Analysis PARTI SOSIALIS MALAYSIA
The Meltdown of Pakatan Harapan
Dr.Kumar PSM – 3rd March,2020
The events of the past ten days might be quite bewildering to many Malaysians. Alliances have been forming and dissolving within hours and contradictory statements have been issued by various players. But it starts making more sense when we look at the interests and intentions of the main players - Mahathir, Azmin, Anwar and Muhiyuddin. Here’s my take on it.
Mahathir
Mahathir is at the centre of the latest developments though I do not think that he wanted it to unfold at this point in time. Since the 1960’s, Mahathir has made no secret of his belief that for an ethnic group to succeed in the modern era it needed its share of scientists, bankers, professionals, business people and millionaires – a modern bourgeoisie! In Mahathir’s assessment, merely preserving the old Malay elite comprising the Feudal Aristocracy, landlords and the Royalty wouldn’t be enough for the Malays to hold their own in the modern world. There needed to be a Malay Bourgeoisie! And he has spent the major portion of his life in developing this Malay bourgeoisie by hook or by crook! And to be fair to him, he has succeeded to a certain extent. There are now many Malay professionals, academicians, scientists, businessmen and millionaires.
However Mahathir feels that there is still a need for the Malaysian State to continue playing an active role in promoting and building the Malay Bourgeoisie given the vigour of the Malaysian Chinese business community, the rise of China and the predatory Multinationals from the US, Europe and Japan. And he is apprehensive that the Pakatan Harapan leaders – Lim Guan Eng and Anwar Ibrahim - will not do what is necessary to protect and promote the nascent Malay Bourgeoisie. The former believes too much in the free market and is too cozy with Chinese capital, while the latter is too friendly with foreign interests and might agree to compromise the Malaysian State’s capacity to nurture the Malay bourgeoisie – for example by agreeing to the “Investor State Dispute” and “Government Procurement” clauses in the TPPA and other similar trade deals.
So Mahathir, I think, was ambivalent about the Pakatan Harapan remaining in power for more than one term from the very start. For him the Pakatan Harapan represented the only way for him to remove the kleptocrats within UMNO. He felt that UMNO could not be reformed from within as those in power were too entrenched, so he needed to join up with DAP and PKR to cleanse UMNO of the “crooks”. But from the beginning Mahathir felt that he could not depend on the Pakatan Harapan to safeguard and complete his lifetime project of creating and nurturing the Malay Bourgeosie. He needed to pass the government to a Malay majority government which would be committed to continuing the “Malay Agenda”. This is why he brought in MPs from UMNO to bolster Bersatu, and why he cozied up with UMNO and PAS.
It might also be the reason he promoted Azmin to become a Federal Minister – so as to weaken PKR by exacerbating the friction between Anwar and Azmin, so that if Bersatu could not be bolstered up enough to play a defining role in the Pakatan Harapan, the weakened PH would lose to UMNO (cleansed of the worst kleptocrats) in PRU 15.
This could also be the reason he didn’t countermand Lim Guan Eng’s decision in May-June 2018 to stop subsidy payments of RM 300 per month to more than 70,000 traditional fishermen, and the rubber price support system that kicked in and supported 200,000 rubber smallholders each time the price of cup lump (scrap rubber) dipped below RM 2.20 per kilogram. Cabinet meetings take place weekly. It would have been a simple thing for Mahathir to highlight to Guan Eng the political folly of cutting these subsidies given that the PH had only garnered less than 20% of the rural Malay vote and UMNO and PAS were going around canvassing the point that the government had passed to non-Malay control and that the well-being of Malays would be undermined. However Mahathir kept quiet on this issue, probably thinking to himself “Go ahead if you want to shoot yourself in the foot!”.
I see Mahathir as a master politician with very clear aims – clean up UMNO, and then ensure the administration of the country is back in the hands of those who genuinely support the agenda to protect and develop the Malay Bourgeoisie. And he has been transparent in his position with regard to the Malay Bourgeoisie right from the 1960s.
Disclaimer: The fact I can see where Mahathir is coming from does not mean that I agree with his approach to building the Malaysian nation. And I haven’t touched on the harm he has done to the Malaysian poor of all races by his program of privatization. Nor have I brought in the various ways he seriously weakened institutions like the Judiciary and concentrated power in the office of the PM as these important issues aren’t central to the power struggle that is taking place.).
Azmin
Mahathir’s plans were thrown into disarray by Azmin’s initiation of the coup on Saturday 22/2/2020. Azmin is now seen as the villain of the piece by many Malaysians as he set into motion the events that led to the unraveling of the Pakatan Harapan government. But let’s take a look at the situation from Azmin’s vantage point.
Azmin was Anwar trusted lieutenant since the refomasi days (1998). He did prison time because of his association with Anwar. He stayed faithful to the cause even when the PKR did badly in 2004 and was cut down to a single seat in Parliament. Azmin was there through the bleakest periods. But when the wind changed and Pakatan Rakyat took 5 states in 2008, Anwar put Khalid Ibrahim, a former UMNO man who had just crossed over to the PKR a few months earlier, into the post of Chief Minister of Selangor, a post that Azmin really wanted.
Why did Anwar do this? Azmin is intelligent, articulate and capable. He can run a State efficiently as his stint as MB from after the “Kajang Move” clearly demonstrates. Why wasn’t he given the post of Chief Minister in 2008? I think it is because Anwar was paranoid about the growing popularity of Azmin within the PKR. Anwar feared that Azmin would emerge as a challenger to him if allowed to assume the powerful position of Chief Minister of the richest state in the Federation. So Anwar put Khalid – a new comer without the extensive networks that Azmin possessed within the party - in the CM post.
Anwar’s attempt to “contain” Azmin did not end there. At every PKR election - 2010, 2014 and in 2018 – Azmin went for the Deputy President position. He never challenged Anwar or Wan Azizah for the post of President. But Anwar always kept backing challengers to Azmin – Zaid Ibrahim in 2010, Saifuddin Nastution in 2014 and Rafizi in 2018 – but tellingly, they all lost. When the Kajang move backfired in 2014 and Anwar was not able to take the position of Chief Minister, again Anwar attempted to block Azmin ascent to the post of Chief Minister, but on this occasion Azmin managed to outfox Anwar, and served as a fairly competent Chief Minister.
The elevation of Azmin to the powerful portfolio of Minister for Economic Affairs after PRU14 further exacerbated the tension between him and Anwar. Was this an innocent appointment or was the master tactician setting the scene for the weakening of the PKR?
For Azmin, the outcome of the meeting of the PH Presidential Council on 21/2/2020 was a disaster. It meant that Anwar would probably become the Prime Minister within a year. Given Anwar’s vindictiveness towards Azmin, Zuraida and team, Azmin felt he had a lot to lose when that happened. So he launched a pre-emptive strike.
However Azmin had seriously misread Mahathir’s game plan. Azmin could see that Mahathir was working to increase Malay dominance in the government. But he didn’t realize that for Mahathir, cleansing UMNO by removing the kleptocrats was a non-negotiable issue. It had to be done before power could be passed back to UMNO. So of course Mahathir was upset – both with Azmin and with Bersatu. The coup had come too soon. The ascension of UMNO to ruling position might lead to the watering down of charges against the very people he came out of retirement and worked so hard to excise from UMNO! Mahathir’s flip-flops in the week after the coup are quite understandable if viewed from this perspective.
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