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Pak Lah in search of a role

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, ends his first year in officer weaker than he began. What he set out to do, to chart his own course and shake off suggestions that he is but his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed's ventriloquist dummy, he has yet to begin as he juggles a political career between the needs of his place in history and the pressures of a resilient political opposition within his own ranks. No one but his own advisers believed it would be easy. But the political spin of his administration, all of which is taken as the gospel, by Malaysia's uncritical and sycophantic mainstream media and what passes for its intellegentsia, and the middle class, begins with each passing day to be cloaked in fantasy. Far from the ventriloquist dummy, he is fast becoming a creature of his own insouciance and ever so firmly trapped within the poilitical forces this unleashed.

He began with much promise, his populist prescriptions what Malaysians wanted to hear after two decades of Dr Mahathir's autocratic administration out of touch within a deeply divided society. The Mahathir epoch ensured, in retrospect, a centrifugal force that deeply scarred Malaysian society and which, if unrepaired, creates racial and social communities that does not even pretend to be part of the larger Malaysia. This in turn assumes an irrepairable divide between the governors and the governed. What I say is not new or extreme: this used to be once the subject of polite discourse in diplomatic and upper middle class dinner parties and receptions; now it is the norm in the coffee shops, and whenever half a dozen people meet for a meal or to pass the time.

It is not all his doing. Dr Mahathir resigned his office only when he could no longer remain, forced out than on his own accord. That he did not want to let go was self-evident. Pak Lah's first difficulty was to distance himself from him. It proved harder than it need have. He surrounded himself with a group of inexperienced young advisers led by his son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, with its agenda of being movers and shakes in their own right, and a ragtag of political and business followers with no more ambition than as cronies in a Pak Lah court with a view, in both groups, of the UMNO heartland as cannon fodder. This put the traditional UMNO leaders, especially the mentris besar, long the mainstay of the administration's strength even under Dr Mahathir who often had no time for them, in fear of their place, and quickly became a force in their own right, and fanned rebellion from within.

The speed with which this happened took Pak Lah unawares. If he had any intention to prune his geriatric, asphyxiated cabinet – I believe he did – he now could not. With the mentris besar in open defiance, and he in unsure control of the administration, he could not do what he should have, for fear those dropped, and their supporters, swelling the new power grouping. He and his advisers, rightly, thought the coming general elections – held in March – would give him the legitimacy he needed. But that turned out a pyrrhic victory. Pak Lah and his advisers wanted a better than a two thirds majority in Parliament, and rules and regulations were bent, with the conniving and active help of the Election Commission, for the 90 per cent victory he got, with in a few constitutencies a highly suspicious 90 per cent voter turnout. The legitimacy he desired eluded him.

His hope now lay in the UMNO election. He decreed that he and his deputy, Najib Razak, be unchallenged, with incredible unconstitutional contraints brought on those who could nominate any but the pair, including an order of bankruptcy delivered late in the night of the morrow on one expected to nominate another for president. As it turned out, 190 constituencies nominated Pak Lah, one Tengku Razaleigh, both nominated uncontested. Similar, though not as dramatic, scenes emerged in the women's, youth and puteri wings. His son-in-law, Khairy, all but forced out his four challengers with sinecures and political oblivion if they resisted.

The UMNO elections last month did not go the way Pak Lah wanted. The highhandedness en route to the party election caused much offence in the UMNO ground. It turned into a divisive fight for control of the Umno heartland, between the Pak Lah faction which believed the heartland is as it defined, and the rest grouted in an odd coalition of anti-Pak forces, which included backers of the deputy prime minister, Najib, Dr Mahathir, Tengku Razaleigh, and the former deputy prime minister-turned-convict, Anwar Ibrahim, believing in the common view that the heartland is rooted in Malay culture and soul. Bribery or, as Umno coyly describes it, money politics, came into play as never before, the stakes for invidual politicians and interest groups so high that the rumours that as much as RM500 million was spent by the leading players is grouted on impirical but unprovable evidence. No one, giver or recipient of bribers, is about to advertise it or attest before an Umno disciplinary committee. But the winners believed there was none as those who lost insisted there was.

The legitimacy he sought was still a distant dream after the Umno elections. Those he wanted in were out. He has the dubious support of one vice president, the other two firmly opposed. Of the 25 supreme councillors, 19 are aligned against him. He has appointed 12 men to the supreme council, which is in his gift, but they were a mixed bunch of mostly those who did not get elected, thus breaking a promise he would appoint no one who was defeated, and some whose penchant for wealth beyond greed and money politics should have been left out. Umno leaders, both for and against him, believe the list is fashioned not by him but his son-in-law. In othe words, his leadership in Umno is still in doubt.

This need not impinge on his governance of Malaysia, but it does. His weakness in Umno in turn reflects his weakness in the National Front (BN) coalition government he heads. What caused Umno to break all but asunder was how its former deputy president was humiliated out of office. In was that act in 1998 that set Umno on its path of political perdition, aiding in no small measure by making sure Anwar is routed out of Malaysian political conscience. But it did no ineptly and with an overall policy of damning those who believed in him. And he now emerges, whether Pak Lah like it or not, as the most potent political force in the country.

This is not to suggest that he would remain so. Anwar Ibrahim is caught amidst a near fratricidal struggle, somewhat like Umno's, for his political soul. I dare predict that if left to their own resources, and without the government taking steps to restrict his movements, he could well turn out in the end a paper tiger.

I find it incomprehensible that Pak Lah did not fan this along by allowing them the use of a stadium to celebrate his welcome from surgery overseas. Instead, Kuala Lumpur international airport would be turned into a military and police fortress to prevent him being greeted by his supporters on arrival. This would not improve Pak Lah's chances of political survival. In fact it would hasten it. If he cannot survive this crisis of confidence one year in office, his second year in office would be worse. He must seize control of UMNO and his political agenda. There is no sign he has, or is about to. Nor could you fault Anwar's exquisite timing: he returns on the day a year after Dr Mahathir resigned and Pak Lah took over.

[This is my Chiaroscuro column in malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com) published today, 31 October 2004]

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