Malaysia’s Royals At It Again
Malay royalty present more embarrassment for UMNO
The Tengku Makhota and his younger brother Tengku Muhammad Fakhry, the sultan’s third son, have been at each other’s throats since last September, when the latter was removed from the state’s succession council, which determines who becomes the next ruler of Kelantan.
Asia Sentinel
A bit more than a year ago, as a war of words raged over the Sultan of Perak’s controversial decision to in effect award the speakership of the state assembly to the United Malays National Organization instead of dissolving the body for new elections, UMNO took the cause of the sultans to heart.
Over the next couple of months, any time criticism was raised over a decision that plainly kept the statehouse in the hands of the ruling national coalition and that probably would have been ruled illegal in a court system not beholden to UMNO, an army of party hacks filed police reports against the critics, alleging they had insulted Malaysia’s royalty.
Malaysia has an eccentric system of kingship, with the country’s nine sultans rotating the crown among them every five years. As the Perak statehouse squabble grew in intensity, a move – which didn’t succeed – was even bandied about to give the sultansthe same protection against lese majeste as that enjoyed by the Thai king. Tengku Zainol Rashid Tengku Yahya, head of the Kedah family association, told reporters at the time that a move would be made “soon”to reverse laws allowing the sultans to be criticized that were pushed through by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Some 250 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) got together to express loyalty to the Malay rulers.
“If immunity is restored, the issue of mocking the Malay rulers will probably not arise,” Zainol Rashid told reporters.
So what to make, then, of a continuing, bitter squabble for power in the Kelantan statehouse, where members of the royal family, fighting for months over who will succeed the ailing Sultan Tengku Ismail Petra, are being investigated for murder and mayhem. At least onemurder occurred when a palace guard was shot four times and killed.
It probably means it will be awhile before UMNO will use the sultans as a cudgel to beat up on the opposition. Certainly, the widening publicity over the Kelantan palace squabble has left Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak with little to say. On May 8, Najib was quoted as saying that despite charges of kidnapping and other crimes, the best way for the problem to be resolved was through consultation and negotiations among the parties involved.
“We hope the health of Kelantan’s Sultan Ismail Petra Sultan Yahya Petra will be given utmost priority in findinga proper solution,” he told reporters.
On May 7, according to Agence-France Press, lawyers representing the ailing Kelantan sultan claimed he was being held against his will in a local hospital and applied to have him released as details of a royal power struggle unfolded. The 60-year-old Tengku Ismail apparently had been prevented from going to Singapore for treatment for long-standing heart problems that had kept him in the hospital for nine months. Other reports indicated that the sultan’s first wife, the Raja Perempuan, tried to get to the Kelantan hospital where he had been forcibly installed by rival factions of the family in defiance of his orders to take him back to the palace, but had been stopped by police wearing balaclavas. She later managed to escape from them to get to her husband’s side, where she spent the night on the hospital floor. She told the Malay Mail that the police had allegedly abused her and “pulled me like a cow” in an attempt to take her to the police station.
According to AFP, the country’s top policeman, hospital officials and the government were accused of conspiring to confine the sultan to the hospital on the orders of the sultan’s eldest son and regent, the Tengku Makhota Muhammad Faris Petra, after the aborted attempt by the sultan’s consort and his third son to take him to Singapore.
