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PAS : KE ARAH PEMERINTAHAN ISLAM YANG ADIL
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SEPTEMBER 8 , 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 35 | SEARCH ASIAWEEK
'Mahathir is Embattled'
Behind the growing pressures on the PM
By ZOHER ABDOOLCARIM
Sex and the Malay politician. Malaysians just cannot get enough of it. Even
before Anwar Ibrahim's controversial sodomy trial, pro-government people had
wantonly accused the ousted deputy prime minister of fathering a child with
the wife of his former private secretary, Mohamed Azmin Ali. A DNA test
quickly proved the allegation unfounded.
Recently, Azmin had a chance to get his own back. Now an opposition state
assemblyman in Selangor, Azmin asked chief minister Abu Hassan Omar, a
loyalist of PM Mahathir Mohamad, about a poison-pen letter that claimed Abu
Hassan had an illegitimate child and that the mother was none other than his
own wife's sister. Shariah law views adultery as harshly as it does sodomy.
If Anwar had to undergo DNA testing to clear his name, said Azmin, why
couldn't Abu Hassan. He did not, but told The Sun newspaper: "One of my best
friends, a Chinese, had married her. Unfortunately, my friend, who became a
Muslim, had used the same name as mine, Abu Hassan Tan Abdullah. They have
an 11-year-old boy from their marriage. The coincidence in the name has led
certain quarters to use it against me and many people think I'm the father
of the boy."
The allegation against Abu Hassan is unproven. At any rate, the real moral
of the story involves not him but Mahathir and his United Malays National
Organization (UMNO), the country's top political party. The PM is known to
staunchly defend those who stick by him. This time, he didn't. Asiaweek
understands that Abu Hassan told Mahathir he could explain what happened,
but that the PM was firm. He said he needed no explanation and ordered the
chief minister to resign. Abu Hassan did so, a day after Anwar was convicted
of sodomy. "Because of the Anwar trial," says an UMNO divisional leader,
"Malaysians are less tolerant of any shenanigans, whether true or not." Adds
a Kuala Lumpur-based diplomat: "UMNO cannot afford dirty linen being washed
in public. It was convenient, even necessary, to accept Abu Hassan's
resignation."
Mahathir, 74, is still UMNO's undisputed leader, but he is no longer
operating from a position of full strength. The Abu Hassan episode shows
that the normally combative PM cannot now just go his own way and tell
popular opinion to stuff it. Besides the Anwar affair, which continues to
divide Malays, Mahathir is under pressure from the surging fortunes of the
opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia, as well as from a newly emboldened
Chinese community that feels the government owes it for essentially bailing
out the UMNO-led ruling coalition during last November's general elections.
Says UMNO supreme councillor Shahrir Abdul Samad: "Mahathir is embattled."
The sentiment reaches overseas, the latest indicator being the withdrawal of
an invitation to Mahathir to address the Islamic Society of North America
because its members are upset over the treatment of Anwar. Says the
diplomat: "Mahathir has lost stature."
As a result, UMNO now must at least be seen to be cleaner than clean. In Abu
Hassan's case, an unknown was chosen to replace him, someone with no track
record to attack. He is 35-year-old dentist Mohamed Khir Toyo, a Selangor
state assemblyman. Much has been made of the fact that his parents were
farmers and that he sold ice-cream and old newspapers and planted rice to
finance his studies.
Even people like the seemingly ultra-straight Toyo are going to have their
work cut out burnishing UMNO's tarnished reputation. The establishment's
credibility is, if not shot, certainly badly dented — and the government
knows it. For example, in recent weeks, officials have been forced to
re-enact the infamous July arms heist — when a group of Muslim militants
posing as officers simply drove into two military posts and exited with a
cache of weapons — because much of the public still do not understand how it
could have happened. The skepticism extends to the point that some
Malaysians actually think the heist was a government set-up — a sandiwara,
or play — staged to discredit the Islamist opposition. Thus, the
re-enactment, which took place on the grounds of the defense ministry and to
which opposition MPs were invited (none attended). Said Defense Minister
Najib Tun Razak: "We wanted to prove that this was possible and that it was
done by the gang."
UMNO is trying to change. It has brought in outspoken, independent-minded
politicians like Shahrir. It is re-examining authoritarian laws. It is
cracking down on graft and money politics. The measures have helped but have
yet to dispel the negative perception of UMNO and the government among many
ordinary folk. It is a view that astonished Singapore elder statesman Lee
Kuan Yew when he recently visited Malaysia for the first time in 10 years.
Sources say that the negativity surfaced even in closed-door sessions Lee
had with leaders of government parties and editors of establishment media.
"There is [so] much cynicism," Lee later said. "I just don't understand why
there is this questioning of the government." But there obviously very much
is.
With reporting by Santha Oorjitham/Kuala Lumpur
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