Distant crisis, persistent culture:

Reflections on recent UMNO and Malaysian politics

Khoo Boo Teik1 Science University of

At the outset, let me briefly outline the connections between ‘distant crisis’ and ‘persistent culture’, that are explored here.

By ‘distant crisis’ I refer to the so-called ‘East Asian financial crisis of 1997’. Up to mid-1997, Malaysia had had high economic growth and shared in an Asian triumphalism that was variously expressed in the ‘East Asian miracle’, ‘Asian values’ or expectations of an ‘Asian century’. The 1997 crisis had two powerful impacts on Malaysian political economy. Economically, the crisis disrupted hopes of continued rapid growth that would fulfill Prime Minister Dr ’s ‘vision’ of Malaysia’s becoming a ‘developed country’ by the year 2020. Politically, Mahathir’s widening differences with his deputy, , over the course of crisis management culminated in Anwar’s dismissal, prosecution and imprisonment on charges of immoral conduct unrelated to economic or financial matters. The ‘Anwar affair’ itself galvanized dissent into a Reformasi movement that challenged the ruling (BN, or National Front) government. In the general election of November 1999, the opposition Barisan Alternatif (BA, or Alternative Front), born of Reformasi, failed to dislodge the BN from power. Yet, BA significantly eroded the position of UMNO (United National Organization), the BN’s leading party.

1 Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia. Distant crisis, persistent culture: Reflections on recent UMNO and Malaysian politics

By ‘persistent culture’ I have in mind UMNO’s political culture, shaped by Malay traditions but embedded in 60-year old party structures and procedures, and a 50-year record of state rule. Since the 1970s, UMNO has been captive to factionalism and periodic infighting, and never more divisively so than when its leaders’ policy differences coincided with their prospects for succession at the apex of UMNO’s hierarchy, and an intensifying competition for state patronage and political largesse. 2 From the 1980s onwards, UMNO built a corporate empire, justified by the ethnically determined economic restructuring objective of the New Economic Policy (NEP). But UMNO’s intrusions into the economy only enmeshed it within an increasingly discordant Malay axis of the state, ruling party and an emerging capitalist class.

In short, the crisis of 1997 threw the Malay capitalist class into disarray, but the 1999 election kept UMNO in power. The former development paved the way for a new generation of ‘wannabe’ Malay capitalists, while the latter left the party’s culture unreformed. Hence, the new generation hoped to rise, but largely via the NEP-justified

2 On the subject and different episodes of intra-UMNO fighting, see Harold Crouch, ‘The UMNO Crisis: 1975–1977’, in Harold Crouch, Lee Kam Hing and Michael Ong (eds), Malaysian Politics and the 1978 Election, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 11–36; John Funston, ‘Malaysia: A Fateful September’, in Southeast Asian Affairs 1999, edited by Daljit Singh and John Funston, , ISEAS, 1999, pp. 165–84; Ghani Ismail (1983). Razaleigh Lawan Musa, Pusingan Kedua, Taiping, Perak, IJS Communications; Jae Hyon Lee, UMNO Factionalism and the Politics of Malaysian National Identity, PhD Thesis, School of Politics and International Studies, Murdoch University, Australia, February 2005; Roger Kershaw, ‘Within the Family: The Limits of Doctrinal Differentiation in the Malaysian Ruling Party Election of 1987’, Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, 23 (1989): 125–93; Khoo Boo Teik, Beyond Mahathir: Malaysian Politics and its Discontents, London and New York: Zed Books, 2003; Khoo Khay Jin, ‘The Grand Vision: Mahathir and Modernisation’, in Joel S. Kahn and Francis Loh Kok Wah (eds) (1992) Fragmented Vision: Culture And Politics In Contemporary Malaysia, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1992, pp. 44–76.

129 2007 KPSA International Conference [The Rise of Asia and Its Future] state-sponsored routes despite their discredited modes of governance. At the same time, certain difficulties in leadership transition emerged, rendering UMNO vulnerable to another bout of infighting. Ironically, then, UMNO’s hegemonic position meant that its own convulsions could once more destabilize the political system. Looking at these connections between a ‘distant crisis’ and a ‘persistent culture’ – via a review of some aspects of Malaysian politics in 2006 – may offer an understanding of the implications that different stances towards a ‘rising Asia’ may have held for social transformation in Malaysia within the last decade.

I. A big spat3

On 22 June 2002, Mahathir Mohamad announced his intention to resign as Prime Minister and UMNO President. On 1 November 2003, he was succeeded by . That sixteen-month transition in premiership, carefully managed to keep UMNO intact, was presented to soothe a post-Reformasi public that did not quite know what UMNO offered or what Mahathir wanted for him to remain in office until 30 October 2003.

Whatever their unwritten terms, Mahathir’s agreement with UMNO or perhaps his later ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ with Abdullah had become worthless by 1 May 2006 when Mahathir called this a ‘half-past six country which has no guts’.4 At one point Mahathir said that Abdullah was not UMNO’s ‘first choice’ to be his successor. By implication – a critical one since Mahathir hinted at ingratitude and broken promises – Abdullah was Mahathir’s choice. Alluding to being ‘backstabbed’ and ‘demonized’, Mahathir posed more and more demanding questions and stronger and stronger criticisms of Abdullah’s

3 A longer treatment of the issues raised in this section is available in Khoo Boo Teik, ‘Wake me up at half-past 6’, Aliran Monthly, 26, 5 (2006): 2–6. 4 ‘Dr Mahathir: Malaysia a “half-past six country with no guts” if …’, New Straits Times, May 2, 2006

130

Distant crisis, persistent culture: Reflections on recent UMNO and Malaysian politics administration. The Abdullah side – some Cabinet ministers, UMNO leaders and senior media figures – responded with harsher and harsher tones. Mahathir himself was reminded he had given his word not to interfere with the ‘new’ government.

Soon salvoes of mutual criticism converged into a barrage of accusation. Into the fray was drawn Musa Hitam, Mahathir’s Deputy Prime Minister from 1981 to 1986. Musa spoke painfully of this round of UMNO infighting as only he could speak of UMNO’s pains of the past 25 years. Being no Reformasi diehard, Musa did not say Mahathir was nyanyuk (senile) but the former diagnosed the latter’s condition as a ‘post-PM syndrome’.5 Into the fight leapt an unlikely combatant – Matthias Chang, Mahathir’s former political secretary. On 18 April, Chang called Minister of Foreign Affairs an ‘incompetent’ ‘big Napoleon’ over the government’s decision to stop building the ‘scenic’ or ‘crooked’ – but definitely half – bridge to Singapore. On 13 June, Chang called Abdullah’s son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, and New Straits Times Deputy Chairman Kalimullah Hassan ‘corrupt’ and ‘cowardly’ and accused them of campaigning to ‘demonize’ Mahathir.6

Suddenly half-forgotten figures with an axe or two to grind emerged, almost casually so. Following a police assault on demonstrators protesting electricity rate increases, Ani Arope a former chairman of the state power company, Tenaga, spoke of Tenaga’s ‘unequal treaties’ with the Independent Power Producers (IPP) privileged to supply power to Tenaga under Mahathir’s privatization schemes. Ani revealed that the Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department had compelled Tenaga to accept a higher price for IPP-supplied power than the IPP had asked.7 Then appeared the author of a surat layang (poison pen letter) whose identity had been a poorly kept ‘official secret’

5 ‘Musa on Mahathir’s outspoken style’, New Straits Times, June 10, 2006 6 Leslie Lau, ‘Mahathir loyalist blasts Abdullah’s supporters’, Straits Times, June 14, 2006 7 ‘Ani: TNB got raw deal’, thestar online, June 6, 2006, http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/6/6/business/14432852&sec=businessAni: sighted 6 June, 2006

131 2007 KPSA International Conference [The Rise of Asia and Its Future] since 1996. 8 There was an unpublicized investigation of Syed Ahmad Idid Syed Abdullah’s accusations of judicial corruption. It did not result in any action being taken against any judge but led to Syed Ahmad Idid’s ignoble departure as High Court judge. Now the media gave him a chance to revisit his old allegations.

Two judicial developments were not irrelevant to what was happening. First, the Court of Appeal granted Sukma Darmawan Sasmitaat Madja’s appeal for a new trial on old charges.9 In 1998, Sukma had been jailed after he pleaded guilty to letting Anwar Ibrahim sodomize him. Later, Sukma maintained his innocence, claiming he ‘confessed’ only because he couldn’t withstand the torture by his interrogators. Second, Anwar’s RM100 million ‘defamation and conspiracy’ suit against Mahathir wound its way through the judicial process, with Anwar’s registering a long reply to Mahathir’s statement of defence.10

Resourceful as ever, Mahathir discovered the utility of civil society’s limited instruments of expression. His statements and his allies’ commentaries were posted on websites and blogs. He gave a characteristically long and candid interview to Malaysiakini.11 He held a ‘dialogue with non-governmental organizations on 24 June. The dialogue was arranged by Malaysia Today and attended, among others, by some

8 Santha Oorjitham, ‘I became the invisible man’, New Straits Times, June 11, 2006 9 A. Hafiz Yatim, ‘Sukma re-trial in November’, New Straits Times, June 16, 2006 10 Anwar Ibrahim’s Reply to the Statement of Defence by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, reproduced in Malaysiakini, June 14, 2006 (http://www.malaysia-today.net/Blog-e/2006/06/anwar-ibrahims- reply-to-statement-of.htm); sighted 28 June 2006 11 Fauwaz Abdul Aziz, ‘I’m disappointed, says Mahathir’, Malaysiakini, May 23, 2006; ‘My criticisms are constructive’, Malaysiakini, May 24, 2006; and ‘Perwaja was not a mistake, says Dr M’, Malaysiakini, May 25, 2006 (http://mail.google.com/mail/?&ik=b5e3700a7f&view=pt10b7ebbf799a8db&search=inb..., sighted May 29, 2006.

132

Distant crisis, persistent culture: Reflections on recent UMNO and Malaysian politics opposition figures. For ‘sleeping with the enemy’12 thus, as the New Straits Times put it, Mahathir was jeered by Minister (PM’s Department) Nazri Aziz: if he was jantan (manly) Mahathir should leave UMNO! Naturally Mahathir would not leave UMNO which he had joined before Nazri was born.

Abdullah stayed aloof, leaving his ministers to shield him while he maintained what Musa lauded as an ‘elegant silence’. But that was an unacceptable stance in a political system where the leader habitually had the last word on everything. Mahathir claimed he only wanted clear and truthful answers to questions regarding the state car company, Proton, the ‘half-bridge’ to Singapore, and the continued development of the new administrative capital, Putrajaya. Each of these issues, however, was a complicated matter.

First, Proton dragged in the practice of issuing Approved Permits (APs) for the importation of cars), the sale of its subsidiary company, MV Augusta, and the termination of Tengku Mahaleel Tengku Ariff’s appointment as Managing Director. The APs ate into Proton’s market share. MV Augusta was sold for one Euro although it was bought for 70 million Euros, and under Tengku Mahaleel, Proton had evidently been a business success. The government’s replies were: the AP issue was already clarified in 2005; selling MV Augusta rid Proton of a losing, debt-ridden, motorcycle company marginal to automobile manufacturing; and Proton’s Board had a right not to renew Tengku Mahaleel’s appointment.13

Second, Mahathir would not accept that Malaysia had to abandon its plans for constructing a ‘half-bridge’ from the state of to Singapore because Singapore would not cooperate to build a straight full bridge. He said he had been assured days before the government’s final decision that the bridge construction would proceed. The government’s answers were: Singapore would not cooperate unless it was sold sand and allowed to use Malaysian airspace. Since ‘the people’ were opposed to the sand and

12 V. Vasudevan, ‘Sleeping with the enemy’, New Straits Times, June 27, 2006 13 Rajan Moses, ‘The Proton Saga revealed’, New Straits Times, June 17, 2006

133 2007 KPSA International Conference [The Rise of Asia and Its Future] airspace deals, it made neither legal nor financial sense to proceed with the half-bridge.14 Then Mahathir charged that the ‘sand-and-space sweetener’ was offered to, not originally demanded by, Singapore. Selling the sand, which Johor protested, had become akin to selling national sovereignty.

Third, the halt to further construction in Putrajaya cast an aspersion on Mahathir’s fiscal management. More than the Twin Towers or Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Putrajaya symbolised Mahathir’s predilection for launching ‘mega projects’. Hence, it had long been hinted, Abdullah had to reduce the budget deficit and watch his own spending. He wanted to focus on the Ninth Malaysia Plan, not ‘tax, spend and build’ if that left a huge burden on the future. But Mahathir denied that state funds were low. The state oil company, Petronas, made record profits, the Employees’ Provident Fund had lots of money, and the national reserves were piling up. How could money not be available and why should it not be spent? Always one to use state expenditure to create multipliers and benefits to the economy, Mahathir despaired with a certain ‘Malay attitude towards money’ that could not see that money was for making more money!

At first glance, it was puzzling why a Mahathir-Abdullah spat should have arisen as if Abdullah was furiously de-Mahathirising in the area of major policy-making. Yet, Abdullah’s initiatives for better governance and ‘GLC Transformation’15 were anticipated by Mahathir’s bureaucratic reforms and taming of the state-owned enterprises of the 1980s. The ideological roots of Abdullah’s initiative in Islamization, which he had called ‘Islam hadhari’, could be traced to Mahathir’s policy of encouraging ‘the assimilation of Islamic values’. Indeed, Abdullah, then a minister in Mahathir’s first Cabinet, was responsible for implementing Mahathir’s Islamization policies until Anwar joined the government. Even Abdullah’s call to create ‘towering [Malay] personalities’ came from the Melayu Baru (New Malays) praised by Mahathir.

14 Firdaus Abdullah and Sulok Tawle, ‘We have crossed that bridge’, New Straits Times, April 19, 2006 15 Government linked companies

134

Distant crisis, persistent culture: Reflections on recent UMNO and Malaysian politics

Abdullah’s reform initiatives were in fact limited to urging better performances from the managers of the GLCs, improving the civil service and liberalizing certain sectors of the economy. Beyond that, he had no firmer vision to offer. In contrast, Mahathir’s policies had girded a crucial project, once called Malaysia Inc., later named Vision 2020. It was a project inspired by the deep economic nationalism that drove his entire political career. He pursued it for 22 years as Prime Minister. In short, the weakened national car company, the abandoned bridge and the diminished administrative capital were the brick- and-mortar symptoms of the demolition of Mahathir’s nationalist project. Hence, it was one thing for Abdullah to express a general commitment to Vision 2020. It was something altogether different when, in the name of better governance, liberalization or globalization, he dismantled Mahathir’s project. To defend that project, Mahathir had risked everything fighting his opponents within UMNO in 1987–90, and sacking Anwar and imposing capital controls in 1998. Now, believing there was a campaign to reverse his policies, terminate agreed projects and rubbish his reputation, Mahathir vowed to pursue his criticisms of the government even if it meant ‘disuniting UMNO’.

Without the powers of incumbency and the instruments of rule, it was probably beyond Mahathir to win an ‘open war’ against the Abdullah camp. Mahathir persisted. He said he was not concerned with government contracts and projects and who received them although, given the close links between business and politics, different teams of business and political figures had been jostling for position and favours ever since he stepped down. Yet, he tapped into muted disgruntlement, within UMNO and Malay corporate circles, that Abdullah’s son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin and his ‘Oxbridge boys and their consultancies’ had monopolized policy planning and taken control of projects and contracts. In particular, there was plentiful speculation that certain corporate manoeuvres profited ‘new cronies’ while the termination of specific projects harmed ‘former cronies’. All that raised hopes or fears among different corporate interests and their political allies, especially when the economy was growing moderately and the Ninth Malaysia Plan projects were about to be awarded. Sometimes an unnamed ‘third party’ was said to be manipulating the clash between Mahathir and Abdullah. Whatever the truth of all those

135 2007 KPSA International Conference [The Rise of Asia and Its Future] rumours, there was a fear in UMNO that an intensifying spat would cast its internal politics into turmoil once again, especially since UMNO’s triennial party election was scheduled to be held in 2007.

II. A callow young politician16

Central to the intensification of the Mahathir-Abdullah quarrel were suspicions that Khairy was rising too rapidly, rather like Anwar when he was Mahathir’s protégé in the 1980s. Indeed, at one point, Khairy was compelled to sell of his newly aquired ECM Libra Avenue shares17 and publicly deny slurs on his private affairs. Still, despite his cultivated image of being a foreign-schooled, Oxford-educated journalist, television show producer, and investment banker, Khairy was seen to be an ambitious ‘First Son-in-Law’ and go-getting UMNO Youth Deputy President, possessed of an octopus-like reach of influence.

This much, though, was apparent of Khairy. He seemed to represent the future; yet his politics was stuck with a Malay nationalism that Mahathir made obsolete before he retired. Khairy was careful to remain in the public eye but his ways were so self-absorbed he could not cut a truly public figure. In fact, compared to Anwar and Mahathir when the latter two were just immersing themselves in politics, Khairy looked too young to merit a serious evaluation as a politician, and too early into his career to know just where and how things are going.

Naturally Khairy and his allies would dispute the point about an obsolete Malay nationalism. During the days of Reformasi, when UMNO’s ‘relevance’ to Malay politics was questioned, Khairy himself had rejected the alternatives represented by Parti Islam

16 This section is mainly drawn from Khoo Boo Teik, ‘Khairy Jamaluddin: A Sketch of a Young Man as a Politician’, Aliran Monthly, 26, 8 (2006): 2–7. 17 ‘Khairy sells stake in ECM Libra Avenue’, New Sunday Times, August 13, 2006

136

Distant crisis, persistent culture: Reflections on recent UMNO and Malaysian politics

SeMalaysia (PAS, or Islamic Party) and Parti Keadilan Nasional (Keadilan, or National Justice Party). ‘When all those around me in 1999 ran away,’ he wrote, he entered ‘the big tent that is UMNO’.18 Five years later, Khairy was deputy chief of the lesser tent of UMNO Youth in circumstances publicly related by Abdullah: ‘Hishamuddin [Hussein, UMNO Youth President] says, “The Youth have decided, I have decided, I want to nominate Khairy for Youth deputy head, Pak Lah [that is, Abdullah] don’t disturb, this is Youth affairs”.’19

In UMNO Youth’s history, Khairy’s rise was not as spectacular as Anwar’s defeat of Suhaimi Kamaruddin for the UMNO Youth presidency in 1982, just months after Anwar had joined UMNO. But, by 1982, the ideological impact, organizational assets and popular standing Anwar had gained from leading the Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement), joining the large farmers’ protests in Baling, languishing in Kamunting detention camp, and heading the anti-Societies Act movement had made him a youth of international prominence. Khairy in 2004 was still best known as Abdullah’s son-in-law. No one really knew what he stood for other than a presumed association with his father-in-law’s reformist intentions and election promises.

Young man Mahathir, using the pseudonym of C.H.E. Det, wrote a number of essays for the Straits Times. The C.H.E. Det essays explored the Malay world, noted its changes, explained its problems, and argued its case.20 One notable piece outlined what Mahathir later called the ‘Malay dilemma’. Reading those essays, one would not learn the writer’s identity. But one encountered a coherent Malay worldview and an articulate young voice of Malay nationalism. The C.H.E. Det essays ended a quarter of a century before Khairy was born.

18 Khairy Jamaluddin, ‘Umno is still delivering the goods’, New Straits Times, May 13, 2006 19 ‘PM: Kamal, Khairy never abused ties’, The Star, 8 August 2006 20 Khoo Boo Teik, Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 81–88.

137 2007 KPSA International Conference [The Rise of Asia and Its Future]

However, a regular reader of Khairy’s weekly ‘Out of the Cage’ column in the New Straits Times would notice that Khariy’s column was mostly about himself – about how he had grown up in politics, his sponsorship of a soccer team (MyTeam), his problems with Mahathir, and so on. In his piece on MyTeam, for example, Khairy spoke of feeling ‘pumped up’ as if ‘I was ordering a battalion into war’; scolding ‘pea-brained political opportunists who suggested that MyTeam supporters were unpatriotic’; never allowing MyTeam to ‘challenge the Football Association of Malaysia or turn against the national team’; and believing ‘MyTeam has succeeded’.21

In another essay, he said of himself: ‘You choose this life less ordinary because you want to stand up and be counted. You took the plunge because you have something to say. Say it. Do it. And never stop fighting until the fight is done. Light the fire.’22 Such a homily might more suitably have been delivered by an older person. Here it was part of Khairy’s defending his decision to be a politician with no sense of irony: ‘We owe it to this great profession [sic] to make it the career of choice for the best, brightest and most principled.’ Thus, whereas C.H.E. Det’s essays were original, refreshing and bold, Khairy’s insights in ‘Out of the Cage’ scarcely rose above platitudes, such as:

Politics is not about power, position or personal wealth. Politics is a process in which we can make a difference to others. Politics is that fire in your belly that makes you want to change the world. Politics is about the contestation of ideas.23

To say that ‘Out of the Cage’ revealed a Khairy wrapped up in himself was to show a widening gulf between his concerns and the substance and style of his Malay nationalism when the pressure from the Mahathir-Abdullah spat mounted. To be precise, Khairy’s responses to the pressure showed little substance but style of a sort ill suited to the contexts. Soon, for example, he baited the Barisan Nasional’s Chinese-based component

21 Khairy Jamaluddin, ‘Going for broke in a dream come true’, New Straits Times, June 3, 2006 22 Khairy Jamaluddin, ‘Choosing a life less ordinary’, New Straits Times, April 29, 2006 23 Khairy, ‘Choosing a life less ordinary’

138

Distant crisis, persistent culture: Reflections on recent UMNO and Malaysian politics parties by warning UMNO that the non-Malays would take advantage of ‘Malay disunity’. He contrived this although Chinese parties and organizations, save Matthias Chang who represented himself, had steered clear of the quarrel. Next, and aided by the Penang UMNO Youth, Khairy bashed the Gerakan-led government in the state of Penang for ‘marginalizing the Malays’. Again, this was contrivance. UMNO was more powerful than Gerakan even in the state government, and if Malay economic parity with non-Malays was Penang’s problem, Gerakan had no more failed there than UMNO had in the whole country despite UMNO’s control of the Federal government, state governments and incomparably greater resources.

No UMNO elder politician chided Khairy for his insensitivity, leaving many observers to wonder if Raja Petra Kamarudin, producer of The Khairy Chronicles, was correct in insisting that Khairy ‘called the shots’ in UMNO and the government’.24 Perhaps panicked by Mahathir, Khairy had lashed out against the nearest soft targets, all the better for being UMNO’s subordinate partners in the BN. Perhaps fearful of UMNO’s own discord, Khairy would not risk opening another front in an intra-Malay battle by going after PAS for openly fishing in UMNO’s troubled waters, or attacking Keadilan when Anwar called for an end to NEP. No doubt many Malaysian politicians reach for the ethnic card when they are in trouble. At the time Khairy did so, it was unclear who would triumph in the Mahathir-Abdullah spat. The mainstream media had it that Mahathir had reached the end of his anti-Abdullah mission. The pro-Mahathir online media thought Abdullah’s televised responses to Mahathir’s criticisms were were flawed and a wounded Khairy had had to retreat.

It was crucial, however, not to see Khairy in merely personalized terms. At this juncture, Khairy stood for an NEP-nurtured generation of Melayu Baru who, despite having high qualifications and the appearances of being liberal and cosmopolitan, was

24 For The Khairy Chronicles, see Malaysia Today (http://www.malaysia-today.net/index.shtml.) The last (33rd) episode in this coverage of Khairy’s comings and goings was posted on 12 June 2006.

139 2007 KPSA International Conference [The Rise of Asia and Its Future] beset by ethnic and class insecurities. In class terms, this urban, yuppie and corporate NEP-nurtured generation not only regarded itself to be superior to the Malay masses and the older and humbler UMNO grassroots, but it meant to replace the Asian crisis- humiliated tokoh korporat (corporate leaders) groomed by Mahathir and his former Minister of Finance, . The Malay capitalists of Khairy’s generation operated in the borders between the state and the market. They would prefer not to be overly dependent on the state, and thus spoke of being competitive within the framework of global capitalism. But, unwilling to face the market frontally, they demanded the continuation of ethnically demarcated state sponsorship in the name of the NEP for all Malays. Consequently, for all their talk of removing ‘crutches’ (that is, NEP’s pro-Malay preferences in business and educational opportunities) and creating ‘towering personalities’ (from the Malay community), Khairy’s generation of Malay capitalists feared being uncompetitive abroad and resented being ‘backward’ at home. Socially, this class had detached itself from the rural Malays, the lower-level civil servants and the self- employed in small business. But, for their political power, Khairy’s generation had to stay connected to them via UMNO’s structures and an ideology of ‘Malay nationalism’.

Were he not the Abdullah’s son-in-law, Khairy’s urban, yuppie, corporate and liberal inclinations would have little in common with his father-in-law’s small-town, civil service and religious intuitions. That each of them comforted the other amidst Mahathir’s onslaught lent a sharp edge to ‘The Spat’ which was no less than a political disorder that had erupted between the slow passing of the Mahathir era and the unsecured birth of Abdullah’s. That disorder would soon reach its symptomatic peak at the UMNO General Assembly of November 2006 and spill into the political system at large.

140

Distant crisis, persistent culture: Reflections on recent UMNO and Malaysian politics

III. A truncated vision25

In the heyday of Malaysia’s economic success, which was the height of the ‘East Asian miracle’, Mahathir once spoke with undisguised pride in Malay attainments after a lifetime’s anxiety that to be Malay was to be backward:

Today we have Malays and Bumiputera as heads of departments, scientists, actuaries, nuclear physicists, surgeons, experts in the fields of medicine and aviation, bankers and corporate leaders. In fact, some are already managers of major conglomerates worth billions of ringgit and able to acquire bigger companies in the open market or participate in mergers and acquisitions which are complex and sophisticated.26

Mahathi’s anxiety was never fully assuaged. He left office warning of a ‘second Malay dilemma’, downcast at the thought that he and the Malays had let each other down. But his sense of pride, even though it came before the fall in July 1997, was alien to the delegates at the 2006 UMNO General Assembly. They outdid one another in claiming that, after 36 years of the NEP, the Malays were ‘behind’, ‘still behind’, ‘lagging behind’, ad nauseam. With this Assembly’s noisome reaffirmation of the only communalist agenda openly promoted without a hint of embarrassment in Malaysia, UMNO subverted its own once proud and somewhat credible claim to spearhead nation-building.

In 1993, Mahathir’s Wawasan 2020 had resonated across Malaysian society, valorized by the prosperity that interacted with a huge surge on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. The National Development Policy had officially replaced the NEP, and there was a unifying dream of creating a (Malaysian nationality). The same year, Anwar Ibrahim and his ‘Wawasan Team’ swept , Abdullah Badawi and

25 For a more detailed coverage of the UMNO General Assembly of 2006, see Khoo Boo Teik, ‘Lost on the way to 2020’, Aliran Monthly, 26, 5 (2006): 2–6. 26 Mahathir Mohamad, Speech at the UMNO General Assembly 1991, Kuala Lumpur, 8 November 1991; see ‘PM: Avoid Corruption in any Form’, New Straits Times, 9 November 1991.

141 2007 KPSA International Conference [The Rise of Asia and Its Future]

Sanusi Junid from UMNO’s leadership. In a reflection of the shared hopes of the time, Anwar, then Mahathir’s ‘anointed successor’ paid a tribute to Malaysia’s multiculturalism: ‘Wo men dou shi yi jia ren’ (‘We are one family’).

Little of that sentiment was retained by UMNO in 2006. At the pre-Assembly Johor UMNO Convention, and Johor UMNO pointedly denied that there could ever be a Bangsa Malaysia. No less than Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak thought it such an original thing to say he could not find ‘Bangsa Malaysia’ in the Constitution.27 (No one could, but then no one would find ‘Malay supremacy’ in the Constitution either.) Then followed a twist: Bangsa Malaysia was only a ‘state of mind’. These ideological reversals betrayed a tendency in UMNO politicians of scanning for the remotest ‘threat’, ‘insult’ or ‘disrespect’ to the ‘special position of the Malays’. Here, it permitted them to truncate ‘Mahathir’s vision’ so as to discard what was politically inconvenient, keep what was expedient, and attach it to whatever served their interests.

Of the NEP’s original ‘two prongs’, for instance, the Assembly delegates barely paid lip service to the first prong of ‘poverty eradication irrespective of race’. They only highlighted the second prong of ‘restructuring’. Moreover, whereas the ‘Outline Perspective Plan’ of the Second Malaysia Plan 1970–1975, bearing his father’s imprint, specified a span of 20 years, Najib said there was ‘no time frame’ to NEP’s restructuring. And, in response to a report that claimed the NEP’s target of a 30 per cent Malay share of corporate wealth had been reached, Khairy callously asked, ‘What if I say we accept the 45 per cent figure and having accepted it, we ask for 70 per cent?’28 As for Mahathir’s Vision 2020, the delegates would only find its the goal of ‘developed country status’ seductive. They would reject its Bangsa Malaysia social base as repulsive – a ‘rojak of races’, Ghani Othman had called it.

27 Ravi Nambiar and Siti Nurbaiyah Nadzmi, ‘No Bangsa Malaysia in Constitution, says Najib’, New Straits Times, November 7, 2006 28 ‘Khairy raises poser over equity’, New Straits Times, November 15, 2006

142

Distant crisis, persistent culture: Reflections on recent UMNO and Malaysian politics

Three major reasons accounted for this shrinkage of UMNO’s ‘vision’.

First was the party’s arrogance, presumably based on this assessment of UMNO’s post-Mahathir strength: PAS was beaten and UMNO had recovered its Malay vote. Hence, the non-Malays, who saved Mahathir in 1999 and backed Abdullah in 2004, could once more serve as bogeyman in UMNO’s demonology and the resurgence of ‘Malay supremacy’.

Second was desperation. UMNO had had a difficult year. The sharp rises in petrol and diesel prices following the fifth ‘fuel subsidy reduction’ since 1 May 2004 had sparked protracted protests. Despite Abdullah’s promotion of Islam hadhari, several cases of religious conflicts emerged. Those involved intra-Muslim as much as inter- religious discord, leaving the nation trying to look moderate abroad but looking more extremist at home. Scandals involving the party elite were exposed at different levels in different locations. The leaders contradicted one another on policy matters, ranging from language to ‘meritocracy’ to the economy. Malays of different political persuasions, from Anwar Ibrahim to M Bakri Musa, had called for an end to NEP. Others had criticized the widening intra-Malay inequalities, uncorrected economic inefficiencies and lack of leadership. Above all, a real threat to UMNO-government-Malay unity loomed as Mahathir’s spat with Abdullah compelled the latter to deny that he would be a one-term Prime Minister. Avoiding those issues, before and during the Assembly, UMNO leaders urged ‘Malay unity’ by contriving diversionary ethnic squabbles where these did not actually exist.

Third was the state of the party. The delegates vowed to guard ‘Malay unity’, uphold ‘Malay supremacy’ and pursue their special brand of a ‘Malay agenda’ – but against whom? There was no plausible non-Malay or non-Muslim threat. Only a supreme opportunist or someone quite unhinged from reality would claim that the Malays or Muslims were under siege in Malaysia. The real ‘threat’ was stark, simple and internal. Practically all the major political crises since the late 1970s had been intra-Malay crises, with the most severe being intra-UMNO crises. Thus, only in Malaysia’s highly

143 2007 KPSA International Conference [The Rise of Asia and Its Future] racialized political system then could the Assembly have regarded its preoccupation with Malayness as a sign of UMNO’s strength. Elsewhere in the world, it would have been diagnosed as a classic symptom of the ideological and moral exhaustion of a ruling party incapable of reinventing itself.

IV. Conclusion

Perhaps it was no coincidence that the aggressive-pathetic aspects of UMNO’s agenda resurfaced after Mahathir’s departure and in Anwar’s absence. Mahathir and Anwar’s own political legacies included weaknesses and mistakes that adversely affected not just UMNO’s delegates but a lot of common people. Even so, Mahathir sought to join an economic nationalism to an East Asian triumphalism. Indeed, during the 1997 crisis, he showed he had succeeded to some degree in reorienting Malaysian society so that ‘the races stopped looking inwards with prejudice but rather outwards with pride’.29 At the height of his career, Anwar broadly called for an ‘Asian Renaissance’ within which Malaysia’s own multiculturalism would be confidently located.30 Almost a decade after his fall, Anwar has not disavowed that multiculturalism. If anything, he rejected the cronyism and the corruption justified in the name of NEP – but supported the original NEP’s first prong of ‘poverty eradication irrespective of race’.

The loftier visions of Mahathir and Anwar, allies till 1998 and foes to this day, were no doubt proferred when Malaysia’s own hopes of seemingly sustainable economic growth were linked to the expectations of an ‘Asian Century’ that were widely bandied in and out of Asia. Today, the prospects of a ‘rising Asia’ bring anxieties that Malaysia’s competitiveness is declining vis-à-vis its ‘regional neighbours’. Mahathir grounded a vision of social transformation in economic progress. Anwar saw a place for multicultural pride in a growing regional confidence, In contrast, UMNO is now stuck in time and

29 K. Das, ‘Mahathir’s “Restoration”’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 June 1982, p. 38 30 See Anwar Ibrahim, The Asian Renaissance, Singapore: Times Books International, 1996

144

Distant crisis, persistent culture: Reflections on recent UMNO and Malaysian politics ideological warps – between the 20th and 21st centuries, between an interrupted developmentalist project, and an arrested programme of social transformation.

145