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The morning after

UMNO, in its 58th year, is a veritable house of waxworks: toothless, impotent, malleable. It has long lost its place in national politics except as a vehicle for its president. It elects a supreme council to run its affairs, but it defers to the president. Because of its importance in Malaysia, his rule is absolute. He heads the Barisan Nasional (BN), which has, with its previous incarnation, governed Malaysia since 1955, two years before independence. His word is law. He holds on to office as long as he can, and gives way only reluctantly and, as often as not, gently eased out. He is, in short, UMNO, BN, the government, the law.

UMNO in 2004 is in crisis. It would not admit it, but its general assembly, and its election, last week (23-25 September 2004), did not lie, even if its leaders did. It was to annoint a new president, but it ended with him worse off than ever. The three days of election and debate were overshadowed by two issues that its leaders insisted were irrelevant: its former deputy president, Anwar Ibrahim, and vote-buying. Yet both were never far from the lips of delegates and leaders, within and without the assembly.

It discussed nothing of importance. There were tall claims of what would be, but enthusiasm was kept high by a return to that old standby: Malay rights and the pre-eminent role of the bumiputera. Pak Lah was circumspect about it, but not the others. In between decrying Anwar Ibrahim and money politics, several leaders, notably the youth chief, Hishammuddin Hussein, revealed their bankruptcy of ideas to return to this emotive theme. It would once have received a standing ovation.

Only that time has passed, the world has changed, and the UMNO delegate today wants to know why he or she is left out of it, and why it benefits only those favoured by the UMNO leaders. It is commendable to decry the economic and political crutches the Malays and bumiputera get, but when it is not followed by the political decision to dismantle them, all it does is to raise the shackles of all Malaysians, not just Malays and bumiputera. If other issues of importance were raised, it did not make the news, not even in the UMNO-controlled mainstream press, radio and television.

Luck pushed too far

What mattered was the annointment of Pak Lah. It did not work as planned. His advisers pushed his luck so far that the delegates came to the assembly determined to take control of their vote. An informal committee of delegates, from Sabah, spread the word to vote into the supreme council only those who hold no position in government; another to vote against any candidate who bribed delegates; still another to boycott any candidate overtly identified with Pak Lah; besides the two groups backing Pak Lah and the deputy president, Najib Abdul Razak. No one talked about it, but amidst the talk of Anwar Ibrahim and vote-buying, this raised some excitement.

Who would win: Pak Lah or Najib? But it was more; to capture the soul of UMNO, what is left of it; and, for Pak Lah, to put to pasture the still significant presence of the former president, Dr Mahathir Mohamad. It was an electoral upset: Pak Lah's candidates were routed by a combination of delegates' resistance, Mahathir's benign influence, and Najib's counter-attack to save his political skin. The vice-presidents – Isa Abdul Samad, Mohamed Ali Rustam, Muhyiddin Yassin – are not his men, nor are more than half elected to the supreme council. Those he wanted in are out; those he wanted out are in. He is caught in a bind, as he admitted to one in his camp who lost on Saturday.

It raises an interesting conundrum: if the top two positions in UMNO, youth, Puteri, wanita were open to challenge, and not barred by questionable maneuvers, would the leadership be what it is? If Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah had challenged Pak Lah, would Pak Lah be president? If the Selangor mentri besar, Dr Mohamed Khir Toyo, had taken on Hishammuddin Hussein for UMNO youth, if Dr Mahathir's son, Mukhris, on Pak Lah's son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, would the line-up be what it is now? It is questions like these, which must be answered, that raises doubts about the new Umno line-up.

Loyal Najib

Pak Lah puts on a brave front but he cannot maintain it. He could work with anyone, he said after the election. Then, at a press conference later, he promised to throw out the corrupt. He would have to make good his threat, which would not go down well for he must get the approval of the supreme council he does not now control. He has to show his mettle in the coming weeks, but he faces overwhelming odds. Najib, likewise, allowed his control to slip: he is, as always, absolutely loyal to Pak Lah, and insisted, he would not stab him in the back. Why did he say that? Was it a Freudian slip?

But what galls Pak Lah was that amidst his problems, he was struck a counterblow by an expelled UMNO member who has no plans to return but the UMNO assembly barred him anyway. On 25 Nov, the last day of the assembly, CNN telecast an interview with Anwar Ibrahim from his hospital bed in Munich, which pulled the rug from under Pak Lah's feet. In contrast with the petulant, frightened, pettiness with which Pak Lah dismissed him, Anwar is seen to have risen above the political fray as a credible political figure whom Umno destroyed and disfigured, more interested in the future than the past. UMNO members and Malaysians, after the interview, talk of what might have been had he been in charge.

Even his detractors were impressed. One admitted Pak Lah would be hard put to match him: "His language immaculate, wisdom in content, his reasoning impeccable," said another. The Pak Lah camp must have thought so too. The CNN Talk Asia interview by Lorraine Hahn was to have been shown on Saturday and Sunday, but it was pulled out on Sunday in Malaysia, though not elsewhere. CNN told a viewer who complained that "Astro was advised by their legal team it was best to show an alternate show on Sunday as originally scheduled." The Anwar interview was a special edition.

Power struggles

There is more. The Ministry of Information ordered it pulled out. The Anwar interview made UMNO politicians, especially their leaders, insincere and vapid without him having to say so. Pak Lah as president must bring UMNO to what it once was for the survival of both. But he cannot in his watch because this general assembly and elections unleashed a power struggle the likes of which UMNO has not seen, not even in 1987 when Tengku Razaleigh challenged Mahathir for the presidency, a consequence of which was the dissolution of UMNO the mass movement and the formation of UMNO the political party.

UMNO's greatest fear is that it would implode. It would not admit it but it is awash with factions based on state rights, warlords, regions, leaders. To get a glimpse of this, one has only to read the score of political magazines in Malay, which report on it assiduously week after week, but is ignored in the mainstream media as gossip or irrelevant.

The essence of politics is conflict. In UMNO, the president had, until Pak Lah, exercised absolute control. When that slacked, usually when the ground rebelled, he noticed it and retired graceful. Mahathir did not, and raised the stakes. His power kept him there, and he would use it to the full so he would. It worked until he breached Malay cultural rules to destroy and humiliate Anwar Ibrahim. It would continue to flounder until that cultural hurt is repaired. But going by the UMNO general assembly, there is no desire to.

[This is my Chiaroscuro column in malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com) today, 28 September 2004 under the heading: UMNO AGM – The morning after.]

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