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Trembling on the knife's edge

THE NEW UMNO PRESIDENT, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, must rue the day he decided he could attain power in a vaccuum. A year after he is prime minister, with his UMNO-led National Front (BN) government sweping into power as never before, and unopposed election as UMNO president, he still seeks what he needs most: political legitimacy. He rode rough shod to cling to power, ignoring the quiet resistance of the ground joined by a caucus of his political enemies, taking silence as assent. He is now dealt a fatal blow at the UMNO supreme council elections yesterday (23 September 2004). He and his advisers riled the UMNO ground, helped by a chorus of sycophants, on whom he relied upon much, that he misjudged the forces ranged against him. To the Malay ground, and not only in UMNO, he became a two-dimensional cardboard figure, immensely popular but deeply flawed as a leader. In other circumstances, it could well be different. But not in the present. He mistook feudal obeisance as a mark of his strength.

So few outside his inner circle were surprised at yet another drubbing he got from the UMNO he leads. However one looks at the party elections, he is caught in a bind. The delegate, fed up of being ignored and threatened, kept his own council – a dangerous sign in Malay society – who indulged in the excesses of the consumer society, but determined nevertheless to make known his distaste for being taken for granted. Ranged against Pak Lah were four irreconciliable factions: that of his deputy, Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak; that of Malay cultural hurt which turned the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, though not now a member, into an icon of dissent in UMNO and the Malay cultural world outside; that of the mentris besar riding on a platform of evental constitutional confrontation; that of the newly marginalised. The disparate groups worked alone, often at odds with each other, but they had a common focus: Pak Lah and his coterie.

One is not surprised then at the party election results. The New Straits Times calls it "shock results". It is to Pak Lah and the newspaper, but not to those who have followed developments closely. What shocked him though is that those aligned to his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, were amongst the victors. The three vice-presidents – Tan Sri Isa Samad, Dato' Seri Ali Rastam, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin – are not his men. In the supreme council, half the incumbents including three cabinet ministers, many aligned to Pak Lah, were defeated, those whom he wanted out are returned, to tie his hands in the new supreme council. Those who should have been in were defeated for no reason than they would not be involved in vote buying. The breast-beating aside, it was also clear that if a candidate was unprepared to bribe the delegates, he would not win. At one look, it appears none who did not bribe were returned.

Anecdotal stories abound of the liberal bribing of delegates on the eve of the elections, with the high profile winners buying last minute insurance by buying delegates. In several hotels, the delegates knew which room to go to to be bribed, and they made their rounds. Pak Lah is still in the dark about this, and threatens the winners they could face disciplinary action if found to have indulged in buying votes. "Victory would not shield them from punishment," he thundered at his press conference today (24 September 2004). What happened to the UMNO spies who were on the prowl to gather evidence? If I could come across it by visiting the hotels, could not they? The victors, of course, denied bribing delegates, that they won for what they stood for, committed to Malay unity, Islam and progress, and for the ideals UMNO stood for. But then even the Devil quotes the Scriptures to his advantage.

What amuses me in this breast-beating about bribery and vote buying is this ostrich-like belief it does not exist. As Ivan Illich noted: "In a consumer society, there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy." UMNO is no different. Its leaders know of addiction and envy, and make use of it to the full. It cannot roll it back. Not when it actively encourages conspicious consumption as official policy. Look at the Mega Sales carnivals: it is to spend, spend, spend; the advertisements creating envy amongst those who are left peeking at what is on sale inside the shops wishing they had the money to indulge. What happens in UMNO reflects the society it is in. The addiction and the envy is deep-rooted. This corruption in UMNO cannot be limited to UMNO alone. It seeps down to society with a vengeance. One candidate distributed, according to anecdotal evidence, RM5 million to delegates the night before. This could only continue, since there is no incentive at the top to curb it, and the rules of conspicious consumption demands it. When it is all but official policy in UMNO, when votes are bought and sold, how much credence do UMNO leaders have who insist the BN it leads eschews bribes and money in national general election, their victory proof of its political policies at the service of the people.

Be that as it may, the one beneficiary of this UMNO elections is Dato' Seri Najib. A powerful sub-group of Pak Lah advisers planned to rid him from UMNO. After yesterday, Dato' Seri Najib has bought time. But the jubilation in his camp also demands a counter-attack. Meanwhile, UMNO trembles on the edge of a knife, irrevocably split, mortally fearful of one it pronounced dead but could not kill, caught between the devil of self-preservation and the deep blue sea of reform and return to basics. The leaders have blinded by their own self-importance and wander aimlessly. This is what this year's party elections threw up. Whether UMNO would survive this cataclysmic horror depends on the wisdom of its leaders, knowing well that whoever moves to right UMNO would end up politically dead. It is damned if you win, damned if you lose. If Dato' Seri Najib does not watch out, his victory could well be pyrrhic. As Pak Lah's already is.

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