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Corruption in UMNO: those who live by the sword dies by the sword

THE UMNO ELECTIONS is for its general assembly delegates a time to make hay while the sun shines. This year's, next month, is no different. The more the leaders rail about corruption and the need to stamp it, the more it prevails in often ill-disguised forms. In past years, UMNO at least could control it. This year it cannot. Much as the acting UMNO president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is against it in principle, his actions belies his words. No one believes he is serious.

After all, corruption is not only about money; it is also of misuse of power and authority – as the courts decided in the Anwar Ibrahim trials – and Pak Lah, in his bid to be unchallenged UMNO president used his powers to ensure it, is as guilty as the fellow who dispenses cash. He does not see it that way, but that is how almost every one else does.

Corruption cannot be rooted out completely in any society, although tight control and severe penalties widely applied does make it manageable. When this is accompanied by educating the people about how wrong it is, the message goes down to all and sundry, and the society is all the better for it. In Malaysia, this is not so.

Corruption is the only means for an aspirant for a job, elective office, or contracts to succeed. It is all the more difficult when the anti-corruption laws are made so tight that fell fall foul of the law, and the anti-corruption agency cannot prosecute – that is a political decision involving the prime minister's department and the attorney-general's chambers. It is the odd man out who gets what he wants without resorting to corruption.

This corruption is more serious than ever. But it does not surprise. UMNO breeds corruption, its leaders look the other way when it is brought to their attention, demanding proof when there cannot be, by its secrecy and guilt of all involved. The floodgates opened in UMNO and, by extension, its coalition partners after its virtual coup which rose out of the 13 May racial riots in 1969 to ensure the government would be under UMNO control.

The non-Malay partners in the National Front (BN) formed in 1973 were reduced to ciphers in the one-sided political debate in which only the UMNO view mattered. It put in place a corruption culture in which the UMNO party in any contract or business venture had to be bribed to be involved.

A post, any post, in UMNO became a necessity. The delegates were bribed in ever rising sums. Soon, the other BN partners followed suit, for government office and contracts were determined by political connexions. Rules and regulations were redrawn to throw out those who challenged the status quo. UMNO started it; others quickly followed. The arrogance of the autocratic leader, and the sycophancy this brought out, was maintained through corruption. BN politicians knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. Everyone was tarred with the same brush.

One prime minister kept a file of corrupt practices of everyone in his administration, threatening to use it whenever one showed a streak of independence. This is not hard. When one wallows in dirt, some of it is bound to stick. When one then wants to move away, he cannot. But concomittant to this is an arrogance and belief in infallibility that eventually redounded on UMNO and its leaders. It controlled the political system, the Opposition was in tatters, parliament was increasingly a hindrance so it was cheerfully ignored except when the BN government wanted to make a point.

Pak Lah is caught in the middle of it. The delegates on the other hand demand to be paid for their votes: it is about the only time many can make decent money, and they should not be denied of it. It is, in their eyes, a Malaysia Boleh version of a win-win ending: the delgates get the money, the candidates a more than even chance of winning.

In the run-up to the UMNO elections next month, UMNO has ruled what each candidate can and cannot do. Candidates, for instance, are not allowed to campaign, issue posters or even visiting cards, are not allowed to make themselves known to the delegates who would have to vote them in. One candidate for the supreme council and a federal deputy minister, Dato' Mahadhir Khir, addressed an UMNO divisional meeting, which is not allowed, but he was only chided; while two others were suspended from the party for other breaches of the rules. Newspapers then print his mea culpa, allowing him to explain why the action against him is wrong.

So far, eight UMNO candidates – for vice-president and supreme councillor – offer between RM500 a delegate to RM150. Heading this list is Dato' Astaman Aziz, the son of the former UMNO wanita leader and federal cabinet minister, Tan Sri Aishah Ghani, who makes it a condition that he and his Japanese partners, Sumitomo, get the Jimah independent power plant in Negri Sembilan. It should have been signed last month, but Pak Lah has ordered a review of all directly negotiated contracts of which this was one.

Sabah UMNO protesteth too much when it complains the deputy minister for international trade and industry and a candidate for the UMNO supreme council, Dato' Husni Hanaziah, said publicly he would not go to Sabah because the delegates there demand money. The chief minister of Malacca, Dato' Seri Ali Rastam, is offering RM250 per delegate from Kelantan. It would be interesting to see if the cabinet minister, Dato' Jamaluddin Jarjis, would offer the delegates the RM1,000 he is reputed to have offered each delegate in the last UMNO elections.

In this list of candidates, only two are said to stand on their own merit, without any offer of money: the former cabinet minister, Dato' Shahrir Samad, and the minister without portfolio, Dato' Mustapha Mohamed. Dato' Shahrir has stuck to his guns. But Dato' Mustapha will get unaccustomed publicity when he – not the first finance minister, Pak Lah, or the second finance minister, Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yapkob – would deliver the supplementary Bill for RM10 billion to parliament next month. This would give him unaccustomed and solid publicity, but it does raise the question of why it should be him and not one of the two finance ministers who should deliver the budget.

Pak Lah wants him as a vice-president so he could be appointed first finance minister, and this, the UMNO spindoctors decide, would give Dato' Mustapa an aura of responsibility and probity to all those watching the live telecast. His discomfort and uneasiness with his constituents would then, he hopes, would be ignored by the delegates. But the unanswered question is why not Pak Lah nor Tan Sri Nor Mohamed?

There is much talk in UMNO circles that to ensure Dato' Mustapa is one of the three elected vice-presidents, three contenders – Tan Sri Mohamed Taib, the former Selangor mentri besar and a sitting vice-president; the Malacca chief minister, Dato' Seri Ali Rastam; and the federal territories minister, Tan Sri Isa Abdul Samad – could be disqualified for corruption. Pak Lah is still the "dalang" (the puppet master) who wants to decide who the delegates should select as vice-presidents and supreme councillors.

The theory is that If Pak Lah gets what he wants, several cabinet ministers, including the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, could have to fight for their political lives. He appears to want to make it an UMNO Hadhari tradition that the UMNO president should remove his deputy as Dr Mahathir removed his. He would not be able to.

UMNO is without direction, Pak Lah is without direction, corruption provides the glue to suggest that neither is. But he has to make a point. It would mean acting firmly against those guilty of it. But he would not, indeed cannot. That is why no one is particularly worried of being caught or punished for buying votes. So, no matter what happens in the UMNO general assembly next month, it would not change matters much. And corruption would stick like a limpet to UMNO as nothing ever has.

[I contributed this to Malaysia Today, the new web newspaper (www.malaysia-today.net); it appeared in the 20 August 2004 edition.]

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