Friday Jottings: The rich, the poor and the deception

(TMR) : OF LATE, every time Hassan Karim (picture), Pasir Gudang’s member of Parliament, makes a public pronouncement, members of the ruling Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) must have cringed.

Hassan, who himself had contested on the PKR ticket, has been expressing his disappointments, one after another, publicly at that, towards the current Government and its leaders, in particular Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

His latest salvo was still stinging, if not more: making comparisons with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s rule, in particular over the issue of crony capitalism.

For context, Anwar and supporters of his reformasi (reformation) movement, which was launched after he was sacked in 1998, had used crony capitalism as a major issue against Dr Mahathir’s then administration.

They accused Dr Mahathir of developing cronies intended to benefit him and his family. The accusations became quite ugly that Dr Mahathir, then PM, had ordered the Economic Planning Unit to make public the lists of all beneficiaries of Government contracts, shares and other allocations.

They were first displayed for public viewing at the Putra World Trade Centre, where Umno headquarters was located and at the time when the party’s annual general assembly was held.

Though the list showed that Anwar, his family and friends were among those who benefitted quite substantially from the Government allocations, it did not stop Anwar and his supporters from their accusations of Dr Mahathir enriching his cronies.

Unfortunately for Anwar, though it is 26 years later, Hassan, who should be his ally, decided to revisit the issue of crony capitalism, which Dr Mahathir was accused of and compared with Anwar’s current administration. And what he wrote was quite damning and a fair bit is worth reiterating.

Hassan started by not being too complimentary of Dr Mahathir, saying that one of the major mistakes committed during Dr Mahathir’s administration between 1982 and 2004 in the aspect of national economic development was the obsession with developing crony capitalists.

He then added that it seems Anwar’s administration, which is merely two years old, is already trapped in the mistake of building crony capitalists.

What Hassan wrote next was a vindication of Dr Mahathir somewhat.

He stated that the difference with Dr Mahathir (compared to Anwar) was that he developed crony capitalists from among the Malays, Chinese and Indians who were ordinary citizens yet entrepreneurs with potential and close to him.

Meanwhile, under Anwar, there is a hybrid system in the building of these crony capitalists and they could be divided into three categories.

The first category wrote Hassan, was crony capitalists, which existed since the era of Dr Mahathir’s administration. They are mature and experienced in surrounding Anwar and pledging their loyalty and support to the new PM.

The second type are crony capitalists created under the current administration and they are not yet widespread nor too aggressive as their movements are scrutinised.

Those under this category are small players, immature, recent and without track records as successful entrepreneurs but obtained the opportunity and charity from those in the first category who are building bridges to establish close relations with the PM.

Hassan then wrote that the third category of crony capitalists under the current PM is extraordinary, small in numbers but very visible. They are, said Hassan, quite immune and not easy to “touch” because they are protected by the spectre of the 3R (Religion, Race and Royalty) styled laws.

Hassan, in the same posting, spoke of the new 5G licence, which he said was awarded to a new player whose equity included those held by an institution which is prohibited by the constitution from participating actively in business.

He concluded that Anwar and his Government, which declared good governance, were being negated with the practice of developing crony capitalists, but this time around, they were from among the Mahakaya (extremely or filthy rich).

The term Mahakaya came into prominence from repeated utterances by Anwar and it seems to be coming back to bite him.

First, there is Hassan, who believes that Dr Mahathir’s crony capitalists are from among the ordinary citizens and of all races; Anwar’s to him are from the Mahakaya.

Ironically, Anwar has been styling himself as the champion of the masses and, in his utterances, had justified his policies of withdrawing subsidies as denying the Mahakaya from benefitting from the subsidies at the expense of the people.

New tiers to measure wealth, from the original T20, had now been replaced with the T15 as announced during the Budget 2025 and now the T10 post-Budget, as the targeted group that must be denied from benefitting from Government subsidy.

There were earlier speculations about what kind of household income is considered the T-15 category. While that is still uncertain, the Government has shifted the focus on T-10 to be the Mahakaya.

With that, the Mahakaya is yet to be identified whether their household income would allow them to attain the status.

But that has not stopped the creation of a somewhat hostile divide between the have-nots and the haves.

That had always been Anwar’s and the reformasi staple – fighting for the poor and needy and inadvertently painting not too kind a picture of the rich, especially now, by conjuring the not-a-very-palatable term the Mahakaya.

Regardless, in politics, declaring to be the champion of the poor goes a long way, and Anwar and his reformasi troops enjoyed it for years to end. Unluckily, Hassan decided to be a party pooper.

He now says it is the reverse under the current administration, that the Mahakaya are the new crony capitalists. Coming from Hassan, there must be some truth to it.

He is, after all, part of the reformasi genre.

Source : The Malaysian Reserve