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The politics of a pardon

UMNO CAN CHOSE TO ignore it at its peril. With or without the National Front (BN) it leads in tow. It does, not with careful thought or plan but in the self-confident belief in its invincibility in which every setback is seen a victory and every attack on it proof of its resilience. It is a path it always took when caught in contradictions of its raison d'etre. Five years after its founding, its president, Dato' Sir Onn Jaffar, walked out, and with him its religious wing, over admitting non-Malays into the party. The new UMNO president, Tengku Abdul Rahman, castigated Dato' Onn as the devil incarnate. Eighteen years later, in 1969, in the gory aftermath of the failure to heed Dato' Onn's call to admit non-Malays into UMNO, racial riots broke out. The future prime minister, the now ennobled Tun Mahathir Mohamed, was sacked from the party for, let us not kid about it, his extreme racial views.

This period in the political wilderness gathered him support he would not otherwise, which helped his rise in the cabinet on his return in 1974, and his swift rise to prime minister seven years later. He would not have if the Tengku had not sacked him from the party. Once in office, he brooked no opposition. In 1987, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah challenged him for the UMNO presidency, and lost narrowly. In 1990 and better prepared, he would have stood against him. To prevent it, he took what would turn out in the end UMNO's death blow: he had UMNO declared illegal, which the courts helpfully did. The new UMNO from its ashes, in Dr Mahathir's gift, decided who ought to be in. His opponents were allowed in on his terms. Many, including the two then living prime ministers – Tengku Abdul Rahman and Tun Hussein Onn – refused.

A decade later, his deputy prime minister and UMNO deputy president, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, miscalculated Dr Mahathir's stranglehold on UMNO and the government, plotted to force him out. As Dr Mahathir in 1969, he failed. He was sacked from office, expelled from UMNO, took to the streets, was arrested, detained under the Internal Security Act, got a taste of what those detained in Guantanamo Bay after 11 September, 2001 went through, convicted in sham trials, and jailed. It would have broken a less determined man. But he was cut of the same cloth as Dr Mahathir's, with the same grit, political determination, single-mindedness, a view of Malaysia each would not allow challenged. But let us not forget, it forced Tengku Abdul Rahman out of office, as Dato' Seri Anwar's sacking forced Tun Mahathir out.

It is Dr Mahathir's belief in his own confidence that led him to chose Dato' Seri Anwar as his deputy. In the mid-1970s, President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto appointed Major-General Zia-ul Haq as Pakistan's armed forces commander, superseding 13 generals ahead of him. The two clashed, the general had Mr Bhutto arrested on trumped up charges, the courts helpfully convicted him for murder, and he was hanged. The parallels are uncanny. Dr Mahathir is in Mr Bhutto's shoes now. However, one looks at it, Dato' Seri Anwar is in the ascendant. The UMNO-led BN government in the centre and in the states are in near rigor mortis, forced to look over their shoulders to second guess what he has in mind. When he is in the country, they are frightened of his tours and walkabouts; when overseas, they tremble at the international black eye he gives them as surely and clearly as the now disgraced former IGP, Tan Sri Rahim Noor, gave him within hours of his detention in 1998.

He was roughly treated. There is no question of that. He could not have been acquitted. If he was, Tun Mahathir would have to step down in disgrace. So he was tried under emergency rules in which the rules of evidence and procedure were amended for political convenience. The reality was stark: an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between two men in which the man who blinked disappeared from sight. So it was between Gen. Zia and Mr Bhutto. The man in power did not want to commit suicide. It is as simple as that. But Dato' Seri Anwar's supporters, like Mr Bhutto's in Pakistan, rebelled, and brought forth a government which could cling to office only with draconian measures. One is a democracy the other a military dictatorship but the methods used to curb dissent were similar: strong arm methods the other would be proud of.

Dato' Seri Anwar is out of jail, but he is barred from political office for five years, until April 2008. He is not allowed political office nor stand in an election until then, though he can address political gatherings and be active in politics. This means, he could well miss out standing in the next elections. This is not due until 2009, but UMNO leaders do not want to test his popularity, and would hold it earlier than April 2008, possibly in 2007. They are worried of their seats if he is a candidate. But that he has bounced back to make himself more dangerous to UMNO than when in jail has shifted support towards him from all sides, especially in UMNO, BN, the civil service, the armed forces, the police, even the rulers. The UMNO heirarchy, led by its president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, fights this trend. But there is little it can do. Politics in Malaysia is framed around Dato' Seri Anwar as surely as UMNO was post-1969 around Tun Mahathir.

There is, believe it or not, a belief in UMNO the ghost of Anwar Ibrahim in its deliberations must be exorcised. It is not only in UMNO. The one single issue in Malaysian politics today is Dato' Seri Anwar. Every political party – in BN and opposition – use it to further their interest. UMNO holds the faithful together by excoriating him; PAS clings to him to further its agenda; Parti Keadilan Rakyat, whose eminence grise he is, looks to him to build a party that Dato' Onn once envisaged for UMNO; the DAP to hone its credentials as a party for the downtrodden. The Conference of Rulers is similarly caught in a cleft hook: its feudal and cultural prerogative of mercy is under attack, and it can be righted with a symbolic act as a pardon for Dato' Seri Anwar.

All political parties are, when push comes to shove, unhappy with this state of affairs. All of them flounder in this uncertainty. But not Dato' Seri Anwar. He knows what he wants – and, lest we forget, so did Tun Mahathir post-1969 – but he would apply for a pardon. He does not see why he should since he is not guilty. Those around him, especially PKR, believes he need, and others could apply for a pardon on his behalf. Perhaps they could. The law is unclear on this. But can this done by rousing the people to force a pardon? I am not sure. There has been two public meetings to orchestrate for a pardon. In the first last year, I was one speaker. In the second, early this month, the ballroom of the hotel where it was held was packed. Perhaps 1,500 attended. But the organisation was in shambles. There was but one speaker, Mr Christopher Fernando, one of Dato' Seri Anwar's lead lawyers. He rightly presented a legalistic case, but Dato' Seri Anwar's strongest point for a pardon transcends the legal.

He has, willy nilly, become the mascot of growing resentment of all that the BN and UMNO stands for, its high handedness, its humanity, the corruption, the arrogance. He has unexpected support from all those in Malaysia who believe that but for him nothing would have changed. He acquires an aura, if not a halo, for his forthright comments, be it on Islam or nuclear physics. The more he invokes himself in the public mind, the more he is a threat to the flawed vision of what the BN and UMNO stands for. But UMNO is in no mood to come down to talk terms. It is afraid of his ghost. One can but imagine the terror or him in person. His supporters and friends should stop this charade of asking for a pardon. it is not in his interest. He should look to see how Mr Resip Tayeb Erdogan, banned from Parliament in Turkey, for a legal disability, returned as Prime Minister after his party won, the law changed, after he was returned in a bye-election.

[This is my column in the latest Harakah, Issue 15-31 May 2005]

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@steamyx.com