Mahathir's last stand

Mahathir's last stand
12 April, 2008
The Straits Times
LAST month's stunning election results have once again thrust former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad into the country's political mainstream.

He has resumed his spirited campaign to oust his successor Abdullah Badawi, whom he accuses of being incompetent and chiefly responsible for the ruling Umno's poor showing in the elections.

But there is a growing view that the government's defeat in five key states and the loss of its customary two-thirds majority in Parliament represented in fact the final verdict on the 22 years of Tun Dr Mahathir's rule. That rule was pockmarked with assaults against independent public institutions, rampant corruption, racial tensions and economic fiascos.

While there is widespread anger within Umno towards Datuk Seri Abdullah over the recent election results, party officials say that his main fault was that he attempted to restore confidence in the institutions Tun Dr Mahathir emasculated, but did not have the political will to push ahead with the much-needed overhaul.

Indeed, the political mudslinging and blame game stemming from last month's polls have reopened the debate on Tun Dr Mahathir's legacy.

In response to his attacks on the government, politicians from both sides of the divide have lashed out at the former premier. In recent days Umno leaders, including Datuk Seri Abdullah, have chided him for his alleged abuse of power when in office. Opposition leaders have also weighed in.

'The opposition doesn't need the unsolicited support of Dr Mahathir to ensure that the Barisan Nasional government is kept on its toes,' said Mr Karpal Singh, the chairman of the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP).

No stranger to controversy, Tun Dr Mahathir is insisting that he did nothing wrong.

'My conscience is clear. I have done what was my duty and I owe no one an apology,' he was quoted as saying in a letter to Mr Singh, made public this week.

For years, Malaysians have viewed Tun Dr Mahathir's autocratic political style through a soft-focus lens because he presided over a period of heady economic growth.

For example, his crackdown on more than 100 government critics in October 1987 was defended as a necessity to prevent the country from descending into chaos. His assault on the judiciary was justified because large segments of the Malaysian public embraced his argument that judges were interfering in the business of government and were challenging decisions by his administration.

Even his sacking of former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim in 1998 was often justified on the grounds that it reflected the realities of Malaysia's take-no-prisoners political culture: Datuk Seri Anwar paid the price for challenging his boss.

But those views are fast dissipating. As Malaysia grapples with its worst political crisis in decades, Tun Dr Mahathir's legacy is coming under a not-so-forgiving spotlight. In fact, many analysts and politicians are now blaming the election debacle suffered by the ruling Umno-led Barisan Nasional coalition on the overhang of the Mahathir years. Umno's sycophantic culture, the confidence deficit in the judiciary and security agencies, and widespread corruption are now viewed as elements framing his legacy.

Many Malaysian politicians believe that Datuk Seri Abdullah's position as Premier and party president is now untenable and the big question is whether he will be able to engineer a dignified political exit before Umno holds its own party polls some time in December. But his exit will not help rehabilitate Umno, and many party officials close to the Premier blame this on Tun Dr Mahathir.

They say the party's decline began two decades ago after the High Court declared Umno illegal following a bitter leadership contest which almost unseated Tun Dr Mahathir. He and his allies created a new party, but the democratic procedures that characterised Malaysia's oldest political organisation were removed.

New rules made it virtually impossible to challenge the party leadership. That, say many Umno officials, sowed the seeds for the current disillusionment in the Malay community towards the party.

Tun Dr Mahathir's assault on the judiciary was the direct result of his problems in Umno. He led a campaign to sack the country's top jurist after the judge called for a full sitting of the country's highest court to hear an appeal by his political opponents. They were seeking an order to overturn an earlier High Court decision declaring Umno illegal.

By removing the top judge and installing more compliant jurists, Tun Dr Mahathir removed potential political threats to his rule, lawyers and Umno officials say.

In all these battles, he won easily because he laid the ground rules and often moved the goal posts to get his way. But one fight that he has not been able to bring closure to is that with his former deputy, Datuk Seri Anwar.

The former premier's handling of Datuk Seri Anwar's sacking from Umno and the government in late 1998, and the subsequent imprisonment of Datuk Seri Anwar, ranks as one of his biggest political miscalculations.

Even though Datuk Seri Anwar could not stand in last month's polls, he is widely credited with engineering the non-violent shift in the Malaysian mindset away from the divisive race-based politics that Tun Dr Mahathir promoted. The public endorsement the opposition received can be viewed as a sharp rebuke to Tun Dr Mahathir.

Tun Dr Mahathir has challenged Datuk Seri Abdullah to carry out an international investigation into the alleged misdeeds of his years in office. Some Umno leaders close to the Premier think that would not be a bad idea.

They say it would provide a diversion from BN's political muddle and allow Datuk Seri Abdullah to proceed with rehabilitating his party and government.

The Mahathir years were Malaysia's most tumultuous. They will require careful examination to bring about the reforms Malaysia must undertake to move ahead.