MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Tengku Razaleigh takes on Pak Lah for the UMNO presidency

TENGKU RAZALEIGH HAMZAH IS in the race to be UMNO president. He announced it yesterday in Gua Musang, his fief in Kelantan. The utter nervousness in the Malaysian mainstream media is understandable. Did not the UMNO supreme council decide, in three successive meetings in May and June, that the UMNO divisions should only nominate Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for president and Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak for deputy president? The two men insist it did, and that view is the only accepted view in the mainstream media. What this means is that the people depend on alternate newspapers for news of UMNO politics: Harakah reports in its latest issue that Tengku Razaleigh would challenge Pak Lah. And that has now come to pass.

The New Straits Times, which exists, for the moment, to praise Pak Lah and his stalwarts and decry their detractors, kept quiet about it. The Star misled its readers to ask if he would contest at all, for which post, wondered why he would when all the cards are stacked against him, and rounds with a stirring call for Pak Lah to be unchallengeable because he has proved his worth in his eight months in office. Bernama, the official news agency, obviously did not think it important to report it: if it had, all the newspapers would have carried it. The television station, TV3, however, did break ranks and mentioned that Tengku Razaleigh made his intentions clear in Gua Musang yesterday. But the Malay mainstream newspapers, especially the Utusan Malaysia, have been fairer in its coverage, that even a casual reader of this paper got the drift that Pak Lah would be challenged - and by Tengku Razaleigh.

Tengku Razaleigh has now declared war against the UMNO supreme council which, so we are told by the two men who want to be uncontested for the two posts, had decreed they should not be challenged. [In truth, only Dato' Seri Najib said so; Pak Lah kept quiet; but if he disagreed with it, he would have pulled his deputy on the carpet, as he has on several occasions. It is fair therefore to assume he agreed with this.] There is a small difficulty though. The supreme council did not discuss it. No vote was taken on it. The aim was for the two posts in UMNO, youth, puteri - all six - to be uncontested - and the silence this proposal was greeted was taken to mean assent. Before anyone could change their mind, it was rushed into print. But first things first, should not Tengku Razaleigh be expelled from UMNO for challenging the dictates of the supreme council? And the challengers of the youth and puteri leaders?

The Malaysian mainstream media ignores the political enemies of Pak Lah and his stalwarts. So the doubts, fears and the contrary view is not reported. But Pak Lah and his stalwarts knew soon enough they stand on quicksand. Emissaries were despatched hastily to the Hermit of Langgak Golf aka Tengku Razaleigh to discern his intentions. They went away empty handed. He was fighting a psychological battle, firming his wavering supporters, and received unexpected support from those, in the public eye, firm supporters of Pak Lah. When I visited him as recently as six months ago, mine was only the second car parked outside his house. Two days ago, when I passed by, there were 40 cars and more.

In this town, where it is dangerous to be seen with someone out of the pale, that was bravery indeed. It is also proof that the Pak Lah attempt to seize the party presidency - and if he could achieve that by dumping his deputy, he would gladly do that too - has rubbed people up the wrong way. He gets weaker by the day. He made a mess of the general elections, helped in no small measure by a bumbling Election Commission and now an electoral court which takes a narrow definition of what could come before it. All, even the opposition, expected the National Front (BN) coalition he leads to be returned with a two-thirds majority. That he got 90 per cent of the seats damned him. The election petitions would have sunk him: he did not file his election expenses for the 1999 election, and he should have been disqualified for the 2004 polls. His cadidacy was challenged by his PAS opponent. His point man in Kelantan bribed his voters, of which PAS got the proof and handed it to Pak Lah.

The UMNO-PAS post-electoral pact has all but destroyed UMNO in Kelantan: its leaders are at odds with each other and with Pak Lah. The stone wall of no contest for Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib could not hold. Tengku Razaleigh has stayed out of office throughout the life of UMNO the political party, which began life in 1988 after the High Court declared UMNO the mass movement illegal. Now that he has thrown his hat into the ring, his advisers and tacticians - who can be as wooly-headed as Pak Lah's - suggested he ought to stand for vice-president and when that was shot down to go for more than 70 per cent of the nominations. But wiser counsel prevailed, and he has his eye on 58 nominations, the 30 per cent of the 191 divisions to be in the presidential race. He went in when that was achievable.

He is 67. So this is his last crack at the UMNO presidency that was denied him in 1987; he won it, but like the Democratic presidential candidate, Mr Al Gore, in the 2000 presidential election who won the popular vote but it was the Republican loser, Mr George W. Bush, who became president. He has had support from several power groups in the party, who switched to him because, for varying reasons, they did not want to be aligned with Pak Lah. The 'invisible man' in Sungei Buloh aka Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim has instructed his supporters in UMNO to align with the Hermit. Could he win? Does it matter? The challenge has devalued Pak Lah's candidacy. If the Hermit wins or loses, Pak Lah is the loser.

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