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PAS : KE ARAH PEMERINTAHAN ISLAM YANG ADIL
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Monday, March 19 1:36 AM SGT
Malaysia's Mahathir Keeps Fighting, But For How Long?
KUALA LUMPUR (AP)--When 15 skydivers set a record on
New Year's Eve by parachuting off the world's tallest
buildings, the Petronas Twin Towers, they received
medals from the man the nickel-plated spires have come
to symbolize -Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
One parachutist, impressed with Mahathir's achievement
in turning Malaysia from a rubber-dependent backwater
into one of Asia's most modern nations, commented that
the world would be a better place if there were 40
more Mahathirs to run it.
Maybe not, Mahathir replied: "We'd probably spend all
our time fighting each other."
Since taking office in 1981, Malaysia's leader has
developed a reputation for world-class pugnacity. He
hasn't been shy about taking on all who got in his
way, from uppity sultans to the International Monetary
Fund to his now-jailed former protege, Anwar Ibrahim.
But some Malaysians, even within his own party, are
wondering how much longer Mahathir, still a vigorous
75 but increasingly showing his age, can hang on to
power and whether the stability he has brought in a
volatile region will be risked if he insists on
staying.
In recent months, the embattled opposition has
increasingly landed telling blows, winning a key
by-election and staging surprisingly well-attended
rallies in Mahathir's home state, Kedah, in the
northern rice bowl.
Many Malay Muslims, the dominant ethnic group and
bedrock of Mahathir's United Malays National
Organization, are deserting to an Islamic
fundamentalist movement and to a party headed by
Anwar's wife.
Efforts to bring the upstart groups into talks to
restore Malay unity -where Mahathir's party has always
called the shots in a race-based system -have failed.
It could be an indication that politics have evolved
beyond the ethnic passions that led to bloody riots in
1969 pitting Malays against the Chinese minority.
While Mahathir contends the 1997 Asian economic crisis
that triggered the decline in his popularity is
finished, with Malaysia posting 7% growth last year,
the dizzying boom that characterized Southeast Asia in
the mid-1990s has never really returned.
Buildings stand half finished. The national airline
and a light-rail project recently had to be bailed out
financially. An initial stock offering by a
telecommunications company sold only a quarter of the
shares available.
And many fear vital electronics exports will slide if
the U.S. economy should fall into a slump.
The government has dusted off time-proven responses:
It's trying to unite Malays by playing on old fears of
Chinese economic dominance. It criticizes
globalization while sending trade missions abroad to
woo more investment. It's even accused foreign media
of an anti-Malaysian plot, triggered by photos in a
magazine that Mahathir thought made him look "like an
idiot."
But none of that has struck home with the public, and
sentiment is growing that the prime minister is losing
his touch.
"The politics in this country is not the same as
before," says P. Ramasamy, a political science
lecturer at National University of Malaysia. "All
these things that were taken for granted are being
sort of questioned, ridiculed."
Shahrir Samad, a critical member of the governing
party's supreme council, put it much more bluntly
after the party lost a hard-fought state by-election
in Mahathir's home state in November.
"This is the 'old man syndrome' of an old man
sulking," Shahrir said at the time. "The voters did
not see any changes in the government, which is
perceived as full of corruption, self-serving and out
of touch with the people."
Unless that changes by 2004, when parliamentary
elections must be held and hundreds of thousands of
young voters will cast ballots for the first time, the
ruling party may be faced with losing power for the
first time since independence from Britain in 1957.
The worst ethnic violence in decades erupted in poor
townships on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur in early
March as Malay Muslims clashed with ethnic Indians,
resulting in six deaths.
Though the cause was attributed to a local dispute and
showed no sign of spreading, the violence highlighted
below-the-surface racial tensions between majority
Malays and minority Chinese and Indians that define
the country's politics.
In his long career, Mahathir has alternately played up
frictions and portrayed his government as the only
force that can keep them in check to build a peaceful
and harmonious society.
Mahathir has promised to step down by 2004, but some
feel his party needs to remake itself soon or keep
losing popularity, leading the economy to stagnate and
fueling the rise of Islamic fundamentalists.
The Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party is the largest
component of a four-party opposition front, but has
little in common with its partners other than a desire
to defeat Mahathir. The party advocates an Islamic
state, with separation of the sexes and bans on
alcohol, but contends it would respect the rights of
non-Muslims.
Speculation has arisen that Mahathir could be nudged
out by his own party as early as April, after leaders
of the party's factions are selected. The division
leaders have launched party purges in the past.
But time and again over the years, the prime minister
has proven wrong those who tried to write his
political obituary
Most believe Mahathir will choose his own time and it
won't be soon. Not even the opposition thinks mass
protests will ignite to drive the government from
office, as has happened in the Philippines and
Indonesia.
Chandra Muzzaffar, deputy president of the opposition
National Justice Party, notes Malaysia has neither the
mass deprivation nor cracks in the elite that
characterized the Indonesian and Philippine upheavals.
"We've had a political crisis for the past 2 1/2
years, but not a single rat has jumped off the sinking
ship," Chandra says. "The rats know the ship is
sinking, but they won't leave."
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