MGG Pillai Commentary View

<< Previous || Next >>

Why UMNO needs the ACA to investigate money politics now

UMNO IS CAUGHT IN its own trap. Since before, during and after at its party elections in September, it insisted bribery or, as genteel political circles would rather describe it, money politics, was an isolated aberration. But the evidence was all over the place, even if incontrovertible proof was not fortcoming. It would not call in the anti-corruption agency or the police, it could handle this minor piffle itself. But try as it could, few accepted this in good faith. The elections saw more money changing hands than many listed companies in a year of busy sales. But unlike the companies, those who gave and accepted bribes did not bother about receipts and paper trails. And as any first year law student would tell you, without evidence there is no case. It was not law students though who repeated this elementary mantra of proof: it was those who administer the law, the highest authority in the land, the prime minister no less and his ministerial and political minions. In Malaysia Boleh, that is proof that no judge would dare ignore even in the face of evidence to the contrary. That being so, bribery does not exist. The Gods have spoken.

But those who matter, the ordinary Malaysian in whose name UMNO exists and the government rules did not believe one word of it. Not when the mentri besar of Pahang, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakub, and the soon-to-exist information minister, Dato' Seri Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadhir, both insisted that bribery was the norm. The government denied it. After all, those returned in the elections, even those who spent millions buying up delegates, swore to high heavens they did not know what bribery is. But UMNO did not investigate the allegations; indeed, Dato' Seri Adnan was appointed to the UMNO supreme council, but Dato' Seri Kadir would not remain in the cabinet for long for other reasons. The UMNO president gave out mixed signals: he rewards one and punishes the other. And would do nothing about those elected who distributing money in the millions. One critic said if Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi were to rein in all those involved in bribing their way to electoral victory, he would have to sack himself first!

Surely, the issue is more. Bribery exists at all levels of society. All governments and political parties can do is to restrict it with laws and rules enforced strictly so one would think carefully before one accepted a bribe. It would be a foolhardy UMNO politician if, as a businessman, he bribes his way to run a factory in Singapore. He would see the inside of a prison that would be denied him in half a dozen lifetimes in his country across the causeway. Unless, of course, he is Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who would be thrown in jail, as he was, in Malaysia for revealing the corrupt world UMNO and the government it leads is. Where the UMNO-led coalition government went wrong was when it stalled all allegations and reports of money politics even when his cabinet colleagues talked about its prevalence. If Pak Lah had a police investigation of the claims of the Pahang mentri besar and the information minister, and a thorough inquiry into the oft repeated calls to do so at the general assembly, UMNO would not in the sticky wicket it is in now.

Try as it might, including getting the mainstream newspapers to ignore the claims of bribery, it could not get it out of the political agenda. Few UMNO members believed the elections were above board. All thought bribery was not only prevalent but that if one did not indulge in it, one could not get elected either. In past UMNO general assemblies, those who thought so were in a minority and dismissed as cranks. This year, interested groups were not only vocal but organised groups of delegates would vote for any candidates prepared to pay their price or, perversely in UMNO's view, against those who did offer money. UMNO's big mistake was to ignore it. That, in past years, would have been the sign to shut up. Not this year. The murmurs continued unabated, and when the delegates returned to their kampungs, talked about their concerns to create a political problem for UMNO there.

Which is why UMNO has now decided to eat its words and ask the police and anti-corruption agency to investigate incidents of bribery and corruption. It did so because Pak Lah and his group cannot dominate UMNO, not when the deputy president and deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, and his secret patron, the former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, forestall him at every turn. Pak Lah acts belatedly to control the damage. He loses control of UMNO by the day, and he must begin to remove the obstacles on his way to be an effective UMNO president and Malaysian prime minister. Would he succeed? Possibly not. He is not prepared to act firmly. Look at his campaign on corruption. It is, to all intents and purposes, dead. He dared not act against the 18 'big fish' his government said are known and proven corrupters, after a minor Sabah politician with no political future in his cabinet, and a crony business man, were charged in court. Rumours have it that two of the 18 are a prominent cabinet minister and his wife.

Corruption is the single most important and divisive issue Pak Lah must tackle. Can he? His survival depends on letting the powerful corrupters, in UMNO and the business community, free. The suffering people, caught between the bribes demanded by government functionaries, from the policeman to the dustman to a normal "tax" he must pay if he has to interact with the government for services, and total official inaction when corruption comes to light amongst the cronies of the establishment, demand action. So the outright denial of corruption in the UMNO election is now modified to calling in the police and anti-corruption to investigate. I fear it is too little too late. UMNO now faces the unacceptable reality that if it does nothing, its members would leave it for another political party. Three weeks before the UMNO general election, it need have done nothing. Then Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim was released from prison. The official mantra that he is a no-hoper whose future in politics died when he was sacked in 1998 is ignored. He has returned to centre stage by default.

He is UMNO's most difficult problem for two reasons: one, his political rhetoric forces UMNO to react, the investigation into money politics but one example; and two, he has become a magnet for party members in UMNO and other political parties, in government and opposition, as an alternative voice. He has ruled out returning to UMNO, not that they are inclined to accept him. By pitching his message to the dispossessed and the officially irrelevant Malaysian, he gets both support and a political clout that he is by far the most important politician in Malaysia today. No one believed he could. But he has. He evokes fear in UMNO and the coalition government it leads. Those who attacked him with impunity now seeks an accommodation. They include the most important of UMNO politicians. Twenty thousand attended his Hari Raya Open House in Permatang Pauh; several times that is expected at his reception in Kuala Lumpur this Sunday.

An old UMNO hand told me he did not believe he would live to see UMNO as unsure of itself as now. The cabinet has become an old folks home for geriatric, failed, incompetent, corrupt ministers. Pak Lah is not about to reform it for fear of that would deprive him of his support to remain in office. He plays into Dato' Seri Anwar's hands. It is Pak Lah who needs Dato' Seri Anwar more. Dato' Seri Najib is frightened: He knows that should Dato' Seri Anwar return to UMNO, his chances of being prime minister would disappear before his eyes. Pak Lah to prove his resilience must act to prevent Dato' Seri Anwar forcing him out be default. Eating his words about corruption in UMNO is only one. He must do more, but in fright than design. His difficulty is to steer UMNO through shark-infested choppy waters, in which the sharks sit alongside him on the bridge. He knows he must address the corruption in UMNO for his, and UMNO's, future. But he fights a losing battle all the same.

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