Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times Read online

  Carolyn Hong, "Take Me to Court", Sunday Times, 18 May 2008.

  Mahathir Mohamad, "Pantun Seloka", in A Tribute to Dr. Mahathir Mohamad: A Great Leader and Statesman (Kuala Lumpur: Various Channels Communications Sdn. Bhd., 2003), p. unnumbered.

  Bernama, Star/Asia News Network, "Muhyiddin Best to be DPM, Says Mahathir", Straits Times, 13 October 2008.

  Carolyn Hong, "Abdullah's Reform Bills Fail to Win Over Critics", Straits Times, 13 December 2008.

  Carolyn Hong, "Abdullah Lashes Out at Mahathir", Straits Times, 20 October 2008.

  Teo Cheng Wee, "Mahathir to Make UMNO Comeback", Sunday Times, 29 March 2009.

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  A Place in History

  Universiti Utara Malaysia, a bucolic campus at Sintoc in Kedah near the northern border with Thailand, commends itself as a place to contemplate Mahathir Mohamad's legacy. As prime minister, Dr. Mahathir built this university, which specialized in management and quickly attracted a 22,000-student body, in his own parliamentary constituency. It was UUM that conferred an honorary degree on former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 2002 to acknowledge her warm personal bond with Dr. Mahathir, and it was UUM that was chosen to host the Institute of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad's Thoughts after he retired in 2003.

  But in the modest building where the institute is housed on the first floor, the silence that greeted a visitor in 2007 was almost deafening. The RM21 million in government funding requested by the institute had not materialized, and it was limping along with a staff of nine, seven of them administrative employees. The two professionals were part-timers, required to teach and conduct research in other UUM departments as well. Working with a slim allocation from the regular UUM budget, they lacked the resources to begin analysing the deeds of one of Southeast Asia's last strongmen. A bookcase told the story: It contained only a few of the dozens of volumes written by and about Dr. Mahathir. Having decided to establish the institute while Dr. Mahathir was still being lionized as the nation's leader, his political associates were reluctant to finance their commitment once he had departed.

  The about-turn in sentiment was astonishing. For months before Dr. Mahathir had left the prime minister's official residence, many Malaysians almost tripped over themselves in eulogising him. Emotional tributes filled the newspapers and gushing editorials credited him with almost everything positive about the country. Muhammad Muhammad Taib, an UMNO vice president, described Dr. Mahathir as an "extraordinary leader" and declared, "Even in 100 years, or even 1,000 years, it would be difficult to find another like him."[1] In the week Dr. Mahathir actually stepped down, Kuala Lumpur was festooned with banners thanking him and wishing him well.[2] The annual General Assembly of UMNO in June, the last Dr. Mahathir attended as president, reverberated with bursts of song and rhyming couplets in his praise.[3] Delegates adopted a resolution urging the government to ponder, preserve and propagate the thoughts of the great leader, along with those of his predecessors, through the establishment of an academic institute.

  Although the Cabinet had endorsed the idea and awarded the honour to UUM against competing bids from other universities, the Institute of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad's Thoughts was effectively stillborn in late 2003. The ill wind that blew northward from Kuala Lumpur could be explained in part by the shift in political power and priorities that accompany any change in national leadership. In this case, however, there was malign intent as well. Deeply regretting what he considered a grave mistake in choosing Abdullah Badawi as his successor, Dr. Mahathir was waging open warfare on him. Abdullah, in return, was not about to do anything to enhance Dr. Mahathir's status.

  Weighing Dr. Mahathir's performance requires an understanding that it spanned a full generation and included extremes of success and failure. Out of office, he did little to encourage or inform a balanced judgment of his record. While he spoke freely, he proved incapable of the candour and reflection that might have illuminated the controversies that defined his tenure. Showing no sign of mellowing, he admitted to few errors, other than trusting people who subsequently let him down. As in the past, he professed no interest in his "legacy", a comment that, like some of what else he said, could not be taken at face value. Dr. Mahathir was obsessed with the fate of Malaysia, and what he left behind was what he had worked for most of his adult life. As Abdullah deviated from Dr. Mahathir's platform, the former prime minister turned on him with a fury that would be assuaged only by Abdullah's resignation or defeat.

  Like his heroes, Dr. Mahathir sought change on an historical scale. He admired Peter the Great of Russia, Japan's Meiji Emperor and Turkey's Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, as well as President Park Chung Hee of South Korea and China's Deng Xiaoping, not to mention "my greatest model", the Prophet Muhammad. The common thread was that that they brought progress and enlightenment to their backward communities. As Dr. Mahathir said, "These are people who changed, changed the community in which they lived, radically changed and literally dragged them into a new age."[4]

  Emotionally, Dr. Mahathir belonged to the batch of Third World leaders who made their mark in the immediate post-independence period: Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Indonesia's Sukarno. Fiery nationalists who struggled for independence in the 1950s and 60s, they generally turned their backs on the West as they found like-minded allies in regional and international bodies they helped inspire, such as the Organization of African Unity in the case of Nkrumah and Nyerere, and the Non-Aligned Movement for Nasser and Sukarno. And, as they harshly denounced and sought to eliminate colonialism, they adopted variants of socialism, which eventually ruined their economies.

  While Dr. Mahathir came of age politically when this group was at the height of its influence in developing-world politics, he achieved power in a different era. Dr. Mahathir's anti-West rhetoric in the 1980s and 90s, though reminiscent of the first generation's, was accompanied by a diametrically opposite view of economics. Although a strident nationalist, he was pragmatic and favoured the market system that had brought prosperity to the industrialized nations. Many of his criticisms of the West, even when delivered from a Non-Aligned Movement platform, were directed at the barriers preventing developing countries such as Malaysia from moving up the food chain and graduating to the First World. Like neighbours Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Indonesia's Suharto, Dr. Mahathir integrated his country deeply with the Western economies and achieved an enviable development record.

  At the same time, Dr. Mahathir joined a lengthy list of regional leaders who practiced authoritarianism, including not only Lee and Suharto but also Sukarno, Thailand's Sarit Thanarat, Thanom Kittikachorn and Praphas Charusathien, Myanmar's Ne Win, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Hun Sen. Among the Southeast Asian leaders who escaped the socialist trap and gave themselves a chance of economic advancement in return for the political restrictions and stability they imposed, Dr. Mahathir was one of the most successful and enlightened. Only Lee Kuan Yew and his successor as prime minister of Singapore, Goh Chok Tong, clearly outperformed him.

  Dr. Mahathir's approach, however, is unlikely to be replicated, either in Malaysia or elsewhere in the region. In many ways he was sui generis, a forceful, quirky outsider who happened along and possessed the attributes to capture the political system at a time when he could get away with it. Apart from the slim prospect of a similar personality appearing again anytime soon, Southeast Asian societies have become more complex as they have modernized and matured. In the age of the Internet, none of the leading Southeast Asian countries is likely to allow completely free rein to a leader given to arbitrariness, repression and severe lapses in governance.

  For better and worse, Dr. Mahathir had a profound impact on Malaysia. When he retired, more than half the population had known no other national leader and many people, detractors included, simply could not imagine life without him. He was dominant for so long that nearly every as
pect of the country reflected his preference or personality. Dr. Mahathir's influence was most visible in the thrusting Kuala Lumpur skyline, and in the impressive infrastructure that drew foreign investors in large numbers and created one of the world's top 20 trading nations. It was also present in a better educated, more affluent and mostly tolerant people, many of whom had plugged in with cell phones and satellite television and become global citizens.[5] But it permeated, too, the ranks of oppositionists and disaffected groups who often risked their livelihoods and liberty to disagree with him. "Dr. Mahathir changed not just the face but also the soul of Malaysia," observed sociologist Clive Kessler.[6]

  In 2008, Malaysia faced greater political uncertainty than at any time since the racial riots that shook Kuala Lumpur nearly four decades earlier. Prime Minister Abdullah's National Front administration, punished in a general election in March for an ineffectual performance and broken promises, continued to sink ever lower in public esteem. UMNO's main coalition partners, the Malaysian Chinese Association, the Malaysian Indian Congress and Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, blamed the ruling party's "arrogance and excesses" for their defeats.7 Abdullah's attempts to reverse the erosion of UMNO's legitimacy, by dusting off his earlier promises of reform, encountered internal opposition and floundered, leaving his partners frustrated and helpless.

  While Abdullah sought to deflect pressures to quit by announcing that he would hand over to Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2010, UMNO remained divided, semi-paralysed and in danger of fracturing. Persuaded that Abdullah could not halt the party's slide, some influential members wanted him out sooner. But Najib had his own problems that made him less than an ideal candidate to restore UMNO's relevance and credibility, and he agreed to the timetable. Najib, also defence minister until September 2008, was unable to bury allegations, despite his denials, linking him to corruption in big-ticket weapon systems purchases, and to the case of a Mongolian woman, the former lover of one of his closest advisers, who was murdered in Malaysia.

  Lurching towards another round of bitter factional fighting, UMNO had reached what political scientist Khoo Boo Teik called a well-known political condition: "the leader is too weak to impose his will, the led are not yet strong enough to depose him".[8] In the run-up to the UMNO General Assembly in December, the shortage of prospective leaders — members with ability, experience and stature — was all too painfully obvious. The only one to raise his hand to contest the party presidency was Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, the former finance minister, who was 71 and had been out of the limelight for 20 years. Among the younger generation, almost no one enjoyed the standing needed to lift UMNO — and Malaysia — out of the quagmire. Besides, it would be extremely difficult to obtain the backing of 30 per cent of UMNO's divisions, a necessary condition for anyone to challenge Abdullah for the party presidency.

  While UMNO's dire predicament and the electoral success of Anwar Ibrahim's People's Front could be interpreted positively, as the deepening of democracy and the prospect of a two-party political system taking root in Malaysia, stasis or upheaval seemed a more immediate prospect. True, many Malaysians had voted across ethnic lines, encouraging the belief that race-based politics might be receding. But desperate UMNO elements, fearful of losing power, resorted to the familiar aggressive defence of Malay rights, and the party itself pushed a Malay-centric line trying to entice Parti Islam Se-Malaysia to desert the People's Front. The real concern was that racial polarization might begin anew.[9]

  Morally vindicated by the royal commission into judicial appointments, Anwar prepared to return to Parliament after his ban for being convicted of abuse of power expired in April 2008. His confident prediction, that enough National Front members of parliament would defect to enable him to form a government by 16 September, the anniversary of the formation of Malaysia in 1963, rattled UMNO and numbed sections of the political and bureaucratic establishment. Anwar left no doubt that he intended to pursue those he held responsible for his persecution. He filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Agency alleging that the Inspector General of Police, Musa Hassan, and Attorney General Gani Patail had fabricated evidence when Anwar was assaulted at police headquarters after his arrest in 1998.[10] With Anwar dictating the political pace, tantalizing followers and taunting opponents with the suggestion that he would soon take power, a sense of unreality and apprehension gripped the country as he was arrested again for sodomy.

  As if learning nothing from events ten years earlier, police, some wearing balaclavas, used a dozen cars to ambush Anwar near his home without giving him time to attend a pre-arranged interview, accompanied by his lawyers, at police headquarters. He was held overnight in a cell and left to sleep on a concrete floor. His accuser was Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, 23, a university dropout who had worked for a few months on Anwar's staff. Anwar subsequently pleaded not guilty to a charge of sodomy and was granted bail. Calling the allegation a political conspiracy to prevent him from toppling the government, Anwar contested and won triumphantly a by-election in August for his old Permatang Pauh constituency, held since 1999 by his wife and vacated by her to allow his formal return to national politics. The poisonous political atmosphere, together with soaring inflation, undermined investor sentiment and sapped public confidence. Citing financial and political instability as larger concerns than the usual racial issues, social problems and crime, only 28 per cent of Malaysians were satisfied with the way things were at mid-year, down from 68 per cent five months earlier.[11]

  Sniping from the sidelines as if he was just another citizen unhappy with the conduct of the country's political class, Dr. Mahathir accepted no responsibility for the threatening disorder that was, in fact, largely of his making. His failure to provide for the future leadership of Malaysia was entirely consistent with his penchant for political expediency and emphasis on the nation's hardware at the expense of its software. Musa Hitam, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Anwar Ibrahim were capable contenders in UMNO, but Dr. Mahathir ousted them all — Musa technically resigned — to safeguard his position and pursue his development agenda without hindrance. With access to the top blocked, other ambitious or talented members languished at lower levels, departed, or were deterred from joining the party in the first place. Far from grooming a dynamic successor, Dr. Mahathir succeeded only in cultivating a "broad-based assemblage of loyalists not predisposed to thinking against the grain".[12]

  When he became prime minister, Abdullah had been astute enough to recognize popular demands to end the worst abuses and repair some of the harm inflicted by a couple of decades of one-man rule.[13] He was rewarded in 2004 with the biggest mandate in Malaysian history. But when he failed so dismally to meet the expectations he inflated so liberally, his administration was dumped even more heavily in 2008. A more active and competent prime minister, with a stronger political base, might have been able to push through some of the promised reforms, but not the man handpicked for the task by Dr. Mahathir.

  Even when he chose Abdullah ahead of Najib to be his deputy in 1999, Dr. Mahathir largely put his personal interests ahead of the country's. His retrospective contention that Najib at 50 was too young in 2003 to become premier rang hollow, given that Najib entered Parliament at 22 and joined the government at 32, and actually had been active in politics longer than Abdullah. As Dr. Mahathir's mood soured and he became more cantankerous, he claimed that Abdullah had not been his first choice. But since he had dismissed Anwar as morally unfit and the government was under pressure from the sectarian Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir opted for the one who did not smoke or drink and had excellent Islamic credentials. Dr. Mahathir was mindful, too, that Abdullah personally did not like Anwar Ibrahim, and could be expected to block his return to active politics. Associates believed Dr. Mahathir tapped Abdullah also because he thought he would be the most grateful and easiest to manipulate from behind the scenes.[14] Instead, under the influence of ambitious young aides, Abdullah had moved his eager supporters into crucial positions during the 16
months that Dr. Mahathir was a lame duck leader, ready to chart his own course as soon as he took charge.

  Dr. Mahathir's reaction to being politically outmanoeuvred for once, denouncing Abdullah in increasingly harsh language and refusing to retire graciously, did nothing for the former prime minister's reputation. He shunned the chance to play the part of elder statesman, indulging instead in mean personal politics, even as he registered some valid points. Worse for him, he was unable to influence events, beyond reinforcing the perception that Abdullah's administration was inept. Flailing away without any result, Dr. Mahathir later gave up temporarily on Najib as well, though not because he thought he was unsuited to lead Malaysia while dogged by scandal. Rather, he branded Najib a "coward" for not challenging Abdullah. Dr. Mahathir then pinned his hopes on Muhyiddin Yassin, an UMNO vice president. But he, too, initially accepted Abdullah's transition arrangement and ruled out a challenge, before engineering a peaceful handover to Najib from behind the scenes.

  At no stage did Dr. Mahathir acknowledge his culpability in making it almost impossible for party rivals to contest Abdullah's presidency and allow for wider reform and regeneration in UMNO. Not only did Dr. Mahathir put in place the 30 per cent nomination quota to protect himself while in power, but he also arranged "bonus" votes for presidential nominees and gave the Supreme Council enormous advantage over the rank and file by allowing the council to postpone triennial party elections by up to 18 months.

  By quitting UMNO in 2008, Dr. Mahathir tried to prompt a stampede for the exits by the party's elected representatives and leaders, who he hoped would remain outside the party until Abdullah was replaced, before returning to UMNO. It was one of those all-or-nothing gambits that worked as Dr. Mahathir's career ascended, but flopped as he lost power and his political touch deserted him. It was also an impractical and irresponsible tactic, given that UMNO was still the heart of the National Front, which had been recently re-elected to govern the country for another five years. Explaining Dr. Mahathir's misguided motivation, one long-time ally said, "He hates Abdullah more than he loves UMNO."[15]