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Saturday, 17-Jul-2004 9:23 AM Remember the good old days when Dr Mahathir was Prime Minister? D-Day is now upon us. Over these next two days we will know if democracy has finally re-emerged in Umno or is it business as usual for this predominantly Malay party, leader of the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional. The way I see it, however, is that we shall look back on the ‘good old days’ when Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the Umno President and Prime Minister of Malaysia. A year ago, while sipping my Teh Tarek (a favourite Malaysian beverage made from tea dust) on the sidewalks of the Republic of Bangsar (a district of Kuala Lumpur that has absolutely no resemblance to the rest of Malaysia) I predicted to a group of friends that Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah) is going to be more vicious and brutal than Dr Mahathir. “Wait till Pak Lah takes over,” I said. “You will find him worse than Dr Mahathir.” “When we start looking back and say ‘remember the good old days?’ that is either a sign age has caught up on us (because old people always talk about the good old days), or it would mean things are so bad now that we find the bad times of days gone by as ‘good’ by comparison,” I explained. My prognosis met with guffaws from my ‘drinking’ mates. “Nothing can be worse than now,” said one. “This is the mostest worstest. Anything from hereon can only be uphill, not downhill. There is no more downhill to go. We are already at rock bottom.” “How can anyone be worse than Mahathir?” another asked. “Pak Lah is a religious man. He will certainly want to do the Islamic thing. Mahathir is anti-Islam, so he cares a damn about whether he is Islamic or not in his actions.” The debate raged on and we parted company that night without a consensus: I, convinced the worse is yet to come and, they, adamant that Pak Lah would bring positive changes to Umno and the country. Well, I am happy (or should I be unhappy about it instead?) to announce that I was right and my drinking buddies wrong. Pak Lah has stooped even lower than Dr Mahathir. No doubt he has not jailed anyone (yet) on trumped-up charges of sodomy, but he has certainly sodomised Umno for sure. I can accept (in fact, expect) Dr Mahathir to do this. After all, he is no friend of Islam. But Pak Lah is a religious man, grandson of a renowned religious leader. He leads the congregation in prayer and does every right thing a religious man should be doing. Why, he even introduced a new concept of Islam, Islam Hadhari or progressive Islam, improving further the Islam introduced by Prophet Muhammad more than 1,400 years ago. After more than 1,400 years of floundering in regression, Islam has finally been brought to a progression by no other than our own Acting Prime Minister of Malaysia. How can a man who can improve the Prophet’s religion not be a man that should sit beside the Prophet? Islam is not about rules. Islam is not about does and don’ts. Islam is not about rituals. Islam is about justice. The very foundation of Islam is justice. The rules, does and don’ts, and rituals, are merely meant to achieve justice. If there is justice, then there is Islam. If there is no justice, then there cannot be Islam. It is as simple as that. Islam is not as complicated as many may think. But has Pak Lah demonstrated justice? If he has not, then he is not Islamic. There are no two ways about it. And we only need to look at two cases, those currently ongoing, to get a perspective of Pak Lah’s Islamic credentials. (No need to even talk about the recent general elections in March this year where what Pak Lah did would make Prophet Muhammad turn in his grave). The first case is the Anwar Ibrahim health crisis. In Islam, a convict’s jail sentence can be temporarily suspended if he is sick and requires medical attention. He or she should first be allowed medical attention and only when he or she is well is he or she forced to continue the sentence. Smoking is haram (prohibited) in Islam. Why is this so? It is because smoking harms your health and endangers your life (plus those around you who breathe in the toxic fumes), so Islam forbids it. Health and life are of the utmost importance and a priority in Islam. But is Pak Lah concerned with Anwar’s health and life? Is this, therefore, the mark of a true Muslim? Then let us take the second case: the case of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (Ku Li) challenging him (Pak Lah) for the Umno Presidency. Is justice and fair play being demonstrated here as well? Far from it! In fact, the reverse is what is happening. Ku Li needs at least 58 nominations from the 191 Umno divisions throughout Malaysia just to qualify to contest the Presidency. Why 58 when it used to be merely two? These rules were put in place by Dr Mahathir to ensure no one dislodges him as Prime Minister. But then Dr Mahathir is a dictator, as Pak Lah himself said in the mid-1980s, so you can expect this from him. But Pak Lah is an Islam Hadhari leader, and Islam expounds justice and fair play and is this just and fair? The Pak Lah minions say there should be no contest for the Presidency. If they could, they would like to ban any contest altogether. In fact, they are trying to do this by recently passing a Supreme Council (Majlis Pimpinan Tertinggi) resolution that there should be no contest for the Presidency and Deputy Presidency. But this resolution violates the party constitution that allows for a contest. Is this resolution therefore legal? Is this just? Is violating your own party laws Islamic? And why, in heaven’s name, is Umno so scared of a contest? What is so wrong about democratically electing a president? It is not the elections that they are worried about, argues Pak Lah’s minions. It is the after-affects. The same thing happened about 20 years ago, explain the minions. Then, Ku Li took on Dr Mahathir, and it caused Umno to break up and the party almost died. They cannot afford for this to happen again. Correction! The Ku Li challenge in the mid-1980s was not what caused Umno to break up. Dr Mahathir wanted Ku Li and his supporters out of the party so he closed down Umno and formed a new party, Umno Baru (New Umno). He then banned Ku Li and all his supporters from joining the New Umno. If you can’t beat them, close down the party, form a new one, and don’t invite your enemies into the new party. So, don’t be afraid of contests. Instead, fear sore losers for they are the problem. Anyway, as I said in my opening, D-Day is now upon us. Over these next two days more than 100 Umno divisions will be conducting their meetings. Will 60 or so of these divisions nominate Ku Li for President? If they do, then the challenge is on. Ku Li will take Pak Lah on for the currently vacant post of Umno President. In the event Ku Li does not get his minimum 58 nominations, then Pak Lah would have won the post uncontested. If, however, Ku Li gets his nominations, then they might bring the Umno General Assembly forward to August instead of September as scheduled. This is to foil any attempts for Ku Li to campaign for votes. With a shortened campaign period, Ku Li can win his nominations but may not get the votes. Hmm, changing the rules halfway through the game. Certainly clever, but is it Islamic? Pak Lah wants to deny Ku Li even one nomination, let alone 58, or 68 as what Ku Li may actually get in the end. And, since Ku Li is certainly able to get at least one nomination, that from his own Gua Musang division, Pak Lah’s one-time Political Secretary is making his rounds in Gua Musang to seek out and buy off the division committee members there, including Ku Li’s Women’s Wing Chief, Deputy, and so on. Money is flowing freely in Gua Musang like beer on the sidewalks of Bangsar on Saturday night. Anything and everything that moves is a target for a buyout. Those who are not for sale will suffer a visit by personnel from the Biro Tata Negara or BTN (National Civic Bureau: a propaganda and brainwashing unit of the Malaysian government). The more stubborn ones will be visited by the Special Branch to help them ‘turn over’. Datuk Hamzah Zainuddin, the FELCRA Chairman, has set up a high-powered operations centre in Ipoh to monitor all the 191 divisions and to do a head count of the 2,500 or so delegates from these divisions. The operation is even more extensive and intensive than that of the recent general elections. They are taking no chances. Ku Li is no pushover. He is a serious threat and the chances of him not only getting his nominations but of winning the Presidency as well is very real. Well, we have 48 hours to go to know the outcome. I, for one, am holding my breath. In the short space of a couple of months, Pak Lah has shown his true colours. God help us if he is confirmed as the Prime Minister. Once he is ‘safely’ plonked in the Prime Minister’s seat, Pak Lah will demonstrate how vicious and brutal he can be. Then, not only I, but the whole country as well will look back and say, “Remember the good old days when Dr Mahathir was Prime Minister?”
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