What is really happening in UMNO?  This is the question that a lot of Malaysians are asking after the Malay Action Front (Barisan Bertindak Melayu) meeting at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) on Sunday, 4 February 2001.

The MAF, an informal body of UMNO members who were once middle level leaders in government, was set up to promote Malay unity.  On the eve of the 4 February meeting, its coordinating chairman, Datuk Ibrahim Ali, made it a point to emphasise that MAF would not focus upon politics.  It was interested only in working towards uniting all the Malays.

And yet the Sunday meeting was nothing but political.  Some of the speakers raved and ranted about the non-Malay threat to Malay interests.  Expectedly, the Suqiu was their target.  They exhorted the Malays to enhance their solidarity by evoking unjustified fears of the Malays being marginalised in their own country.

But it was not the communal rhetoric of the MAF leaders that stole the thunder.  Some of those who spoke were openly critical of UMNO President and Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. They felt he had lost touch with the grassroots, that he was only listening to the big corporate players, that he had consciously enriched a coterie of both Malay and non-Malay business people.

They talked of the corruption in the Administration, of the abuse of power by individuals associated with Mahathir.  Like the Opposition, these critics from within were also concerned about the decline of the Judiciary, the curbs and controls upon the mass media, the shrinking space for dissent.

These attacks on Mahathir and the present UMNO leadership should be seen against the backdrop of other developments within the party.  The party election held in early 2000 saw individuals who are not known to be close to Mahathir and even a noted critic of the President winning places in the Supreme Council.

Later in the year, the UMNO leadership which had intended to table an amendment to the party Constitution that would have extended and reinforced the leadership's power was forced to withdraw the proposal because of strong opposition from the delegates. For the first time in a long, long while there are new dissenting voices at the UMNO Supreme Council's fortnightly meetings.

For Mahathir dwindling support within the party is ominous -- especially when he knows that he has not regained lost ground within the larger Malay constituency.  The three by-elections since the General Election -- Sanggang, Teluk Kemang and Lunas -- testify to this.  And indeed it was the 1999 General Election which revealed in no uncertain terms that he and his party had lost considerable Malay support.

It is opposition, even antipathy, towards Mahathir within the larger Malay constituency which makes the challenge against him this time different from the Team B-Semangat 46 attempt to topple him between 1987 and 1990.  In the 87-90 bid an important segment of the UMNO elite (a number of serving Ministers and Deputy Ministers) broke ranks with Mahathir.  They mobilised almost half of the UMNO delegates and came very close to defeating the UMNO president in the April 87 party polls.

Many of the leading members of the vanquished faction then formed their own splinter party, Semangat 46, which won a handful of parliamentary and state seats in the 1990 General Election. Within 5 or 6 years, the Semangat challenge fizzled out, the party was dissolved and most of its members returned to UMNO. 

One of the reasons why the Team B-Semangat 46 challenge to Mahathir's leadership could not sustain itself was because it failed to capture the imagination of the larger Malay constituency.  Contrast their challenge with the present opposition to the Prime Minister.  The catalyst, there is no need to reiterate, was the sacking of Anwar Ibrahim from government and party in September 1998.  The UMNO elite, even the overwhelming majority of UMNO delegates did not rally around Anwar.

But Malays from middle-class and working-class backgrounds, especially in Kuala Lumpur, and Malays in general, were shocked and angry not only by his harsh removal but also by the inhuman and unjust treatment meted out to him in police custody and through the courts.  It is largely because the Mahathir regime had violated deeply revered Malay-Islamic norms of justice and fair play, of kindness and humanity, that the community has now turned against him.

Of course, culture and religion alone will not explain the antipathy towards the man.  Since 87-90, segments of Malay society, especially the educated, have become more conscious of social justice and human rights aided to some extent by the new information and communication technologies.  The internet for instance, is not only a reflection of this trend, but it is also a technology which had played a big role in sustaining the movement against the Mahathir regime.

Incidentally, it was not used extensively in Malaysia before 1990.  Besides, since 1990, economic and social disparities within Malay society have widened partly because of a much more rapid accumulation of wealth within the top 20 per cent compared to the middle 40 per cent or the bottom 20 per cent.

There has also been greater concentration of wealth in the hands of Malay millionaires and billionaires brought about to some extent by the privatisation of public enterprises.  If middle-class and working-class Malays have become more critical of the moneyed elite within the community it is also because of their opulent life styles and, in certain instances, their corrupt practices.  And, if elite corruption is not checked effectively it is because the man at the top has been in power for too long and the ruling elite, as a whole, has become somewhat arrogant. The suppression of dissent, like the emasculation of the vital institutions of democratic governance such as the Judiciary, are in fact some of the manifestations of this arrogance of power.

It is because there was a certain socio-economic and socio-political environment within which religious and cultural norms were transgressed in the case of the Anwar episode, that there was a ground swell against the Mahathir regime.  That ground swell which grew outside UMNO has now begun to seep into the party.  The team B-Semangat 46 challenge began within the elite stratum of UMNO before it sought expression outside the party.  In a nutshell, what it means is that in the 1987-1990 the flow
was from inside to outside; in the Anwar episode it is from outside to inside.

Team B-Semangat 46 failed.  Will Anwar succeed? Will the Anwar flow from outside to inside create a torrent within UMNO -- a torrent so powerful that it will sweep Mahathir from his perch?

9 February 2001