Subject: [sangkancil] [MGG] UMNO Rethinks The UMNO-PAS Debate
The Prime Minister, after his wholesome approval of the Malay Rights
debate between the UMNO and PAS youth chiefs, has second thoughts, like
many UMNO leaders, about it. Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad, in his weekly
column, raised the black flag of warning. The Prime Minister is horrified
that PAS does not UMNO's worldview that UMNO is the only party that can
lead the country. So, he worries incessantly that PAS, in agreeing to the
debate, wants to make UMNO look bad. Now, why did the UMNO youth chief
and grandson of UMNO's founder, Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein, agree to debate
with Mr Mahfuz Omar, if that was PAS's intention? As usual, few amongst
UMNO leaders thought about the debate except as a dare. Now reality sinks
in. PAS is given an untramelled opportunity to force UMNO to raise issues
it would not except on its own terms: the Petronas royalty affair with
Trengganu, the "zina" of one mentri besar with his sister-in-law and of
another with his mother-in-law, the Apostasy legislation fiasco, the
administration of Islamic law, state-federal ties, the Anwar Ibrahim
affair, and other issues. What UMNO once thought of as a straightforward
debate -- no one else did -- it finds it is not.
No doubts existed when Dato' Hishamuddin agreed. The information
minister, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, would not allow the debate televised.
Why should he, he reasoned, since it is a minor political debate involving
two political parties, of parochial interest and of consequence. The
mainstream newspapers, controlled by National Front political parties, had
no such inhibitions: it reports the UMNO version of the debate in detail,
and now leads to suggest its impropriety in the larger Malay communal
interest. The Prime Minister says if UMNO refused the debate, PAS would
make political capital. Indeed, it would, as UMNO if the tables were
turned. Knowing this, why did UMNO agree to it? UMNO, unused to the
cut-and-thrust of political debate, cannot meet PAS and other opposition
leaders head-on in any debate of consequence. It would shoot itself in
the foot first. As it has.
UMNO could not but taunt PAS for the debate to recover lost Malay
cultural ground. UMNO is in crisis, has been since it humiliated its
deputy president, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, two years ago. The November
1999 general election is, for UMNO and the National Front, a pyrrhic
victory. The UMNO ground talks of a revamped UMNO with the Prime Minister
nor the deputy president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, not leading
it. The quiet, unexpected political strength the former Selangor mentri
besar and UMNO vice-president, Tan Sri Mohamed Taib, displays catapaults
him into potential leadership. The Hermit of Langgak Golf, long dismissed
as a court jester, is back in contention. The Prisoner in Sungei Buloh
making prisoners of UMNO leaders frightens them all. The Prime Minister
throws caution to the winds with his peevish, petty behaviour: after a
quarter century of UMNO misuse, he turns the solemnly signed oil royalty
agreement between two UMNO leaders -- Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, as Petronas
chief, and Tan Sri Wan Mokhtar Ahmad, the Trengganu mentri besar -- into a
memorandum of understanding; and make Malay Rights a rallying cry to
divide the Malays and frighten the non-Malays. For UMNO to debate Malay
Rights 45 years into its governance reflects not its commitment to it, but
its collosal failure. Insisting upon Shah Alam as a Malay city depresses
property values, not strengthen Malay Rights.
UMNO cannot participate nor withdraw from the debate. PAS would make
mincemeat out of it, no matter what. The National Front mentris besar and
chief ministers are up in arms over oil royalties to Trengganu. The
states look to Trengganu and Kelantan and plan their own confrontation.
State rights has to be redefined, as state nationalism reasserts before a
weak centre. More important, UMNO must allow its divisions and branches
to elect their leaders, without interference from Kuala Lumpur and as
satrapies of the leaders. The central control of UMNO weakens in the
divisions and branches that routine meetings cannot attract a quorum.
This cannot be resolved by Selangor banning opposition, though not
government, leaders from making speeches in mosques. It is against the
law, we are told. If it was, why was it unenforced until it becomes a
political problem for UMNO? It is a double-edged sword UMNO plays with.
The Selangor mentri besar believes he controls the Islamic apparatus in
his state. He does not. I await with bated breath the test of wills that
must ensue when PAS leaders address gatherings at the Mujahidin Mosque in
Damansara Utama or the Section 14 mosque in Petaling Jaya; and the
state's commitment to its Islam laws when it concerns the former mentri
besar's un-Islamic marital arrangements. On the face of it, UMNO lost
before it began.
M.G.G. Pillai
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