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Abdullah Badawi: Malaysia's tinker
man
By Anil Netto
PENANG,
Malaysia - Like a home handyman tinkering around the
house making adjustments and minor repairs, Malaysia's
new premier has been busy fine-tuning what he believes
is a successful system.
In power now for nearly
a month, Abdullah Badawi has had plenty of time to shake
up the system and rid it of some of the excesses of the
previous administration of Mahathir Mohamad, who retired
as prime minister at the end of October.
And
indeed, Abdullah has already made a few newsworthy
moves. But rather than grabbing the administration by
the scruff of the neck and shaking it up, he has been
tinkering with it on the surface, including providing
some material goodies to civil servants, perhaps with
one eye on the coming general election.
Barely a
day passes without some new policy or approach being
announced. Some of these moves have been perceived in
various quarters as vote-catching ploys ahead of a
general election, widely expected to be held early next
year, and party elections of the ruling United Malays
National Organization (UMNO).
Since taking
office, Abdullah has swooped down against civil-service
inefficiency, corruption and bottlenecks. He also made a
surprise check on the Immigration Department in its
frontline office where the public has to queue starting
at dawn.
One day he announced an effective hike
in the golden handshakes for civil servants upon
retirement and a pay raise for the police; another day,
he launched a major road-safety campaign ahead of the
end-of-Ramadan rush to return home.
The new
premier, obviously trying to distance himself from the
excesses of the previous administration, wants
moderation in all future government functions, pointing
out that many of these events were "way too elaborate".
He has also directed the Treasury to take
immediate measures to settle all outstanding payments to
government suppliers and ensure that payment is made
within 30 days of delivery. Identifying corruption and
education as key areas to focus on, Abdullah has urged
his ruling-coalition leaders to tell him the truth about
the problems being faced by the people.
But many
Malaysians remain deeply cynical over whether the
untested new premier can undo overnight years of
tolerance for a culture that often closes an eye to
various abuses and inefficiency. Moreover, Abdullah has
yet to even be confirmed as leader of the UMNO by the
party rank-and-file.
Although the crackdown on
corruption and inefficiency in the civil service is
widely welcome, it does not tackle one of the major
problems in Malaysia: money politics. Far too many
politicians in business have close links with the
dominant parties in the ruling coalition like the UMNO.
Critics point out that the prime minister, cabinet
ministers and other elected representatives should all
be required to declare their assets to the public and
that the Anti-Corruption Agency, which falls under the
Prime Minister's Department, should be made genuinely
independent.
As his first month draws to a
close, Abdullah has not reshuffled the cabinet or
brought in new blood. Power continues to be centralized
in the hands of the prime minister. In addition to the
powerful home affairs portfolio that he held even before
taking over the helm, Abdullah also assumed the Finance
Ministry's portfolio that Mahathir controlled. And he
cannot argue that he needs more time to select the right
candidate, as Mahathir announced his resignation in June
last year. Critics say he is insecure - the deputy
premier's post is still vacant - and he needs more time
to build his support base before he can relinquish these
key portfolios.
Not long ago there was some
bright news for Abdullah: third-quarter gross domestic
product (GDP) growth reached 5.1 percent after the
economy expanded by 4.5 percent in the first half of the
year. But recently a hot potato has landed on Abdullah's
lap: the hiring of a local consortium - Gamuda
Bhd-Malaysian Mining Corp Bhd (MMC) - to build and
electrify a 636-kilometer double-track railway line
despite a letter of intent having been given to the
Indian Railway Construction Co (Ircon) and China Railway
Engineering Corp (CREC) in mid-2002.
The railway
line is part of the US$30 billion 5,500km trans-Asia
railway track linking Singapore with Kunming in China.
Gamuda-MMC reportedly won the bid after quoting a lower
price - RM14.5 billion ($3.8 million) - under
controversial circumstances.
Holding the finance
minister's portfolio is especially convenient for
Abdullah at this point with a snap general election
looming. The ruling coalition's election campaign has
traditionally banked on the "politics of development" -
a euphemism for promising development projects and aid
and dishing out on-the-spot grants to win votes.
Also, the finance minister's post means that
Abdullah controls the purse strings in the run-up to the
elections of the UMNO, of which he is now acting head.
Politics in the UMNO is dominated by the
politics of patronage: contracts, licenses, shares and
other favors are awarded to build support within the
party. Abdullah, who was only appointed - rather than
elected - as UMNO deputy president after the ouster in
1998 of the then incumbent, Anwar Ibrahim, has not been
tested in party polls for the UMNO leadership. Holding
on to the finance portfolio, therefore, would give
Abdullah an obvious edge over any potential rival that
may emerge from within the party ranks to mount a
leadership challenge.
Widespread speculation
over who will be Abdullah Badawi's deputy is also
revealing. If anything, it shows the extent to which
Mahathir's tenure had assumed feudal overtones after 22
years of autocratic rule. Now that Mahathir's successor
is at the helm, Malaysians are obsessed about who will
be next in line to succeed the new premier. This
fixation on who will be the new premier's deputy is a
phenomenon that is rarely seen in democratic nations
that have installed a new leader and shows how the
feudal mentality has seeped into the political arena
here.
Meanwhile, news broke on Friday that the
editor-in-chief of the establishment English-language
broadsheet New Straits Times, Abdullah Ahmad, had been
removed. The NST boss has been seen as a Mahathir
loyalist who appears to have been backing Mahathir's
choice, Defense Minister Najib Razak, for the vacant
post of deputy premier.
If tradition is the
guide, the deputy president of UMNO will become the new
deputy premier. But party elections for top posts are
not due until mid-2004 and, with other potential
candidates lurking in the wings, it is by no means
certain that Najib will be a shoo-in for the UMNO deputy
presidency.
Away on a vacation in Europe,
Mahathir himself was largely out of the media glare
during the early part of the month.
Abdullah,
still unsure of his support base, shows no sign of
easing up on autocratic rule. The number of those in
detention without trial under the feared Internal
Security Act swelled to more than 100 after 13 Malaysian
students were held on suspicion of involvement in
terrorist activity. Some of these students are teenagers
who were picked up by Pakistani authorities and sent
back to Malaysia.
Human-rights campaigner Irene
Fernandez meanwhile faces the possibility of going to
jail after she was convicted of maliciously publishing
false news despite overwhelming evidence in her favor
during the course of her trial. And ex-deputy premier
Ibrahim is still in jail, trying to get medical
treatment for a spinal injury while appealing against
his conviction. There also appears to be little sign of
any major reforms in the judiciary. And although a new
police chief has been appointed, it is doubtful whether
this alone can improve the image of the force among the
public after all the bad news during the Mahathir years.
As the weeks roll by, Abdullah can be expected
to apply more fine-tuning rather than the adventurous
radical reforms in almost all areas that Malaysia needs.
It is unlikely that such tinkering will capture the
public imagination or enable UMNO to win back lost
ground.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
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