Malaysia’s era of political stability ends
By John Burton in Singapore, The Financial Times
Published: June 2 2008 16:45


Malaysia used to be known for its stable politics and orderly leadership under the long-ruling National Front coalition government. No longer.

“No one knows who will be prime minister by the end of the year. It’s a very fluid situation and changes day by day,??? says Raja Petra Kamarudin, editor of Malaysia Today, an influential political website.

Political stability wavered when the long-ruling National Front coalition, dominated by the United Malays National Organisation party, headed by Abdullah Badawi, suffered the worst setback for the government in 50 years in elections in March.

Now Mr Abdullah, the prime minister, must await the outcome of a series of events and will learn whether he will stay in office, be displaced by another Umno leader, or be forced to hand power to the opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim.

Mr Abdullah must face Umno party elections in December when his leadership mandate is up for renewal. Umno members are seething with anger over the government’s loss of its two-thirds parliamentary majority and an unprecedented five of 13 state governments.

Any rival from within Umno must attract the support of at least 30 per cent of local division heads to be nominated for the party leadership. But observers say such an outcome – once unthinkable – is now looking possible.

“Abdullah still remains very vulnerable. Umno will shortly begin holding local division elections for delegates at the party conference and Abdullah’s support appears to be eroding at the grassroots,??? says a foreign diplomat in Kuala Lumpur.

If Mr Abdullah becomes convinced that he does not have the numbers to survive, he is expected to set a schedule for handing over power to the deputy prime minister, Najib Razak.

Mr Najib is seen as an Umno old guard politician who favours the government’s preferential treatment of ethnic Malays, a popular cause within Umno. The policy has been criticised by the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities and was a main reason for the government’s electoral setback. But Mr Najib also has weaknesses. He is being blamed for the government’s poor election performance because he was in charge of the campaign. His image has also been harmed by allegations of corruption involving the award of contracts by the defence ministry, which he heads. Mr Najib has denied any wrongdoing.

Mr Anwar says he would welcome Mr Najib as Umno leader since it would give a boost to the opposition at a time when the public mood has become more critical about alleged government corruption. “It’s easier for us to deal with Najib because he is tainted,??? Mr Anwar said.

With this in mind, some observers think Mr Najib’s troubles could persuade Umno delegates to support instead Muhyiddin Yassin, the number three Umno official, as the next leader. A moderate from the southern state of Johor, the party’s biggest stronghold, Mr Muyhidden is already favoured as becoming deputy prime minister if Mr Najib succeeds Mr Abdullah.

But Umno calculations in trying to hold on to power by selecting a new leader could be upset if Mr Anwar carries out his threat to topple the government by mid-September by calling for a no-confidence vote. With 82 of the 222 parliamentary seats, the three-party opposition alliance needs to persuade 30 government members of parliament to defect to form a new government.

Political analysts say that Mr Anwar is targeting more than 40 government MPs to defect, which would give him a majority of 22. Most of the defectors would come from Umno’s allies in the National Front coalition from the Borneo states of Sarawak and Sabah, which have long complained about being marginalised by the central government. Mr Anwar claims that he already has enough MPs to bring down the government.

At the weekend, Mr Abdullah flew to Sabah and offered important concessions to local leaders, including handing over central government funds to the state for local development.

One problem that Mr Anwar has in relying on the Borneo MPs to help form a new government is that many of them are non-Malays, which would make the new administration the first in Malaysia’s history to be dominated by ethnic minorities. That could anger the Malay majority and perhaps lead to racial polarisation and ethnic violence.

To avoid such a situation, Mr Anwar has held informal talks with supporters of Razaleigh Hamzah, an Umno grandee and former finance minister, who has announced that he will challenge Mr Abdullah for the party leadership.

Mr Anwar has suggested that he would allow Mr Razaleigh, 71, to serve as a transition prime minister if he defects to the opposition and brings along other ethnic Malay MPs to redress the opposition’s racial balance, according to people close to the situation. “Razaleigh has a lot of credibility,??? said the diplomat. An aide said Mr Razaleigh so far has resisted the idea out of loyalty to Umno, but added: “Who knows what can happen????

? Malaysia will embark on a revamp of its fuel subsidy scheme on Wednesday that may lead to higher petrol and diesel prices later in the year, a government minister said on Tuesday, reports Reuters in Kuala Lumpur. “This announcement is an incremental step towards the total restructuring in fuel subsidies in August,??? Shahrir Samad, domestic trade minister, said. “The announcement will be an indication of the direction we will take.??? He declined to give details.

ASEAN can impose sanctions on members that violate charter, Malaysia says
By SEAN YOONG,Associated Press

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Southeast Asia's main bloc can impose sanctions on members that flout its charter even though there is no formal provision for penalties, Malaysia's leader said Tuesday.

The comment by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi indicated the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is losing patience with Myanmar, one of the 10 members of the bloc, for refusing to restore democracy or improve its human rights record.

ASEAN is hoping to ratify a charter that would include the creation of a regional human rights body by the end of the year. The charter does not mention using sanctions or expulsion in cases of serious breaches by members.

It says, however, any violations would be referred to ASEAN heads of state for a final decision.

ASEAN members will be taking "a pragmatic approach" in tackling potential offenses, Abdullah said.

"The charter does not provide for specific sanctions for charter breaches or noncompliance. But this does not mean that there will be none," Abdullah said at a forum on regional security.

National leaders will decide how to deal with violations "as and when the need arises" at their annual summits, Abdullah said.

ASEAN _ which is noted for deciding issues by consensus and not intervening in members' domestic affairs _ has faced intense pressure from the West in recent years to force Myanmar's military government to move toward democracy.

For the charter to take effect, it must be ratified by parliaments of member countries. Since the charter was adopted in November, six countries have ratified it _ Malaysia, Laos, Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Abdullah urged the remaining members _ the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand _ to ratify the charter, saying it should not be rejected simply "because we are unhappy with a few provisions or omissions."

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has warned that Filipino legislators could find it difficult to ratify the charter if Myanmar does not restore democracy and free opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The charter is aimed at turning ASEAN into a rules-based legal entity, which means it can sue and be sued, and will be held accountable for all the treaties and agreements it signs. It will also set up enforceable financial, trade and environmental rules.

Umno's jumbo missteps
By Singapore Straits Times senior writer Cheong Suk-Wai


SINGAPORE, May 29 - Malays are fond of likening the powerful to elephants, in proverbs such as "gajah sama gajah berjuang, pelanduk mati di engah-tengah" - when elephants joust, the mousedeer caught in the middle die.

The United Malays National Organisation (Umno) remains for now the "gajah" in Malaysian politics. But an elephant is only as powerful as others say it is - and judging from recent comments in the Malay media, Malays are no longer sure what manner of "gajah" Umno is.

This calls to mind a 19th-century parable by John Godfrey Saxe:
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

Now, nobody would say Malaysia's Malays are blind to what ails their country, especially since it was their 5 per cent swing to the opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) that put the latter just 30 seats away from power.

But the Malays are certainly wondering how Umno can protect their interests.  Just like the six men in Saxe's The Blind Men And The Elephant - who, in
turn, mistook the creature for a wall, a spear, a snake, a tree, a fan and rope - the Malays are groping for an answer.

During a talk at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies here last week, Rita Sim of Malaysia's Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research (Insap) noted that Malaysia's Malays are a majority that behave as though they were a minority.

But can anyone blame them? One of Saxe's six men, upon bumping into the elephant, thought he had run into a wall. Many Malays today would point to the mansions of their local Umno representatives, whose high gates are rarely - if ever - opened to their hut-nestled neighbours.

An elephant uses its tusk to defend itself only when provoked. But someone new to the animal might mistake the sharp protrusion as a weapon - like, say, the keris that Umno Youth chief Hishammuddin Hussein has unsheathed, kissed and stabbed the air with at every Umno general assembly since 2004.

Does it really serve Malay interests to make such gestures against the non-Malays? Sim's number-crunching showed that Umno does best in states with a multiracial mix, like Johor. The mostly-Malay rural heartland tends to vote for Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), now a PR component.

Indeed, as Sim and her colleagues at Insap - the think-tank of the Malaysian Chinese Association, the BN's second-largest component party - found, between 36 and 40 per cent of all Malay voters have voted for the opposition in every election since 1959.

Will Umno's young leaders put their keris down long enough to work on the most basic needs of Malays?

In 2004, when the BN enjoyed its biggest-ever general election win, Malaysia's National Economic Action Council (NEAC) found that the wage ratio of a Malay to a Chinese was 1:1.64, while that of a Malay to an Indian was 1:1.27. The NEAC concluded that it would take Malays a good 150 years to catch up with their non-Malay countrymen.

There are certainly plenty of pressing problems to keep Umno busy. Instead, it focuses on whether the Chinese can keep pig farms, Indian Muslims can continue to live with their Hindu spouses, or Singapore is trying to take over Johor by investing in the BN's showpiece Iskandar Malaysia.

It might not seem fair to lay all Malay woes on Umno's doorstep. But then the party has always held the biggest wedge of power in government, and the civil service, military and police forces are more than 90 per cent Malay.

An elephant uses its trunk to pluck low as well as not-so-low-hanging fruit for itself and its kin. But just like one of Saxe's Indostanis, the poorest Malays today wonder if Umno's trunk resembles a snake more.

On May 15, the front-page story of the Terengganu edition of Sinar Harian was of former Terengganu Menteri Besar Datuk Idris Jusoh claiming that his mostly-Malay state - among Malaysia's most destitute - had received only RM1.3 billion in petroleum royalties, and not RM7.3 billion as claimed by the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Datuk Amirsham Aziz, in Parliament earlier this month.

Idris' retort? "(The allocation) is administered by the federal government.. ., and the state government does not control all the spending made by the ministry in question."

Few in Malaysia find such finger-pointing helpful, except as a reminder of the endemic corruption and cronyism in the country. And just last Friday, Selangor's new Menteri Besar, Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, revealed that BN assemblymen had already spent 90.6 per cent, or RM26.6million, of the state's total budget allocations for this fiscal year by February, leaving only RM2.9million for the rest of the year.

Khalid added that his investigations showed that tens of thousands of ringgit went to dinners and souvenirs for "VVIPs", including RM279,000 worth of sports attire for BN politicians' wives.

The legs of an elephant can, at first touch, seem like tree trunks. If Umno remains unmoved by the plight of Malaysia's poorest, those who cling to the party's legs may soon find themselves in an economic quagmire. The five opposition states - Selangor, Penang, Perak, Kedah and Kelantan - together generated 57 per cent of Malaysia's gross domestic product in 2005, and today attract about 48 per cent of all investments in the country. Which is why PR's de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim can now speak of improving the lives of all Malaysians.

The elephant has wide ears to listen with, but a blind man touching one might mistake it for a fan. Is Umno bending its ears to the Malays or fanning the flames of mistrust?

When one considers that Umno members' loudest grouse during the party's election post-mortem in Sungai Petani, Kedah, last month was that its leaders had largely dismissed their list of nominees for polls, the gajah's ears do seem to have fanned discontent unnecessarily, instead of listening intently.

And though an elephant flicks its tail to swish away petty irritants, to the uninitiated, its tail can seem like a rope with which to throttle anyone who challenges it.

As the chief of Umno's women's wing, Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz, put it late last week: "There are so many hypocrites in Umno, and that is why the ship captain does not know where to go. He thinks that everyone is going in the same direction because in front of him, they all say 'yes'. They will not criticise but will say different things behind his back.

"When problems crop up, they ask for the captain to be replaced... Each time the ship is about to sink, (they) throw the captain into the sea."

More than ever in its 62-year history, Umno's 3.4 million members have to decide what they want the party to be - a body using its tusks, trunk, legs, ears and tail for the common good, or something which the Malays continue to mistake for a wall, keris, snake, tree, fan and rope.

With so many of Malaysia's 13 million Malays having hopped over to PR's camp recently, they had better not take too long to decide.