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Malaysia in transition, but to where?
By Anil Netto
PENANG,
Malaysia - Events since New Year's have suggested that
Malaysia is well inside a period of transition on
several fronts: politically, economically, and even in
education.
Just as Malaysians were getting used
to the idea of life after Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad, who is due to step down this year after 22
years in power, came indications that his key ally,
Transport Minister Ling Liong Sik, the long-serving head
of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), is on his
way out.
Ling, who delivered crucial
ethnic-Chinese support for Mahathir's United Malays
National Organization (UMNO) in the 1999 general
election, is embroiled in a debilitating factional
struggle within his own party.
The brouhaha
surrounding Ling's talk of resignation parallels the
farcical circumstances surrounding Mahathir's own
announcement last June, when the premier announced he
was stepping down only to retract his decision an hour
later and then defer his retirement to October this
year.
Ling, 59, revealed on January 7 that he
had submitted an undated letter last August to the prime
minister offering to resign as transport minister. Some
see his move to reveal the existence of such a letter
only now as a preemptive strike against his MCA party
rivals - to take the wind out of their sails, so to
speak. Deputy MCA president Lim Ah Lek (the leader of
the so-called Team B faction) had said on January 5 that
he would challenge Ling for the MCA presidency in 2005.
Just as Mahathir found out last year, parting
after so many years in power was never going to be easy
for Ling, who had tendered his resignation once before
in May 2002. His talk of resignation is once again being
apparently used to squeeze political mileage, though
Ling's options look increasingly limited.
Ling,
a medical doctor by training, has led the MCA since
1986, when he was also appointed Transport Minister.
Politically, Ling's MCA has provided a stabilizing
influence for the ruling coalition, especially in times
when UMNO has been mired in crisis.
But there
have been hiccups in relations: in recent times, the MCA
has expressed reservations on government policy issues
such as the use of the English language to teach Math
and Science in local Chinese schools. The party was also
forced to suspend two of its members in the Penang state
assembly after they abstained from voting against an
opposition-sponsored motion calling for a controversial
UMNO-backed highway project to be deferred.
The
heightened speculation about Ling's retirement plans
also comes ahead of a potentially explosive trial
involving businessman Soh Chee Wen, who is now in the
dock on commercial-crimes charges. Soh, in a news
conference on Tuesday, lashed out at his former mentor,
Ling, for repeatedly denying previous business links
between the two. He accused Ling of having abused his
position to conduct business deals between 1996 and
1997.
Indeed, the past two decades have been
characterized by a close nexus between business and
politics that has eroded confidence in corporate
governance - read corruption, cronyism, nepotism.
With Mahathir and Ling soon fading from the
picture after years in power, a new leadership will take
over the reins of the two biggest parties in the ruling
coalition. Mahathir is due to step down in October,
while Ling is likely to step down by 2005 or earlier.
The spotlight thus falls on the succession scenario,
which still looks very hazy.
This changing
landscape comes at time of greater political debate on
the role of Islam in public life. Should Malaysia be a
secular state (with Islam as the official religion),
should public life be infused with Islamic values, or
should there be a conservative Islamic state?
The political uncertainty further clouds the
economic outlook. Almost everywhere in Malaysia,
economic planners are talking about the competition from
China, which last year attracted a record US$52.7
billion in foreign direct investment (FDI). Its cheap
labor market, in which wages are less than 5 percent of
those in the United States, drew FDI away from Southeast
Asian nations such as Malaysia.
In tandem with
lethargic economic growth and the uncertain succession
scenario, the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange appears to be
under-performing. A new government-backed institutional
investor, Valuecap Sdn Bhd, backed by some of the
biggest institutional funds in the country, is providing
some relief with RM10 billion in additional funds
helping to shore up the market. But apart from the
psychological value, the impact on the bourse, which has
a market capitalization of some RM400 billion, is likely
to be limited.
The government has also announced
fresh stimulus packages,
counting
on big-ticket infrastructure projects to prop up
economic growth and to provide a lifeline to the
construction industry. But again there is a limit to
such measures to prop up the economy. Little is heard
these days of the Multimedia Super Corridor project near
Kuala Lumpur - an indication perhaps that the initiative
to propel the economy into the information-technology
era is floundering. There is a growing realization that
the MSC has turned out to be big on real-estate
development but small on IT advances.
Malaysia
badly needs to push for reforms in education that would
not only facilitate greater computer literacy from the
bottom up but also promote greater academic freedom and
original research. But the education system is bogged
down in a quagmire, the legacy of political decisions of
the past: ethnic-based quotas (as is the practice now),
needs-based affirmative-action quotas, or strict
meritocracy? Wider use of English versus right to
education in the vernacular? The latest move is to
introduce compulsory national service at the end of
secondary-school education - a mammoth undertaking.
These policy issues are diverting resources away
from the key issue at hand: how to raise the level of
creative and critical thinking among Malaysians to
tackle new challenges in a climate of greater academic
freedom. Clearly, as the political culture of the past
two decades illustrates, an authoritarian political
culture is not compatible with academic freedom, which
Malaysia badly needs to haul itself up the next rung on
the economic ladder.
As long as this issue of
qualitative education reforms and greater political and
academic freedom is not addressed, Malaysia will remain
stuck in the middle of a transition from a developing
nation (with a low-end assembly-based economy) to a more
research-based developed nation (with a higher
value-added economy).
(©2003 Asia Times Online
Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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