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Would Pak Lah be challenged?

WHEN IT COMES TO UMNO elections, any suggestion that some positions ought to be uncontested can, and does cause, a deep, often irrepairable divide. It selected its leaders in times past by elections, abiding by customary feudal and legal rules, in which Malay customary and feudal rules dictated if one is returned unopposed. UMNO presidents were often chosen this way, but when the consensus is that he would be challenged, he would give way than cause a split.

The first, Dato' Sir Onn Jaffar, walked out of UMNO when his plan for a multiracial UMNO was challenged; the second, Tengku Abdul Rahman, resigned rather than face a challenge after the 1969 general election and the riots which followed. The third, Tun Abdul Razak, died before his time, but if he had to leave, he would gracefully than challenge his opponents. The fourth, Tun Hussein Onn, when challenged for the presidency in 1978, his wings were clipped, and he made a dignified exit three years later. The fifth, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, decided that this was not how it should be done, insisted he is president if he won by a single vote, and defended his ground so thoroughly and forcefully, and put in place rules and regulations that made it all but impossible for anyone to challenge him.

The sixth, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, decides that that is not enough: the supreme council must order the divisions not to nominate any one for the two positions of president and deputy president but Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak respectively. Not only that, it also ordered the UMNO youth and puteri divisions to nominate none but Pak Lah's choice. The wanita wing, not to be outdone, decided the current leaders must stay, and warned new members, those who migrated to it on reaching 40, not to upset the status quo by challenging them.

There was only one problem with this: the supreme council did not even discuss it, although Pak Lah's nominees pushed hard for it. But it was presented to the world as if it has. Pak Lah stumbled into succeeding Dr Mahathir as prime minister, and the UMNO leadership would have been his if the Election Commission did not mess up the 21 March general elections. Far from annointing him, it made him weaker. Which is why he cannot afford a challenge for the UMNO presidency.

But a challenge there would be. Not only for the presidency, but the deputy presidency as well. And he wanted in the youth and puteri wings, the dominating presence, if all goes well, of his son-in-law, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, and his daughter, Mrs Nori Abdullah; and the former Puteri chief and a family friend, Datin Azalina Othman, in wanita. This is not all: he wants the Kelantan liaison chief and his cabinet minister, Dato' Mustapa Mohamed, to be the first vice-president, in the UMNO elections in September, and force his likely challenger, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, to quit.

Even on that he stumbled. Dato' Mustapa, it turned out, committed several breaches of the election laws and regulations that could have cost him his parliamentary and state assembly seats. PAS was ready for that. So secret talks were held between his son-in-law, Mr Khairy, and PAS state executive councillor in Kelantan, Mr Husam Musa, to withdraw all election petitions each had failed against the other. So secret these talks were that even UMNO and PAS were unaware of it until it was over. All the election petitions in Kelantan were withdrawn last week. Those for Trengganu would be next month, and in due course, Pak Lah would be off the hook in his Kepala Batas constituency for not filing in his 1999 election campaign expenses within the stipulated time. This would have automatically excluded him from this general election, since the five-year ban on those who did not is not over.

UMNO in Kelantan is divided. Its deputy liaison chief, Dato' Zaid Ibrahim, was so incensed when he heard of it after the fact that he threatened to resign. But these talks were held in total secrecy that even Dato' Mustapa did not know of it until after. Instead of an united UMNO who would swamp Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib into power, challenge is now real. The front runner is the MP for Gua Musang, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. It is widely accepted that if he can get 65 nominations, the minimum to remain in the race, he could easily defeat Pak Lah. But he has yet to say he is in the race, although his campaign team is scouring the country to persuade divisional heads for support.

There is nervousness about it in the Pak Lah camp: a close aide recently called on a former aide of the Tengku for conformation if he is a candidate. It showed the hollowness of the alleged supreme council decision barring a contest. What makes it worse for Pak Lah is the utter divisions that have sprung up in UMNO. The party warlords now dictate terms, and they are not with Pak Lah. Most mentris besar are not with him, many of them have thrown in their lot with any challenger, but they would rather prefer Tengku Razaleigh to be him.

The challenger's strength is as much as those who disagree with or do not want Pak Lah, the factions within UMNO out of sync with the leadership, as much as his own political strengths and popularity. The disparate groups ignored by the UMNO leaders, and even some leaders, have quietly thrown in their lot with the Tengku.

What this means to Pak Lah is more serious: If he is challenged, and even if the challenger does not get more than a handful of nominations, Pak Lah becomes an even weaker figure. Malay culture and adat will pay a stronger role in this election for the first time since Tun Hussein was challenged for the UMNO presidency in 1978. Nepotism and high handedness is not the best way to meet this challenge. Especially since Tengku Razaleigh is all but certain to be in the race to be UMNO's seventh president and Malaysia's sixth prime minister.

[A lightly edited version of this is my Chiaroscuro column today, 29 June 2004, in malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com).]

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx