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Baksheesh in UMNOland

NO CORRUPTION IN UMNO, so the anti-corruption agency (ACA) cannot step in, says the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak. Yes, it can, says the ACA director-general, Dato' Seri Zulkapli Mat Noor, and anyone can file a report. Of course, it can, says the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. "If in money politics, there are things that violate the law," he said, the ACA could act on its own or on complaints lodged. But is there not a rule in UMNO that if a member files a police report, he is suspended or sacked? Times have changed.

The UMNO election in September tarred every one, from president to the branch member, with corruption by whatever name UMNO calls it: money politics, "politik wang", "wang politik". This distinction, one now suspended UMNO leader told me, is crucial: "Politics in UMNO is expensive; no one works for free these days, but without workers, you are dead before you begin. That is politik wang, which every UMNO politician must have. Then there is wang politik, the money you spend to get election after the politik wang is taken care of." He was suspended, he avers, for 'politik wang', not for 'wang politik'. But he does not address the crucial question: is not both 'wang politik' and 'politik wang' corruption? Or that one must be corrupt to be an UMNO politician?

The UMNO election upsets only showed that the challengers bribed their way to office more efficiently. The challengers were not organised in times past, and those in office, the president's men, had no competiton. Often, the president called his detractors in, bribed him with contracts and jobs and, when that failed, with bankruptcy and worse. If you do not believe this, ask one who refused what was offered: the former deputy president, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

But UMNO's political destruction of him backfired: UMNO itself went into deep thrombrosis, its leaders deaf, blind and dumb. The new president could not make himself heard, did not yet have the aura of office to bring UMNO's thousand mutinies to heel. The members did not hesitate to demand some of the money spread around, with the candidate unprepared to pay out marked for defeat. What upset this is a ground revolt, for which little credit is yet given, of those who felt this would destroy UMNO, and gathered a force which would vote only for candidates who did not bribe their way through. Its members voted for a list that sent several political careers crashing to the ground.

It would not have been as bad if UMNO had to confront only corruption. But not the unexpected release from prison of Pak Sheikh. He was jailed in a series of kangaroo court trials for corruption and sodomy, which he insisted was politically motivated, that his political difficulties began when he challenged cronyism, corruption, privatisation and unconcern for the people. The ruling cabal was frightened enough to force him out. It pulled all stops, and fell foul of Malay culture.

Who suffered politically and culturally was not Pak Sheikh but his tormentors, chief among whom was the former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. His political stake rose by the day as UMNO's declined. Curiously, UMNO cannot reverse itself for two reasons its leaders insist does not matter: Pak Sheikh, who is not only an expelled UMNO member but one who would never be re-admitted; and corruption, by whatever name, which UMNO leaders aver does not exist in it. But these two reasons which frightens UMNO no end.

This forces Pak Lah to skate on thin ice; and could consume him. His first task should be to reunite the horribly fractured Malay cultural community, which is forced to confront a future in which Islam, not Malay cultural beliefs and practices, dominates in a cynical political environment of Westernised modernity and Islamic religiosity without a Malay cultural bias.

Look at Singapore. It followed the course Malaysia now does, created a society its critics sneeringly calls a ripe banana society: yellow on the outside, white inside. Singapore benefits from the immediate advantages of cultural disorientation, throws its weight around, but having to contend with cultural anger and confusion beneath that threatens in the decades to destroy it. What is not seen or discussion now threatens to consume it. Malay and by extension Malaysia is caught up in this catharctic struggle, by a different name, which cannot be resolved by trite political statements and ill-thought out solutions. The Anwar episode only hightlighted the corruption within UMNO, which is now out of control.

There is now, in the Malay mind, an alternative to UMNO. It is not certain who that is, but for the moment it is the political organisation Pak Sheikh can put together. The total confusion within UMNO contrasts sharply with an ever confident Pak Sheikh who happily puts a backbone into Malaysia that UMNO and its leaders should but cannot, its geriatric oligarchy finding after five decades it is out of touch and worse ignored.

The lumbering elephant cannot move while his nimble protagonists bites at him at will. Pak Lah is reduced to shuffle for support from any quarter to wend off his political enemies in UMNO. This is dangerous. Pak Sheikh does not do this without a long term motive to disarm his enemies in UMNO. The corruption issue is but one to disarm UMNO. The warlords spread their wings to be another. Pak Lah coopts, not isolates, with bribes: the cabinet is not only top heavy but on death's door as well. He cannot prune it for fear of losing support.

The twin pressures of Pak Sheikh and corruption is too potent a molotov cocktail for UMNO to fend off. This shows itself in other ways too. The New Straits Times confidently insisted the 15.8 per cent stake held by the estate of Tan Sri Yahya Ahmad in the automotive group, DRB-Hicom, would go to a consortium headed by Tan Sri SM Nazimuddin SM Amin; it went instead to one headed by Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary. The NST group is controlled by a Pak Lah crony, so its views are believed to be his voice.

But is there more? Could perchance that the first consortium had as merchant bank one in which the editor-in-chief and Pak Lah's son-in-law had significant stakes? Links with it would, if market talk is to be believed, would not hinder business men intent on connexions to further their business profile. Was not the son-in-law of the international trade and industry minister, Datin Paduka Rafidah Aziz involved with this group? Why did it fail? The wheels within wheels were greased with other than competence.

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