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BLAST FROM THE PAST The Sport of Mahathir Mohamed (Political Moves Mgainst Anwar Ibrahim) Author/s: Ziauddin Sardar Ziauddin Sardar on the
unevenly matched power struggle in The Commonwealth Games, which started this week in Anwar, a personal friend of mine, is undoubtedly
Although Mahathir's moves against Anwar were sudden and dramatic, he had planned the allegations against him for almost a year. Even though it was Mahathir who nursed him up the political ladder, Anwar had become a threat. His was the only voice of dissent. Mahathir saw each disagreement, every objection to his economic policies, as an act of rebellion to thwart his ambition to continue as prime minister well into the next century. The two leaders could not be more different, as is clear from their respective books: Mahathir's The Malay Dilemma (1970), and The Asian Renaissance (1996) by Anwar. Mahathir is an authoritarian who insists on total conformity. Anwar is a democrat who believes in civil society, a free press and "transparent government". While Anwar stands for a free market, Mahathir wants the market to be under his command. Mahathir hates the west, demonises it, but wants all the west can offer. Anwar argues that in a globalised world, the west and the non-west can no longer be separated. Mahathir has used the Asian values debate to justify his position; Anwar has exposed the manipulation of the debate to excuse corruption. In short, Anwar is a moderate intellectual, Mahathir an opinionated bigot. It was thus not a question of if but when the differences between the two men would lead to open warfare. The early phase of the Asian economic crisis provided a trigger. While Mahathir blamed the downfall of the tiger economies on George Soros, "the Jews" and a "western conspiracy", Anwar saw the seeds of the crisis closer to home. He pointed towards rampant corruption, the economy of greed and grab, uncontrolled speculation and Mahathir's obsession with grandiose mega-projects. At home, ordinary Malaysians Malays, Chinese or Indian - identified with Anwar's concern and saw him as a counterpoint to Mahathir's excesses. Abroad, he was courted by world leaders and international organisations. He became the president of Unesco and headed IMF and World Bank committees. He was on the cover of Time magazine. Mahathir saw all this as a conspiracy against him. The prime minister's attempts to bail out a handful of companies, owned by his family and friends, at the expense of public funds, have been resisted by Anwar. Matters came to a head last month when Ahmad Don, the independent-minded governor of the central bank, resigned. Anwar backed Don and agreed with his objection to the use of trusts and pension funds to save companies that had performed poorly. Mahathir reacted by announcing foreign-exchange controls and pegging the Malaysian ringgit to the dollar. The move sent shockwaves through the market. Over the past decade poison-pen letters have become an integral part of Malaysian politics. Mahathir's campaign against Anwar started with an anonymous letter, circulated to politicians last year, which claimed Anwar was having an affair with the wife of his private secretary. No one believed the accusation and Anwar ignored it. Then,
earlier this year, There is little doubt, says Anwar, that Mahathir is behind the book, which also tries to link him to a murder. The publisher of the book turns out to be Tamby Chik, disgraced former chief minister of Malacca, and one of Mahathir's stalwarts. The book was distributed through the ruling party with the aid of Sabbaruddin Chik, the general secretary, who generously provided free copies to all the delegates at the Umno general assembly in June. Nothing moves in Umno without Mahathir's nod. Both the attorney general and the inspector general of police, Anwar says, have been instructed to accept the allegations in the book as true. The prime minister has replaced the editor-in-chief of Utusan Malayu and the group editor of Barita Harian, two large-circulation Malay papers. Also removed was an influential director of TV3, the semi-independent terrestrial channel. All three were accused of behaving "no better than the foreign media" and replaced with hand-picked yes men. The Malaysian media is now having a field day producing new allegations against Anwar. One of the allegations in Fifty Reasons concerns Nallakaruppan, a businessman and an official of the Malaysian Indian Congress which represents the Indian community in the national coalition government. Nalla is purported to have procured prostitutes for the former deputy prime minister, and given him [pounds]10 million. When the police raided Nalla's house they are said to have found 125 rounds of ammunition and a pistol. He is now being held under the ISA for possession of ammunition, a charge that carries an automatic death sentence. However, the interrogation of Nalla is focused not on the ammunition but his supposed relationship with Anwar, who says that Nalla is only an acquaintance. Nalla's lawyers have claimed that the police are trying to force confessions out of him and that the judges are taking orders from higher authorities. Last week a statement issued by 15 human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, dismissed the "unsubstantiated affidavits, vague insinuation of treason and nebulous accusations" against Anwar. The statement demanded that Anwar be given a right to reply and declared "the total lack of transparency in this episode" as a "reflection of the utter contempt and disregard that the prime minister has for the views of the people". COPYRIGHT 1998 New Statesman, Ltd.
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