intention to stand for UMNO Youth leader became known, it was archly pointed out that UMNO Youth, like UMNO, chooses its leaders in the time-honoured Buggins' turn, that others long in the tooth ought to get the post while he completes his apprenticeship. He needs all the allies he can get. He has precious few. He made a feeble attempt to align himself with the Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Seri Mohamed Khir Toyo, but that could well be double jeopardy. In other words, he stands alone.

How did he land in this mess? There is around several cabinet ministers a bevy of Oxbridge graduates who believe they, as intelligent and brilliant beings, must reorder Malaysia because the politicials and civil servants have lost their marbles. This is best done as special assistants to important cabinet ministers. The leader of this select group is Mr Omar Mustafa, the special assistant to the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak. On his appointment, he demanded an office next to his minister. It was refused. He saw Dato' Seri Najib. It was given him. This group believes that corners must be cut for them so that they can lord it over all and sundry. The people ought to know that they come from the hallowed colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and that counts for far more than other colleges and instituitions. But they forgot one important fact of political life: that they have to get the people they want to mould to believe in them. This group, if they were Chinese or Indian, could have achieved their aims. But they have to work with the system in a society where an unemployed Malay taxi driver is a far shrewder politician than the combined talents of Malaysia's non-Malay political leaders and deculturalised Malay Oxbridge graduates. As it is, the one man who stands to lose the most if this debacle continues is Pak Lah himself. We saw Malay cultural anger in 1998, and if this group continues as now, we could see it again at the UMNO elections in September. If Pak Lah must be given a chance, as he must, the actions of this group would deny it. But is anyone listening?

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