sideviews

We need a United Malaysian National Organisation – William de Cruz

March 04, 2016

Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Umno are at the centre of the disease eating away at Malaysia today. But the sickness has festered a long time. The prime minister, his executive office and apparently indomitable party did not just happen to come to positions of unbridled power and arrogance.

They had a lot of help along the way.

The PM may eventually be seen as Malaysia’s worst ever political disaster, by measure of corruption and scandal. These remain allegations while the court of public opinion has long judged otherwise.

But the walls that today protect the executive, his coterie of followers and his party were built over a long time.

The chief architect of the political edifice that is Malaysia’s executive office is Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who quit Umno for the second time recently because, he says, it has become "parti Najib".

Ironically, Najib is reaping the benefits of an all-powerful prime minister’s office that Dr Mahathir built. Under today’s political environment, it appears impregnable, much to Dr Mahathir’s chagrin.

Dr Mahathir is the very same man whom many Malaysians will freely and justifiably celebrate as the premier who brought much progress to Malaysia, protected it from the worst possible economic fallout from the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s.

Dr Mahathir built our best roads, as much as they remain a heavy toll on working class Malaysians, and our Multimedia Super Corridor. Without him, Sony, Samsung and other top-rung world manufacturers may not today be producing their high-end products in Malaysia.

Malaysians will also remember him as one among world leaders who helped define the Third World voice and its late 20th Century cause, quite like Fidel Castro.

His 22-year leadership helped Malaysia strengthen its economic credentials.

Nevertheless, history also shows that Malaysia’s longest serving PM demolished any semblance of judicial independence and the concept of separation of powers.

He has claimed in recent days that, during his premiership, "even Umno" could be declared illegal by the courts. Dr Mahathir speaks the truth.

But it is also true that, following that historic court decision, the head of the judiciary of that time was suspended, charged, tried, found guilty and eventually dismissed by executive (Dr Mahathir’s) order. His crime was dispensing justice.

Malaysia’s judiciary has largely remained compliant to the executive ever since.

Dr Mahathir lifted our colonial master’s divide-and-rule strategy to high art. His book, "The Malay Dilemma", argued that Malays lacked entrepreneurial skills, and therefore needed government support if they were to avoid becoming second-class citizens to the Chinese in their own country. The narrative of the Malay as victim to Chinese economic domination was therefore set. He entrenched racial division.

Dr Mahathir wielded the Internal Security Act like no one else – in 1987, his government detained more than 100 Malaysians without charge, including DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang, the party’s deputy chairman, the late Karpal Singh, civil rights leaders and even figures from Umno and PAS.

Under Operation Lalang, three newspapers were shut down – The Star, Mandarin daily Sin Chew Jit Poh and Malay-language Watan. "Bapa Malaysia" Tunku Abdul Rahman himself had a column in The Star at the time, and wrote that "we are on the road to dictatorship".

His government and judiciary jailed his deputy, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who led mass protests against his administration. Dr Mahathir now bemoans no one in Umno may freely speak against the PM.

This is the man who equated Umno's stability with Malaysia’s stability. It was during his tenure that opposing the PM became seditious.

Dr Mahathir perhaps recognises power and influence cannot after all stem the tide of time, and the mere mortal may be seeking to rebalance his karma before it’s too late.

Well and good. Malaysians would prefer Dr Mahathir begin speaking for Malaysia, seeing beyond Umno. The party today is like an inverted pyramid, bursting with self-interest at the top, ever dwindling support at the bottom, and just waiting to crumble upon itself.

C4 founding director Cynthia Gabriel and Bersih’s Maria Chin Abdullah are correct in saying to Dr Mahathir the "answer" is not simply about removing Najib. Institutional reform is the only way forward.

The monstrous executive structure he himself built must go. Any future Malaysian leadership will need attorney-general and inspector-general of police departments that inspire trust.

If today’s Umno is at the core of the sore, as Dr Mahathir has said, then the solution cannot come from the doctor’s loyalists who remain in Umno, or Umno rejects.

That would be like taking the long road to a roundabout with only one entry point and one exit. You travel a great distance to move forward, go around in a circle, and then go backwards.

The doctor cannot be allowed to diagnose the disease eating at Malaysia, only to prescribe just enough medicine to ensure the country keeps returning to his clinic, staying just well enough to pay his bills and keep his businesses, family and friends in clover.

Malaysians can be an entirely forgiving and pragmatic people. Anwar stood side by side with his former mentor through the worst of prime ministerial excesses. Expelled and jailed, he also brought Umno-style politics to various upheavals within PKR.

Malaysians forgave Anwar, in the interests of moving forward. We can do it again.

We know the enemy of our enemy is our friend. But we also read the subtext here: never forget what our friends are, and who they used to be. We are not fools.

Institutional reform should include banning all race-based political parties. The bells should ring for a "United Malaysian National Organisation". – March 4, 2016.

* William de Cruz was president of Global Bersih.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.