Tag Archives: Ahmad Zahid Hamidi

Umno’s No-Contest Motion

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The Trappings of Leadership Succession in Malaysia

Partyforumseasia: Malaysia’s United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the party which dominated the country’s politics for six decades, is trying to digest and hopes to overcome its worst election result ever. With the reliable support of ethnic minority parties, the predominantly Malay UMNO used to enjoy stable absolute majorities. After several years of gradual decline, the shock result of the November 2022 election reduced it to only 30 seats in the 222-member parliament.
Like in any political party, victories have many fathers and unite the membership whereas losses trigger internal and public debates, rivalries flare up and the hunt for culprits is difficult to control. This was the central problem of party president Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and secretary-general Ahmad Maslan, the second in command. The calls for their resignation were loud enough, especially from the former MPs who lost their mandate, but as well from the members who blame the defeat as a deserved punishment for the years of money politics and corruption. With former UMNO leader and Prime Minister Najib Razak in prison and a conviction of Zahid looming, many were arguing for a self-cleansing exercise to improve the bad image of the party. Acquitted of 40 corruption charges in September last year, Zahid is still facing 47 charges of criminal breach of trust, corruption, and money laundering. In most democratic systems this would have finished his leadership ambitions, not so in UMNO and not in Malaysia. With admittedly skillful arguments and maneuvers, Zahid has managed to survive. He persuaded the recent general assembly of the party (January 11-14) to vote with a convincing majority of delegates not to contest the two top posts in the coming party polls, which must be held by May 19.
The main argument tried to persuade the delegates that shaking the boat even further would be a deadly danger for the very survival of the party, especially in view of the growth of long-time rival PAS, the Islamist party competing in UMNO’s Malay vote bank. Zahid’s and Maslan’s success shows as well how skillful the two can play the party piano, even without the deep pockets the party used to enjoy, mainly from contributions by Government-linked companies (GLCs).
The outmaneuvered faction in the assembly was not only against Zahid and Maslan and a more forceful renewal, but also for a rejuvenation of the leadership. Zahid, who just turned 70 last week, has been challenged by Khairy Jamaluddin, 47, a former leader of UMNO’s Youth Wing, former Minister of Youth and Sports as well as Health Minister. As son of a top diplomat and son in law of a former Prime Minister, he belongs to Malaysia’s “political nobility”, but above all he is a political animal of sorts. He lost his seat in Parliament in November and will have enough time to campaign for a continuation of his political career. One possible opportunity will come if Zahid should be convicted and imprisoned at the end of the law suit which will resume in April. For many it looks logical that his fight for an acquittal would be supported if he remains party president and Deputy Prime Minister in the present Government under PM Anwar Ibrahim.
For students of party politics, the ongoing saga is a rather interesting case study, though, or maybe even more so, because it is not following the textbooks on liberal democracy.  But which party does?

The “Frogs” of Southeast Asia

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Partyforumseasia:

Frogs for 32 million Ringgit Malaysia ( 7.5 m USD or 6.4 m Euros ) ?

Apart from the diminutive of frog, froggy in the English language is an ethnic slur against the French. But frog meat is not only popular in France, it is a delicacy all over Asia. And in Southeast Asia, especially in Malaysia, it is also a widespread name, not a compliment, though, for opportunistic politicians who jump from one political party to the other. Since few parties here have a distinctive program or ideology, this special political flexibility is rather widespread. But it is not that easy to explain it to the voters who suspect that there are financial considerations behind such a move.

The wafer thin parliamentary majority of the Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has been questioned from the beginning of his term which in turn encouraged the opponents of his premiership outside and even inside his coalition. The biggest faction of this coalition has been the former long-term ruling party UMNO, the United Malays National Organization, and threats to leave it and thereby force the Prime Minister to step down are going on for a while already. Party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi thought the time was ripe when he announced the withdrawal of eleven UMNO MPs earlier this week. But the situation remains unclear because his grip on the party discipline looks as shaky as never before, and Muhyiddin managed to convince the King that a confidence vote should be postponed to September. Time enough for many Malaysian observers to allow him to buy over enough members of parliament for the maintenance of his majority.

And here comes a rather interesting and intriguing contribution from a man who probably knows best how to buy over parliamentarians, Zahid Hamidi, the experienced UMNO leader. It is not that much the fact that financial transactions are part of the frogging procedure but the price tag suggested by Zahid. In a Facebook post he describes the per kg price range of different meats in the Malaysian marketplace as follows:

  • Chicken 7 RM (Ringgit Malaysia)
  • Goat 35 RM
  • Beef 32 RM
  • Frog 32 million RM

UMNO was for decades a master of money politics where even support for internal leadership positions had to be “facilitated” with cash on hand. Publishing the putative price tag for frog meat this way on Facebook can be seen as a blow to Muhyiddin, but for a man who is facing a long list of corruption charges like Zahid is is quite daring on top.

The End looks Nigh for Malaysia’s UMNO

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Partyforumseasia:  Political parties come and go, have ups and downs, win and lose elections. In many European countries, party systems which have been stable for many decades disintegrate, previously unthinkable coalitions demand all sorts of difficult compromises. In Germany, the Social Democrats with a history going back to 1863 and many years of dominating in government, are agonizing in federal state elections under 10% and with a helpless leadership. In Malaysia, now, it seems to be the turn of UMNO, the dominant party for over sixty years. On 9 May this year, it lost more than an election. It obviously lost its soul and raison d’etre, its self-confidence and successively all its allies. From a coalition of 13 parties which helped to cement the grip on power for so long, only the former ethnic minority vote banks, Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) with only two seats left in the federal parliament, and the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) with one, remained after the election. It is like the proverbial rats leaving the sinking ship, a question of survival for all of them. After a recent desperate attempt by UMNO to save the Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition through getting the Islamist Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) on board, the MCA is planning to quit as well.

UMNO’s former strongman and now its president, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who planned to bring PAS into a new credible opposition coalition, is indicted with 45 charges of graft and corruption, following former Prime Minister Najib Razak and his spendthrift wife Rosmah Mansor. They all have not only lost the election and the trust of the voters but are all moving closer to prison. The intricate, complex and corrupt financial network which provided unlimited campaign funding for their  coalition, needs time to be sorted out by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
On 20 October, Umno veteran Razaleigh Hamzah (in the picture on top) launched a book on “The End of UMNO”, edited by Prof. Bridget Welsh, a prominent and outspoken scholar specializing on Southeast Asian politics. But in an interview she cautioned that so far only the Najib-style corrupt UMNO is dead and that the party could survive with new leaders and younger members. These, though, are turning away according to the media.

Meanwhile, Anwar Ibrahim’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), the new main ruling party, has its own teething problems. Trying to be the democratic model party in contrast to UMNO’s top down style, PKR is now running its internal leadership election. Its 800,000 members can vote over more than two months, and for the first time in an electronic voting system which does not function without glitches all the time. The stakes are high because party president Anwar Ibrahim is supposed to be Prime Minister within the next two years. Once he well be in office, many government positions will be available for the leaders elected now. So, claims of irregularities, even bribing, have been reported, but also violent clashes between rival supporter groups. Malaysia’s changing party landscape will need some time to cool down and normalize.

The Same Jinn in Two Bottles?

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Partyforumseasia: Indonesia and Malaysia, the two Muslim majority but multi-ethnic and multi-religious countries in Southeast Asia are playing with fire.

jinn-out-of-the-bottle

Indonesia: “The rally against Mr Basuki has thrust issues of race and religion to the forefront of the upcoming gubernatorial election, turning it into a test of religious tolerance in Indonesia.” (Jakarta Post, 2 December 2016, LINK)

rally-from-videoAfter a first rally on 4 November against gubernatorial candidate Basuki aka Ahok for alleged blasphemy had turned violent at the end, the Indonesian government was more cautious on 2 December. The rally had not been permitted but changed into a mass Friday prayer with more than 500.000 (!!!) participants. Massive security presence, timing in the morning, and the participation of President Jokowi may have prevented worse, but “double minority” candidate Ahok, who is Christian and Chinese, has seen his re-election prospects gliding from clear front-runner to nearly hopeless. Demonstrators are asking for Ahok to be imprisoned though judicial procedures are on the way whether his remarks in a campaign speech were blasphemous or not. Similar rallies were held not only in Jakarta but other places as far away as South Sulawesi or North Sumatra. Religious police-at-rallyemotions are boiling over and getting more difficult to control, putting a jinn back into the bottle is famously difficult.  The authorities, though, have to be commended for skillfully controlling the crowds. Police officers nearly blended with the protesters if they only could hide their boots…

But the turmoil is not only about the Jakarta governor, religion and blasphemy. On a different level there is a fight against President Jokowi and his reformist government. Described by political scientist Leo Suryadinata as “Indonesia’s ideological war”  between entrenched interests and reformists (Straits Times, 2 December). As a proof how serious this struggle is, seven opponents to the Jokowi administration have been detained on the same Friday for allegedly trying to exploit the anti-Ahok rally to overthrow the government. The most prominent among the seven is Rachmawati Soekarnoputri, daughter of the country’s first president Soekarno and younger sister of former president and chair of the PDI-P party, Megawati Soekarnoputri, who supports Jokowi. For the president himself it is a delicate issue because the embattled candidate was his deputy when he was governor of Jakarta himself, and Megawati and her PDI-P are his indispensable political allies and partners.

Malaysia: With cold blood, chutzpah and by firing his party-internal critics, Prime Minister Najib has – so far – survived the enormous pressure of the 1MDB corruption scandal and his personal financial involvement in it. Compared to the 2008 and 2013 election results, dreams have come true for the ruling and dominating UMNO party and its president Najib. Najib is unchallenged in his party, and the opposition, after winning the popular vote in 2013 without getting a majority in parliament, is emasculated to unprecedented levels. After opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is in prison on dubious sodomy charges again, any bonding among the old opposition forces seems more than improbable, and, even worse, UMNO has managed to oblige the Malay Islamist PAS party to move closer to the government by supporting its motion to further empower the Shariah Courts, a parallel judiciary line.
As usual, though, there is also more shadow where the light increases. By its corrupt image and ubiquitous money politics, UMNO has lost much support among the Non-Malays, whose Chinese, Indian, and racially mixed component parties in the broad National Front Coalition (Barisan Nasional)  are weakening towards insignificance. It is too obvious for many Malaysians that they have been thriving on generous handouts from the UMNO governments and cozy arrangements for guaranteed mandates. Taking these smaller parties for granted and as guarantors of comfortable government majorities may turn out to be a strategic mistake. As appendices and dogsbodies of UMNO they are more and more losing appeal. But sizable parts of the Malay population are also turning away from UMNO, and not all disenchanted Malay voters feel comfortable with conservative and Islamist PAS.
What remedy has magician Najib in his sleeves? The five day general assembly, ending 3 December, brought together 5.732 delegates from the roughly 3.5 million membership. PM Najib and his deputy in both leadership functions Ahmad Zahid Hamidi are being endorsed by all wings of the party, general, women, young women, and youth. But despite all the positive sides of the party’s current situation the mood sounds defensive. With auxiliary voters from the minority races no longer dependable enough, UMNO is scolding the component parties for not working hard enough. And what is probably even less convincing for them is the support for the PAS hardliners’ Shariah motion. The more UMNO harps on religious issues and the Malay Muslim identity the more its minority supporters will develop doubts. And one of the 191 division chiefs, Jamal Yunos, copies the infamous Thai “red shirts” to fight the “yellow shirt” Bersih (clean) campaign against corruption and election manipulations. But the most worrying messages from this convention are the warnings against the Chinese dominated Democratic Action Party (DAP), which would threaten decades of pro-Malay policies and Malay privileges  if they should come to power. That, of course, is anything but imminent. The Election Commission has already heavily gerrymandered the precincts in favor of rural Malay UMNO voters against the urban majority. So, though due only in 2018, the general election will be called soon as PM Najib announced during the convention. The racial and religious overtones of UMNO’s policies are certainly not conducive for the racial and religious harmony  the country needs. On top, the progressive “Arabisation today is in fact a worrying trend” (Sociologist Syed Farid Alatas, LINK), even more so in view of the terrorist threat in Southeast Asia and the rampant radicalization of Malaysian and Indonesian believers.

In both countries alike, playing racial and religious cards is extremely dangerous. That UMNO and its president want to stay in power and will defend their dominance by all means is understandable. But doubts about the long-term effects and the stability of the country especially in the era of international jihad are more than justified.

The witch-hunt against Jakarta governor Ahok and the underlying power struggle between vested interests and reformers fanning religious passions is equally playing with fire. Both countries are jeopardizing the multi-racial and multi-religious social equilibrium and open the doors for passions and violence. It is difficult to gauge how far the jinn is out of the bottle but it will be impossible to get it totally back.

jinn-out-of-the-bottle