There’s no future in the past
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Parti Keadilan Rakyat, or keADILan for short, celebrated its anniversary a few days ago. It was seven years old on 4th April 2006. Conspicuously absent from the birthday celebration was the party’s adviser, Anwar Ibrahim. Actually there was no real celebration to shout about other than a simple cake cutting ceremony and a discussion on the Ninth Malaysia Plan organised the following day in Petaling Jaya, the brainchild of Abdul Rahman Othman, the party’s Treasurer and Chairman of the Economic and Finance Bureau. If not for that, keADILan’s birthday would have gone unnoticed and unmissed. The pathetic ‘crowd’ of 60, some who rudely walked out halfway through the event, was a sad sight indeed. Where are the thousands who graced the party’s birthdays in days gone by? Even Azmin Ali and Ezam Mohd Nor were absent, an apparent boycott because the session was organised by Rahman, their nemesis.
This is yet another question mark with regards to Anwar’s commitment to the future of the party. His 19 months absence from Malaysia, but for the occasional jaunt home, is in itself unsettling many who rejoiced when Anwar was released on 2 September 2004. They thought, now, at last, keADILan, with Anwar at the helm, would take the country by storm. It was not a storm. It was not even a lull before the storm. It was certainly not the eye of the storm which would be calm inside but fierce outside. It was more like a storm in a teacup. And does this therefore not reflect what the party is, much ado about nothing?
To be fair to Anwar though, he cannot hold any party post other than the unofficial advisory role, a position that does not appear in the party’s constitution or in the records of the Registrar of Societies. This is because Anwar is barred from holding office for at least five years from the day he completed serving his six-year jail sentence on the corruption conviction, or unless he gets a pardon. And the five years will be up only on 14 April 2008; what the Reformasi Movement calls ‘Black 14’. (Anwar completed his sentence on 14 April 2003 after a two-year remission on the sentence). So it is not actually his fault he cannot play an active role in the party. Or is it?
Anwar refuses to apply for a pardon because he does not recognise his conviction and, as far as he is concerned, applying for a pardon would tantamount to endorsing this conviction. He wants one of course, but he wants it to be offered to him without asking for it. Well, this is at least what those who are heading the effort to obtain this pardon tell us; people like Johari Abdul. But does the system work this way? And who is this man who can grant Anwar his pardon?
This matter has already been fully covered in the previous episode of The Corridors of Power so we need not repeat the arguments. Suffice to say we are talking about a technicality here. Anwar certainly knows the technicalities involved yet he won’t work around it. He is standing firm and refuses to budge. “I will not apply for it. If others want to apply for it on my behalf then this is up to them. I have nothing to do with this.”
Yeah, sure, and this means it is not going to happen. So does he want a pardon or not?
Okay, let us look at this whole thing from another perspective. Say Anwar applies for a pardon and he gets it (while acknowledging the fact that this is no admission of guilt or in any way endorsing his conviction). What would he have to do then? Then Anwar has to ‘oust’ his wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and take over the leadership of the party. Then what? Then he would have to contest the next general election while Dr Wan Azizah, if she still wants to contest the election, would have to look for a new seat. But what post would Dr Wan Azizah hold in the party now that she is no longer the president?
Based on this scenario, say Anwar loses the election — or he wins with an extremely small majority, much smaller than in the days he contested the seat on an Umno ticket — what would happen to his political career? Anwar has performed well thus far because he has always contested the election on an Umno ticket. No one knows yet how better or how worse he will perform as an opposition candidate. The fact that the opposition candidates contesting the state seats in his constituency did badly the last election, plus Dr Wan Azizah herself won the parliamentary seat by the skin of her nose, shows that all is not well in Permatang Pauh. And you can bet Umno will throw everything it has at Permatang Pauh to ensure Anwar loses.
Secondly, what if Anwar does not really want to make his career in the opposition but actually wants to return to Umno? Once he contests the election as an opposition candidate, then Umno’s doors will be closed to him forever. We must remember that he did not leave Umno but was thrown out, and so far he has never contested against Umno in any election. This therefore does not disqualify him from returning to Umno come 15 April 2008, or once he gets a pardon. An adviser does not count as this is an unofficial post and there is really no such thing as an adviser in keADILan’s party constitution anyway.
No doubt Anwar has openly declared so many times he does not intend to return to Umno. But then he also openly declared so many times he did not intend to take on Ghafar Baba for the Umno deputy presidency. But he did and his excuse was that this was the wish of the Umno members and he has to respect their wishes. Well, if the Umno members now wish for him to return to Umno would he not also have to ‘respect their wishes’? And let’s face it, Anwar wants to become the Prime Minister and the route to the PM’s office is through Umno, not through keADILan.
Anwar is beginning to suffer a crisis of credibility. His credibility is being questioned by those who were once his staunchest of supporters and who bravely faced jail in the struggle to free him from the Sungai Buloh Prison. Of course, the support for Anwar while he was in jail was based purely on sympathy. Many who supported him knew he is not really a saint and is as tainted as those he accuses of corruption, cronyism and nepotism. But they were prepared to forgive him for his transgressions because of the manner the powers-that-be threw him into jail and beat him up. No doubt he has sinned, but he has paid for this sin in full just by the shoddy treatment he received. Anwar has paid his debt to society as far as they were concerned.
In the days when Anwar was languishing in prison, Dr Wan Azizah would go round the country to meet the people and deliver talks. She would relate sad stories about how Anwar misses the children and how their son was plagued with nightmares and would call out Anwar’s name in his sleep. The sob stories would drive the women to tears. We would see them sobbing and wiping away their tears with the sleeves of their baju kurung. Very moving indeed! This would probably have been a wonderful script for a Hindustani movie. But this was still not enough to help her party win the general election though.
When it was pointed out that she should instead talk about how her party can do a better job at running this country, she replied that this is what the women wanted to hear, a sort of Malaysian soap opera. So she feels this is way to touch the hearts of the women. Well, she was proven wrong. Not only was her party almost wiped out, but the solitary seat that it won, her own seat, was touch and go — and if not for the fact that the candidate Umno fielded was viewed as ‘iman duit’, she too would have hit the dirt.
In short, she did not win her Permatang Pauh seat. Umno in fact lost it. And they lost it because they had fielded an ex-imam of the National Mosque who was perceived as corrupted and a man who takes bribes. True or not is one thing, but politics is about perception, and the perception is he is crooked and a slime-ball. And I am sure the next time around Umno will not make this same mistake again.
Yes, politics is about perception. And what perception has Anwar created?
Amongst one of the many interviews Anwar gave soon after his release in September 2004 was on BBC’s Hardtalk, and they tore him to pieces. Anwar kept talking about Mahathir and the perception he gave was that he still carried a grudge, though he says he has forgiven but not forgotten.
Until today, Anwar still talks about 1998, the era when he was removed from office and thrown into jail. But that was 1998. That was when Malaysia faced the Asian Financial Crisis. What people want to know is how he is going to handle 2008, ten years down the road. That will be when Malaysia will be hit by Globalisation and the FTAs with Japan and the US. The Asian Crisis was a different type of crisis. It was but a cough and common cold. Globalisation and the FTAs are another thing altogether. That will be a heart attack.
Anwar cannot keep talking about what he would have done in 1998 had he been allowed to, but prevented from doing so by Dr Mahathir. He cannot keep harping on the fact that he and Mahathir disagreed on how the 1998 crisis should be handled. He cannot keep reminding us about how this disagreement on how the 1998 crisis should be handled resulted in his fallout with the Prime Minister. That was 1998. That was another era. What will he do come 2008? Anwar has not told us that yet. Everyone is an expert on hindsight. It is foresight that makes a leader. And Dr Mahathir is beginning to more and more appear like a leader with foresight (thanks to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi), something Anwar is yet to prove he has.
Back in 1999, renowned economists told me that Anwar was actually wrong in the way he wanted to handle the Asian Crisis. These economists actually like Anwar and dislike Mahathir. Yet they feel Anwar was wrong and Mahathir right. To be honest, I was quite taken aback when they told me this as I had always harboured the reverse opinion. They probably sensed the troubled look on my face so, to pacify me, they said, “To be fair to Anwar though, he changed his stand after we explained it to him.”
Today, it is apparent that if Malaysia had opted for IMF’s solution on how to handle the Asian Crisis the country would have been in worse trouble. Even western experts think so. Many who dislike Mahathir for his human rights record agree, in spite of his shortcomings and idiosyncrasies, he did the right thing.
This is something Anwar is going to have a problem explaining. Those who are critical of Mahathir say he was right. Those who look up to Anwar say he was wrong. It would be better Anwar stop trying to convince us that he was right and Mahathir wrong and instead come clean and admit that maybe he made an error of judgement. He would then be perceived as truly repented and reformed.
Mahathir does not hide the fact he got rid of Anwar because of the latter’s plot to oust the former. No doubt Mahathir accuses Anwar of sodomy, and continues to do so until today, and says that he “cannot accept a gay Prime Minister”. Nevertheless, the plot against Mahathir that Anwar led is still the overriding factor in the decision to get rid of him.
Anwar says that the sodomy thing was just a Red Herring, and many, even his detractors, think so as well. Many of Anwar’s enemies do not for one instant think that the sodomy charge is legitimate. But very few, Anwar’s friends included, do not believe that Anwar plotted against Mahathir. So, deny the sodomy thing all you want, but don’t try to say that it was differences about whether to accept IMF’s plan, and not the plot against Mahathir, was the real reason for your removal.
Not many are happy that Anwar was sent to jail for sodomy, Umno people included. But they do believe Anwar dug his own grave by trying to oust Mahathir. They only wish Mahathir had not used the sodomy thing but something else instead to get rid of Anwar. But get rid of Anwar, Mahathir must, as far as they are concerned. Only the manner should have been refined.
Anwar’s fall from grace draws little sympathy. Only the manner it was done does. And when Anwar uses the excuse that his difference of opinion with Mahathir on how the Asian Crisis should be handled was the catalyst in his downfall, many turn away in disgust. They all know that it was just a power struggle, plain and simple, and Anwar lost. So what’s all this crap about Mahathir was corrupted and wanted to bail out his cronies and family, and that Anwar opposed this? Did not many of Anwar’s cronies become multi-millionaires as well when he was in power? And everyone knows who they are. And they are still millionaires today because they abandoned Anwar to save their arses the minute he got into trouble (that is gratitude for you).
It is now becoming widely accepted that Anwar’s decision to accept the IMF formula would have been drastic for this country. And these same people feel Mahathir probably saved this country from disaster. With this becoming the new perception, Anwar has to change his tune. No longer does his old tune sound good.
As I said, this is the new perception, and perceptions are everything in politics. I can choose to be an Anwar apologist. But my job is not to cover Anwar’s rear. My job is to help Anwar conduct a reality check. And the reality is, Anwar is beginning to lose credibility. And the more he talks about 1998 instead of 2008, the more his credibility suffers.
Many questions are being raised. But Malaysians, unlike the Mat Sallehs from BBC’s Hardtalk, are too polite to ask them to his face. But they are being asked nevertheless, only that they are being asked behind his back. And that is worse. If they are asked to his face, then Anwar will not only have an opportunity to reply, but he will be able to gauge the sentiments of his admirers and detractors alike.
Everyone knows what happened in 1998. Everyone knows why Mahathir sacked Anwar. Everyone knows Anwar played with fire and got burnt. And everyone knows the real story behind the episode notwithstanding what both Mahathir and Anwar might say about the matter. What people want to know, how would Anwar be able to do a better job than Abdullah (not a better job than Mahathir whom Anwar keeps talking about) at running this country?
The country is in dire straits. Blaming everything on Mahathir does not cut it when you were part of the team running this country and was Mahathir’s second-in-command. The more you dig up the past, the more people point out that you were very much part of this past and must share the blame. It was not Mahathir who screwed up the country, it was the Mahathir-Anwar team that did. So forget about the past. The more you dig up the past, the more you are seen as part of the problem rather than the solution. Let’s talk about the future. Let’s talk about 2008, not 1998. What are your solutions? Or do you not have any?
