The Mahathir Legacy (part 1)

By MT Webmaster Last updated Mar 17, 2016

Mahathir’s legacy is simple. He would hand power to Abdullah in November 2003. Mukhriz would become the Umno Youth Deputy the following year. In 2009 Mukhriz would become the Umno Youth Leader. In 2013 Mukhriz would become one of the Umno Vice Presidents. In 2016 (now postponed to 2018) Mukhriz would become the Umno Deputy President. And by 2020 Mukhriz would become the Umno President and in that same move would become the new Prime Minister of Malaysia.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Oxford and Cambridge run short three-month courses on various subject matters. Some of these courses are regarding personalities such as Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Winston Churchill, President Kennedy, etc. Unfortunately, they do not run any courses on Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad or Mahathirism. So maybe University Malaya can do that instead.

To understand that paradox named Mahathir you must not focus on what he talks but on what he says. And there is a difference because someone can talk a lot but actually say nothing. In fact, Anwar Ibrahim is an expert at this.

And when it comes to Mahathir what he does not say is sometimes more important than what he says because there is a lot more information in what he does not say. I know this sounds confusing but then that is unavoidable because Mahathir himself is a confusing person — or maybe be intentionally makes it confusing so that we do not follow his real plot.

For example, Mahathir might say that to save the country we need to get rid of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak. That is what Mahathir says. But what he does not say is: once Najib is ousted who is going to replace him? Even when we directly pose that question to him Mahathir will not commit any name. He will just reply that the focus is first to get rid of Najib and not about what happens thereafter.

But then at that time (pre-July 2015) Muhyiddin Yassin was the Deputy Prime Minister while now Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is. So why not just mention one of these two names? Or mention one of the other two Umno Vice Presidents such as Hishammuddin Tun Hussein or Shafie Apdal?

Well, that is because it is none of the above. Who Mahathir has in mind is someone totally different from those four. And to understand who he has in mind we need to go back to the Umno general assembly of mid-2002 when Mahathir, in tears, announced his resignation as the President of Umno and, therefore, as the Prime Minister of Malaysia as well.

According to Mahathir, in his own words, after he resigned in mid-2002 he spent 15 months talking to Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi before he handed power to Abdullah on the 1st of November 2003. Basically, according to Mahathir, there were certain things that Abdullah was supposed to do and certain things he was not supposed to do once he takes over as Prime Minister.

Mahathir mentions some of these things such as the Crooked Bridge, double-tracking railway, and so on, which Abdullah cancelled and which were supposed to have upset Mahathir. But that is not all that upset Mahathir — and just that alone is not enough to get Mahathir into a frenzied attack.

The one thing that really upset Mahathir — and which Abdullah had agreed to do but did not do — is the issue regarding his son, Mukhriz. Mahathir had asked Abdullah to make sure that Mukhriz goes up the Umno ladder and that in less than ten years he would be poised to take over as the next Prime Minister of Malaysia after Abdullah.

So that was Abdullah’s job: to make sure Mukhriz goes up. And on 1st November 2003 Mahathir handed the country to Abdullah. But then Abdullah had (still has) a son-in-law named Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar (who had married his only daughter Nori in 2001). And this will prove later to be a stumbling block to the ‘Mukhriz Project’ that Abdullah and Mahathir had agreed upon.

Abdullah loves Nori to a fault and would walk on burning coals just for her. Nori, in turn, loves Khairy (even her coffee mugs had Khairy’s picture on it). And Khairy loves power (plus loves himself). So, at the behest of Nori, Abdullah appointed Khairy as his Principal Private Secretary. And that position practically made Khairy the de facto Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Even the Special Branch was upset with Khairy. Normally, the Special Branch has their ‘morning prayer’ four-eyes meeting with the Prime Minister. But now it became a six-eyes meeting and the meeting will not start until Khairy walks into the room. (So, if Khairy is late, then the Special Branch Director has to wait).

The Director of the Special Branch was so unhappy about this that he decided to retire and not seek an extension of service when his contract expired. He told his colleagues that he does not want to serve Khairy, the de facto Prime Minister any longer. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the Director raised the matter of Khairy and Abdullah told him off and asked him to not ‘fitnah’ his son-in-law.

One of Abdullah’s old school friends, a writer, raised this matter with the Prime Minister and mentioned that Khairy is a liability and would eventually result in his (Abdullah’s) downfall. He also told Abdullah that Mahathir was very pissed with Khairy and is planning to make his move to oust the Prime Minister so that Khairy could be brought down.

Abdullah told this school friend of his that Khairy is very clever and has many clever friends all over the world who are his contacts. So people are jealous of Khairy, Abdullah said. But then Khairy is an asset because, Abdullah said, “He helps me run the country and without him and his friends on the ‘Fourth Floor’ I would face a lot of difficulties.”

Ibrahim Ali (now with Perkasa) was in that meeting and he brought this story to the attention of Mahathir. And that was when Abdullah’s fate was sort of sealed. He was now a dead man walking. Abdullah appears to have forgotten that the person he was supposed to ‘bring up’ was Mukhriz and not Khairy, as what was agreed before Mahathir handed him power on 1st November 2003.

Many people warned Abdullah that Khairy was going to be his downfall. Many people warned Abdullah that Mahathir was planning to oust him mainly because of Khairy. Many people warned Abdullah that if he wants to stay safe then he should focus on Mukhriz and not on Khairy. But Abdullah ignored all these warnings and that ended his career as Malaysia’s Prime Minister.

Soon after Khairy started working for Abdullah as the Prime Minister’s Principal Private Secretary he won the Umno Youth Deputy Leader’s post. That post, according to what Abdullah and Mahathir had agreed a year before that, was supposed to have gone to Mukhriz. So, second nail in Abdullah’s coffin. With Khairy instead of Mukhriz becoming Umno Youth’s number two that meant it was going to be more difficult for Mukhriz to go up the Umno ladder.

Then, in 2008, Abdullah gave Khairy a seat to contest in the general election, which he won. So, third nail in Abdullah’s coffin. Now there were no two ways about it. Abdullah needed to go and Najib must take over. The fate and future of Mukhriz depended on it.

Mahathir expected that once Najib takes over he would help neutralise Khairy and would make sure that Mukhriz goes up. But then, not long after Najib took over as Prime Minister in 2009, Khairy won the Umno Youth leadership, defeating Mukhriz and Khir Toyo.

Mahathir blames Najib for this and he said that if the Prime Minister had intervened then Khairy would have lost and Mukhriz would have won. Najib’s ‘bad faith’ was further demonstrated in 2013 when Khairy was allowed to contest the general election, yet again, and then was made a Cabinet Minister.

The final straw was when in that same year Khairy, yet again, won the Umno Youth presidency and Najib did nothing to make sure that he would lose. Mukhriz’s chance of going up was now practically shot and there was no way he was going to become Prime Minister after all.

That is Mahathir’s true legacy, and what his Wawasan 2020 is all about. And that was also why Tun Musa Hitam said that Mahathir’s Wawasan 2020 is going to fail. What Musa meant was that Mukhriz is not going to be the Prime Minister by or before 2020 as what Mahathir had planned.

When Khairy was given a seat to contest in the general election and then made a Cabinet Minister in 2013 — while Mukhriz was given just a Menteri Besar’s post as consolation prize — that was when Mahathir made his move to bring down Najib. And soon after that the 1MDB issue was played up as the catalyst to bring down Najib.

Mahathir’s plan to make Mukhriz the Prime Minister by or before 2020 was now shot. For that to happen Mukhriz first had to become the Umno Deputy Youth Leader in 2004, then Youth Leader in 2009, and then one of the Umno Vice Presidents in 2013, and finally Umno Deputy President in 2016 (now of course shifted to 2018).

Abdullah and Najib, however, did not help make this happen. So first Abdullah had to go and now Najib has to go as well. If Najib could have been ousted last year as planned then Mahathir’s new ‘proxy’ Prime Minister could still make sure that the ‘Mukhriz Project’ happens.

But even that is no longer possible and Najib looks very secure. Instead, those opposed to the Prime Minister are getting ousted, Mukhriz included. So Mahathir has no choice but to resign from Umno, since he failed to achieve what he wanted within Umno, and now use the opposition to pressure Najib.

If Najib feels threatened with Mahathir working with the opposition to try to oust him then be can easily solve this problem. And the solution would be to make sure that Mukhriz becomes the number two in the party as well as the number two in government. That, however, may no longer be possible so Najib will just have to take his chances with Mahathir as the new opposition leader.

As far as Mahathir is concerned his legacy is more or less ripped to shreds. There is very little likelihood he is going to see the day when his son becomes the Prime Minister, or at the very least the number two — at least not with Najib in charge. So he is making a last ditch attempt before he dies to try to make it happen. And he is trying to make it happen by leading the opposition in the bid to try to oust Najib and replace him with his proxy Prime Minister.

Is that going to happen? Well, you will have to wait for part two for that story. So stay tuned.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK