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| Malaysia’s Badawi Faces a Precarious Future |
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| Written by Hantu Laut | |
| Monday, 24 March 2008 | |
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Beset by opposing forces, the Malaysian prime minister is in a pickle
Related article: A Onetime Political Star Returns to Malaysia’s Stage
With a razor-thin majority in the popular vote but with a majority in the national parliament of 140 out of 222 seats, Badawi’s biggest worry is strife within the United Malays National Organisation. But he also has to worry about the possibility of defections by MPs to the opposition coalition of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, or People’s Justice Party, the Democratic Action Party and the fundamentalist Parti Islam se-Malaysia. According to local media, Anwar Ibrahim, the de facto leader of Keadilan, has said lawmakers from the eastern states of Sabah and Sarawak have already been in contact about switching sides. Certainly UMNO has lost both confidence and credibility after five years under Badawi. The party is effectively split into two factions ‑ Badawi on one side and his erstwhile mentor, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad, on the other. Mahathir’s incessant criticism of his successor’s lackluster performance was partly responsible for Badawi's deteriorating popularity. Malaysia’s hereditary sultans usually steer away from politics. They have now got involved. At least two are at loggerheads with the prime minister on the choice of menteri besar, or state chief ministers. The Sultan of Perlis has ignored Badawi’s choice and appointed his own. As the sultan has already sworn in his choice, that leaves Badawi appearing politically impotent. The Sultan of Terengganu, through his advisory council, also has rejected Badawi's choice of chief minister in favor of another candidate. The sultan is now the Agong, or king, the titular supreme ruler under the constitutional rotating monarchy, which changes hands every five years. In the latest development, Ahmad Said, who was appointed chief minister by the Sultan of Terengganu, has been sacked from UMNO for accepting the job. Badawi has issued instructions to all UMNO assemblymen not to attend the swearing in, warning them of disciplinary action if they do, setting up a showdown with the Terengannu royal house and the constitutional monarchy. The 21 Terengganu assemblymen, headed by Datuk Rosol Wahid, have agreed not to boycott the swearing in ceremony, meaning more trouble for the besieged prime minister. In addition, Mahathir is relentlessly pursuing his "remove Badawi" campaign, as he has since the day Badawi cancelled the so-called crooked bridge, a Mahathir project then near implementation that was to replace the causeway from Johor to Singapore in the hope that ships would bypass Singapore's ports and use the Malaysian port in the Johore Strait. For obvious reasons, the Singapore government was not keen on the project. Mahathir, who had a long-term ambivalent relationship with the island state, saw Badawi's action as kowtowing to Singapore. Badawi has sought to answer Mahathir’s challenge by sacking old guard leaders associated with the former prime minister. Other Mahathir stalwarts lost their seats in the electoral rout. After chopping the overstuffed cabinet from 90 ministers to 65, the prime minister has brought in some new faces, including in particular Zaid Ibrahim as minister in the prime minister’s department and de facto law minister. He is expected to attempt a clean-up of the scandal-ridden judiciary in the wake of a huge flap over a videotape made public last year purporting to show a well-connected lawyer brokering judicial appointments. But Badawi has also added Muhammed Muhammed Taib, a veteran politician who was forced to resign as Selangor State chief minister after being caught attempting to take US$750,000 in undeclared cash out of Australia and into New Zealand in 1996. Razaleigh, the prospective challenger to Badawi, has indicated he will push for an emergency general meeting to discuss the party’s poor performance at the polls – if that fails, he may take on Badawi at the forthcoming UMNO assembly in August. Then there is the most likely challenger, Najib Tun Razak, the deputy prime minister. He has been the party’s most energetic organizer and, in the eyes of his critics, its biggest bagman, raising billions of dollars through contracts as defense minister. He has been hampered, however, by undercurrents over his role, if any, in the gruesome murder in 2006 of Altantuya Shaariibuu, a Mongolian translator whose body was found in a forested Kuala Lumpur suburb. Najib’s best friend, Abdul Razak Baginda, is on trial for the murder along with two of Najib’s bodyguards. Altantuya, who had an affair with Razak Baginda, may have served as a translator for a dubious purchase of French submarines when Najib was defense minister. So far Najib has not made a public move against Badawi, and Mahathir sprang a surprise when he announced his full support for an emergency general meeting in which Razaleigh, his former opponent, is expected to challenge Abdullah -- although Mahathir said he believes Razaleigh has little chance. As long as Badawi continues to hand out rewards to party leaders, Razaleigh is unlikely to succeed in his attempt to push through an emergency general meeting. Some of the most vocal criticism against Razaleigh's intentions came from fiery Education Minister Hishamuddin Onn, whose racialist rhetoric has been one of the major elements driving Chinese and Indians voters away from the ruling coalition, saying he believes now is not the right time to go after the prime minister. At UMNO general assemblies in 2005 and 2006, Hishamuddin brandished the keris, a curved sword that remains a potent Malay symbol. Hishamuddin’s wielding of the keris at the UMNO podium actually helped the opposition to gather more votes. Others who have come out against Razaleigh include former Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz, UMNO Secretary-General Tengku Adnan Tenku Mansor, and UMNO Vice President Mohd Ali Rustam, which doesn't necessarily reflect the majority opinion of UMNO members. It is difficult to gauge the wishes of the rank and file but the likelihood that they will turn against Badawi at the August general assembly is pretty high.
Hantu Laut is the pen name of a Malaysian blogger. The blog is here.
Comments (10)
  written by smoking dragon, March 24, 2008
Dr Mahathir has no right to try to bring down Abdullah. He was the one who allowed the moral core of UMNO to decay till the state it is now. Poor Abdullah's only sin is to be holding the baton when the crunch came. If Mahathir had been in power in 2004 the crunch would have happened earlier. This is typical of UMNO office bearers after they have retired. They begin to critisize the government, not forgetting that they were part of the corrupted and incompetent administration. Dr M is probably trying to confuse the people to forget his "sins". Well, we have not forgotten. We know who and what happened when Dr M was in power. This is so typical of the deceit, dishonesty and hypocrisy of the UMNO leadership. The next time around, we will make sure that the UMNO apple, so rotten to the core and infested with worms, will be thrown away.
 written by nowinnofee, March 24, 2008
Malaysia is producing its best soap opera too date and is in the running for the best international film for the 2008 Academy Awards Category. It has making of suspence, trill , drama, power, greed, corruption, justice and
fairplay. The sneak peak shows the elements of a jealous wife and an ambitious husband who could be the key to the mongolian murder case, a son in law with his mates who are power and money greedy who control his sleepyhead father inlaw from behind the curtain, a retired but corrupted old man who still wants to have his cake and eat it too, the power struggle between the same faction in order to deplete the resources of the country, the indian villian and his gang members who looted his community and finally is bashed up by Sivagi the Boss and finally the guardian of the state and the country who have finally woken up and decided enough is enough....and much more. However, due to many hitch ups in deciding who are going to be the actual actors, the movie is scheduled to be completed by 2012. The curtain is now raised so enjoy the play.....
 written by Liang1a, March 24, 2008
from the article:
According to local media, Anwar Ibrahim, the de facto leader of Keadilan, has said lawmakers from the eastern states of Sabah and Sarawak have already been in contact about switching sides. ------------------------ This is not surprising and is actually expected. The biggest cities in Sabah - KK, Sandakan, Tawau - are all in the hands of Chinese. KK is actually in the hands of the DAP already. All the UMNO seats in Sabah are from rotten boroughs such as Semporna, Kalabakan, Kinabatangan, etc. Kinabatangan was a timber town when timber was the state's main export. Now it is practically a ghost town compared to KK or other main cities. The UMNO supporters in Sabah are actually not ethnic Malays but Indonesians such as Bugis and would probably be happy to switch with the Chinese if they could feel assured that they would not be discriminate against after the opposition take over the government. With UMNO on the verge of collapsing, the UMNO supporters in Sabah will surely want to be on the winning side. Once Sabah's 25 seats go to the opposition, its total seats would increase to 107 or just 4 short of 111 or the 50% mark. So if 5 of the MCA or GERAKAN seats in Johor switched sides, then the opposition would become the majority and take over the government. The likelihood of this happening is actually quite high.
 written by Bodowi, March 25, 2008
Badawi is the most greedy PM i have ever seen in Malaysia.
So much for holidaying with hiw new wife and neglecting the country. His Son, Son-in-law are simply robbing the country blind! He deserved to be shot!
 written by paul naidu, March 25, 2008
It's a great pity that there was no better person to lead our great nation after dr. M. After sleeping through the four years in office ,our present PM says he has finally woke up??. Look at our nation now, full of corruption,cronyism,nepotism...ect almost sounds like some new religion! While he slept the fouth floor boys took over the country and only God knows how much resources were misused and abused.
Our PM must have been in some kind of coma not to hear the bersih,hiduraf and others marching and asking for transparency,good governance and reform. For all the s**t he is in now, is self inflicted and the feudal mentality of BN has draged him down deeper into this hole. Blame yourself, PM , and rightly so you should step down and one proper thing you could do before that is free all the ISA detainese. At least we will remmember you for that. paulnaidu
 written by Kanapani, March 27, 2008
Bloggers comment are getting irritating. Why don't the bloggers provide sound and brilliant suggestions instead of melodramatically condemning and using four letter words to impress. After all, they are only good at keying in their PC and laptops. Nothing more than that. So don't be to proud about it. If we teach the gorillas to type, they can even be better bloggers. I had not picked up any intelligent and strategic thinking from the bloggers so far except kutuk mengutuk only. Itu pun ada bloggers yang menang undi. Mampus lah raayat macam ni. We don't even know the background of these bloggers. Given them the power, Malaysia will end up being chaotically a corrupted nation may be.
written by Bunga Raya, March 27, 2008
I suspect Kanapani is really a gorilla in disguise. Using a human name to throw off the scent didn't work with me. I spotted "him" immediately. How? "He" didn't have anything to say except critisize us humans. Humans have opinions which gorillas,which I am glad to say, don't have. They only, well, bash people on the heads.
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This is one way to bring our message to the Government.
Don’t just sit there, stand up and be counted! We want a fair and transparent election.
WHY DO WE NEED TO REFORM THE ELECTION COMMISSION?
1) Gerrymandering. The discrepancy between number of voters in voting areas is too great. The smallest parliamentary seat (Federal Territory, Putrajaya, won by former Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan Mansor) has only 6,608 voters while the parliamentary seat for Kapar in Selangor has 112,224 voters. What this means is that one vote in the Putrajaya parliamentary constituency is equivalent to 17 votes in the Kapar constituency.
2) Phantom voters. A common tactic is to ‘buy’ the identity card of the voters. Party members from the ruling parties will then vote on the voters’ behalf. Random checking of a person’s identity must be conducted using those finger print checking device (like what the banks use). Any voting done on another person’s identity must be made a serious offence under the election law. Now you know why the indelible ink was withdrawn at the last minute by the SPR (Election Commission).
3) Postal votes. The rules on postal voting must be reviewed, tightened and amended. The current rule favours the ruling party as the armed forces personnel and policemen who vote by ‘postal voting’ would obviously not jeopardize their career or promotion prospect by voting for the opposition. Voting under postal voting is not secret as it is under the watchful eyes of the senior officers. Christina Liew of DAP (Api-Api) lost due to postal votes. The ruling party has control of 250,000 postal votes!
4) Spoiled votes. How do we define spoiled votes. It is very easy to turn good votes into spoiled votes (by adding one more x to the ballot paper). Are spoiled votes being verified and watched over by the party representatives? In marginal areas in which the winning margin is razor thin, the so-called spoiled votes need to be scrutinized.