May 27, 2006

Carry on doctor

Our Malaysian peacekeeping allies in East Timor are facing their own internal unrest at home, as their former PM weighs in from the sidelines. Eric Ellis reports that three years after handing the leadership to Abdullah Badawi, 'Dr M' is unhappy with his performance


"HE'S BAAAACK! And He's Not Very Happy!"

No, that is not a racy zinger for the latest Terminator or Freddy Kruger bloodfest. But it could describe a more compelling drama gripping Malaysia: "Dr M versus Pak Lah".

Dr M is the mercurial Mahathir Mohamad, the long-time prime minister and self-styled father of modern Malaysia. He stepped down after 22 years in power in 2003, handing over the leadership of the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) - and thus the country - to the avuncular Abdullah Badawi, who Malaysians refer to as Pak Lah.

Malaysians thought they knew the story. Dr Mahathir was to enjoy a well-earned retirement, while Mr Abdullah's steady hand would keep the economic tiger times rolling, albeit with a less dictatorial style.

Dr Mahathir insisted he was no Lee Kuan Yew, invoking the retire-to-the-cabinet role of his "Senior Minister" counterpart in Singapore. "It'll be a clean retirement, no politics," he said - books, grandchildren and woodworking.

Three years on, it's a different story. Dr M has begun sniping at Badawi and his government from the sidelines. He’s popping up to speak at various events, offering a characteristically glib line here, a penetrating blow there. Indeed, wags joke that the most dangerous place in the world isn’t Iraq, but the space between the "retired" Mahathir and a soapbox. The hottest item in Kuala Lumpur salons isn’t a Da Vinci Code knock-off but a DVD of a recent Mahathir speech where he slags Badawi as “selling out Malaysia’s sovereignty". He means Badawi’s acquiescence to Singapore in not building its half of a new bridge over the ancient causeway that links the two. Last week, Dr Mahathir's former political secretary, Matthias Chang, embarrassed Mr Abdullah by producing a 2001 letter from Mr Lee, in which he agrees to the bridge.

Proton, the national car project that was Dr Mahathir's baby, is another point of friction. It is profitless and struggling as the government withdraws the subsidies that kept it afloat with a 60 per cent market share for 20 years. Dr Mahathir is a Proton consultant, but has fallen out with the carmaker's Abdullah-esque board. "Proton is destined to fail," he said.

It is all too much for the good doctor. The hectoring Dr Mahathir once reserved for Jews, the western media, Australia, Britain and the west generally is being increasingly directed at the man he groomed to replace him.

Malaysian politics has duly sunk into a funk. It tends to operate on sycophancy, but the inert Umno faithful do not know what to say to whom, not wanting to be the first to put up their hands either way. Most owe their jobs, their power and their prosperity to Dr Mahathir. Their questions abound; surely the 82-year-old Dr Mahathir is not angling for another premiership? And what does it mean for me? Malaysia's media, mostly Umno-controlled, do not seem to know what to do with the sniping either. Report it and condemn it? Or report it and praise it?

Western diplomats in Kuala Lumpur, relieved their countries are no longer being derided, are similarly perplexed. Is it the first stages of senility? "It's domestic," said a US diplomat, relieved that for once Washington's Iraq adventure is not being assailed. "We don't think there is much in this."

Coffee shop theories abound on Dr Mahathir's tactics. The most delicious one contends he is worried about the libel case against him by his one-time loyal second Anwar Ibrahim, and is creating a sideshow to distract attention. Dr Mahathir locked his former finance minister up for six years on spurious grounds of corruption and sodomy. The courts released Mr Anwar in 2004, soon after Mr Abdullah took over. That angered Dr Mahathir, but more so did the first statement from Mr Abdullah that the Mahathir era was over.

While Mahathirism hugely advanced Malaysia economically, serious damage was done to the integrity of the legal system during his reign. Mr Anwar has been progressively correcting the record since and rebuilding his personal political stocks outside Umno.

Few realistically believe Dr Mahathir will stand again. But senior Umno figures worry that the feud is splitting the party and possibly providing the charismatic Mr Anwar a vehicle to return as the reconquering hero, a precedent set in the late 1990s by another old Mahathir sparring partner, the Kelantan prince Razaleigh Hamzah.

No third world champion like the charismatic Dr Mahathir, the 66-year-old Mr Abdullah, who recently lost his wife, is not expected to stay too long as prime minister. He started strongly, taking on a few Mahathir cronies in an anti-corruption drive, but seemed to drop the ball. His recent Ninth Malaysian Plan stresses "human capital" to develop the economy and fewer of the pump-priming "megaprojects" loved by his predecessor. But there are precious few successors: the unremarkable Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is the most ambitious of them. Mahathirism was always absolute.

Mr Abdullah's way of dealing with Dr Mahathir is to ignore him. But he understands the difficulty of his position.

At the 2002 Umno conference, when Dr Mahathir unexpectedly announced his resignation, there was pandemonium. The prime minister was then his deputy, yet, with power seemingly just minutes away, he came to the lectern - in tears - to plead with Dr Mahathir to stay on.

An hour later, a blubbering Dr Mahathir retracted his resignation, saying he would remain leader for a little while yet. The hall - and Mr Abdullah - erupted with jubilation. With rivers of tears flowing from all-comers, it was comic, corny and high drama at the same time. Dr Mahathir handed power to Mr Abdullah, his fourth choice as deputy, a year later, going out near the top of his game and popularity.

As Mahathir’s long-time foreign minister, the 66-year-old Badawi was entrusted with managing his abrasive leader’s comments, the 1993 "recalcitrant" affair with Paul Keating being the most notorious. Mahathir's relations with John Howard were little better. But as PM, Badawi has mended fences, helping Australia join last year’s East Asian Summit in Kuala Lumpur, another move that angered Mahathir. Badawi told The Bulletin: “I told John, no conditions, but you sign the TAC [the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Co-operation], that is important, if you don’t sign you are out. I was dead serious.”
Badawi is no Mahathir on Australia but there are limits. “Australia cannot be in ASEAN,” he insists. “Australia is Australia but Australia can be ASEAN if it identifies itself in the spirit of ASEAN, support what ASEAN wants, do a lot of the things where ASEAN is involved. If you are talking about Australia as part of ASEAN, it has to be only in spirit and wanting to do and achieve the same thing.” And then a little indirect dig about Howard’s cuddliness with the US: “If Australia is trying to run away from this region, and thinking it is part of a distant region and not part of a nearer region in terms of spirit and of what it wants to do and what is aspires for this region then Australia is not part and we will be very sad.” 

The interview was done days before the escalation in East Timor, where Australia is leading the foreign intervention force. Malaysia is the only Asian nation to send troops to Dili. Kuala Lumpur had boots on the ground in Dili in 1999, to save the departing Indonesia - and ASEAN's - face. This time, they are pounding Dili's strifetorn streets to save the stricken East Timorese face. 

When asked about Mahathir’s sniping, Badawi has a perfect opportunity to go after him but he doesn’t take it. Asked what are Mahathir’s motives, Badawi responds, “You’ll have to ask him. On this issue I think that it's not easy to talk.” He says he is still friends with Mahathir and says, “Yes, I respect him." Remarkably, for a leader, he asks me not to quote a remark he makes about Mahathir’s sovereignty criticism. The quote seems harmless enough, but Badawi is clearly sensitive.

He said he was still friends with Dr Mahathir and "yes, I respect him". Remarkably, for a leader, he asks me not to quote a remark he makes about Dr Mahathir's sovereignty criticism. The quote seems harmless enough, but he is clearly sensitive.

Still, Badawi understands power. Asked how strong is his hold over the premiership, and the UMNO leadership, he is emphatic, raising his usually soft-spoken voice to declare: “I am secure, my cabinet is secure,” adding that he’d like to see Vision 2020 realised, suggesting he’s up for another 14 years in the chair. Vision 2020 is an initiative to achieve developed country status by 2020. But as all Malaysians know, it was a Mahathir idea.

Eric Ellis is Southeast Asia correspondent for Fortune Magazine