September 7, 2002

Malaysian Surprise

Anwar Ibrahim's release could herald the rebirth of democracy in Malaysia

HIS release, when it came, stopped a nation. The stockmarket soared, pigtails untended in protest for six years were cut, websites crashed and long queues formed on highways as ecstatic tollroad attendants explained the news to passing motorists, whose grumpiness at the delays turned quickly to delight. Telekom Malaysia’s SMS facility collapsed under the avalanche of text messages jubilant Malaysians whizzed to each other, confirmingthat yes, after six years of government beatings, lies and conspiracies to keep him in gaol, Anwar Ibrahim was indeed free.

Malaysia feels new, with a fizz that feels undeniably democratic. Ten months into the job, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has drawn a definitive line under the mercurial and too-often despotic 22 year rule of Anwar’s mentor-cum-nemesis Dr Mahathir Mohamed. Indeed, such is the freshness of the 'anything's possible' air of renewal in Malaysia after Anwar’s release that some are suggesting Dr Mahathir may even be arrested for his excesses. That’s unlikely for despite obvious democratic deficiencies ‘Dr M’ remains hugely respected as a champion of the Malay faithful, who remain the bedrock for his successor. ‘Pak Dollah's’ or Uncle Abdullah as the avuncular Badawi is known, cabinet and coalition mirrors Mahathir’s.

Still, despite the fervour surrounding Anwar, Badawi emerges from the saga the stronger politician, and the big winner. He is PM because of Anwar's eclipse – now he’s seen as his liberator. If, goes Malaysian thinking, Badawi did intervene with the judiciary to win his liberty, it shows his compassion. But if he didn’t fiddle with the judges, Malaysian democracy is stronger than the perversion it became under Mahathir. Again, Malaysians thank Badawi for that.

Six years inside does much for one’s reputation but Anwar is no Malaysian Mandela. For much of the 80’s and 90’s, he and Mahathir were Malaysia’s dynamic duo, presiding over the rise of the very cronyism Badawi is now moving to undo. For Australian parallels, think Hawke-Keating or Howard-Costello. Anwar was the striking young tyro, Mahathir his wise senior counsel while the invisible Badawi languished at the low-rent end of Mahathir's cabinet. But Mahathir grew jealous of his dashing deputy as he grew older; not only did Anwar play as a pious Muslim and the pure Malay ‘son-of-the-soil’ that Mahathir’s obvious Lahore roots were not, as finance minister Anwar took credit for Malaysia’s booming 1990’s economy. Capping it all was a highly-photographed event that became Anwar’s leitmotif as Modern Malay Man, jetski racing with rich friends on Langkawi island. The can-do Malay scene that Mahathir should’ve been congratulating himself for creating instead revealed his achilles heel for pettiness that Australians have also experienced over the years; the race was happening in Mahathir’s home Kedah state, a no-go zone even for his disciples. By 1998 and the financial crisis that crippled the country, Anwar was way too close to foreigners like the IMF and their support he insisted was necessary to rescue the stricken Malaysian economy for the xenophobic Dr. M, who moved against him before a crucial party conference moved on the leader.

The big question now for Malaysians is will Anwar re-enter politics? The probable answer is yes and, just as likely, on the government side. Malaysia’s ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation, has a rich tradition of political rehabilitation; Badawi, Mahathir and the aristocratic Kelantan kingmaker Prince Razaleigh spent long periods in the UMNO wilderness before ushered back into the fold. It was during Mahathir’s exile that he wrote ‘The Malay Dilemma,’ a tome which some have called a South-East Asian Mein Kampf and which articulated a Malay generation’s disgruntlement at being second class citizens in their own, then newly-independent, country. Indeed, Anwar himself is no stranger to the phenomenon. From 1974-76, as a student leader during the patrician rule of Tun Abdul Razak, Anwar spent 20 months inside. By 1982, a year after Mahathir took power, Anwar ‘did a Peter Garret,’ shocking his Islamist base to join UMNO's secular mainstream. Some 22 years on and with Keadilan, the party his wife created to win his release, now neutered as with the rest of the opposition that fete him today as their last hope for revival, he may do the same again - becoming, as one sage of Malaysian politics puts it, UMNO’s Gorbachev - 'reformasi' for UMNO and Malaysia from within.

If 57 year-old Anwar does return, pardoned of all crimes, to active politics, he says he will campaign to repeal the Internal Security Act, the draconian arrest-without-trial legislation that's a festering sore on the statutes of both Singapore and Malaysia. The ISA is a hangover from British colonial rule in the old Malaya when London liked to round up suspected communist insurgents. All independent Malaysian – and Singaporean – leaders, except Badawi so far, have conveniently abused the ISA to round up political opponents. Anwar has fallen victim to the ISA twice, the two detentions punctuated by his time as an UMNO insider when he saw fit to defend it - and other defining regional issues like Indonesia's brutalisation of East Timor, and the Burmese junta of Aung San Suu Kyi.

But its here again where Badawi deny Anwar of his major trump card. As he properly rounds up Mahathir’s cronies and stops the huge infrastructure projects of his associates, Badawi may get there first and abolish the ISA, a move that would further enhance his popularity. Badawi has already shown how much he is not Mahathir. He could go even further and turn Malaysia into a genuine democracy. The contest will be to see who takes credit for it.