Malaysia's King Lear

Malaysia's King Lear PDF Print E-mail
Posted by kasee
Wednesday, 12 March 2008

Mahathir Mohamad finds fault with another heir

LIKE an emperor from a bygone age, Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s former prime minister, has left a legacy you can walk through, or at least gaze at in wonder from a high-rise window: Kuala Lumpur, with its soaring Petronas Twin Towers, its sweeping expressways, state-of-the-art monorail and metro; the still emerging new cities of Putrajaya and Cyberjaya; and indeed, Malaysia itself, with its 21st-century infrastructure and rapidly growing prosperity.

Yet that is not enough for the grand old man. He also wants a political legacy. He seems to want his party, the United Malays National Organisation (UNMO), and the coalition it dominates, the Barisan Nasional (BN), which he led for 22 years, to remain in power indefinitely.

So Dr Mahathir seems to have taken the results of the election on March 8th personally. The BN won comfortably. But it lost its two-thirds majority in parliament—needed if it wants to change the constitution (which it does, on average, once every 15 months)—and was defeated in five of the concurrent elections for the 13 state governments (before the election it controlled all but one). For the first time since Malaysia became independent some 50 years ago, the UMNO faces the prospect of losing power.

Dr Mahathir has no doubt about whom to blame. He said Abdullah Badawi, the prime minister, should accept “100% responsibility” and resign. Mr Badawi, he argued, had “destroyed” UMNO and the BN. In these circumstances, the Japanese, he said sympathetically, would have committed hari-kiri.

He was particularly scathing about Mr Badawi’s perceived reliance on the advice of his son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin (once, as it happens, an intern at The Economist, which probably does not help endear him to his father-in-law’s predecessor). Mr Badawi has since denied that Mr Khairy has undue influence.

But Dr Mahathir questioned why he should have any at all. In a revealing (and perhaps unconscious) reference to his own methods, he suggested the prime minister should pay more attention to “the police, the special branch and the armed forces, who are closer to the ground”.

Of course, there is a small problem with this analysis. Why is Mr Badawi prime minister in the first place? Because Dr Mahathir anointed him. Graciously, Dr Mahathir conceded this might have been a mistake—he should have chosen Najib Razak, the deputy prime minister.

But even Dr Mahathir must admit that his record in picking successors is, at best, patchy. Mr Badawi’s predecessor as anointee was Anwar Ibrahim, whom Dr Mahathir turned against in 1998, during the regional financial meltdown. Mr Anwar, after six years in prison on charges widely seen as politically motivated, is now the opposition’s main leader. Indeed, one reason the election was held this month was that in April a ban on his serving in elected office expires.

Many Malaysians remain suspicious of Mr Anwar. His trajectory from youthful Islamic firebrand to loyal Mahathir deputy to liberal leader of the reformist opposition has been too seamless. But his suffering in jail, and Dr Mahtahir’s victimisation of him, has made many give him the benefit of the doubt. And at least he has moved with the times.

UMNO itself, however, and Dr Mahathir, seem stuck in the past. They have not realised that the modern, multiracial, dynamic society they have helped spawn is ready for a more competitive politics. One of the most encouraging aspects of this election is the way both government and opposition have reacted to the result: graciously and with restraint.

Dr Mahathir may have chosen far better than he knows. - THE ECONOMIST