What you see is not what you see. This is the principle on which the National Front (BN) government runs this country. We are broke. But we spend billions of ringgit in a spree of purchases and investments, none of which can be justified under prudent management. The government insists we are flush with cash. Ministers announce projects worth billions of ringgit without Parliament providing the funds. The biggest block of debt is its takeover of privatised companies, absorbing the debt, and often returning them to the same managers who created the mess. Every one has failed. You name it. It has: MAS, IWK, LRT, Putra, KLIA, Bakun Dam, MISC, TNB, PLUS, Putra Jaya. You could well add another dozen or more to it.

This failures we are now told is proof of privatisation's unqualified success. The National Economic Action Council executive director, Dato' Mustapha Mohamed, says the government's takeover of several major companies is not proof enough privatisation has failed. It is bad management that caused it. The irony of what he says escapes him. If people given the privatised companies, all of whom cronies of the Establishment, cannot run it because they do not know how or run it to the ground, he believes it is proof that it is a success. And he is the man who makes pronouncements on Malaysia's economy on behalf of the government. Besides, he was also finance minister (one of two) until his electors in Kelantan decided to retire him from politics in 1999. He is a Daim crony for whom Dr Mahathir has more than a soft spot. In office, he was well-regarded, and even his detractors admit he did a good job. World Bank officials have told me that they welcomed his appearances, for he came well prepared, and could hold his ground, as many BN ministers cannot.

But he sees his political career disappearing before his very eyes. So, like Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, he has decided to be high profile, never mind if to achieve that he should often behave as a fool. So, at this Colloquim on Dr Mahathir Thought (along the shades of Chairman Mao Zedong Thought), he justifies the unjustifiable. Curiously, this colloquim was in Malacca, the press did not report it, the Great Man himself could not attend since he was unavoidably detained in Morocco, Libya and Bahrain. But would he have attended if he was in Malaysia, in between trips to foreign lands? Mercifully, it was not reported. Not even the New Straits Times thought it worth reporting. So, it must have been one to show the Great Man that they back him. Those who praised him once would have had fullpage advertisements in the newspapers to show their fealty to him. Now they must speak unsung and unreported in Malacca.

So, why did the NST tease its readers with this Mustapha nonsense. It was a bald statement without any explanation and gives the impression of the speaker gone mad. So was this reported so he could be firmly buried in Kelantan politics, that this is the subtle Kelantan way of death by other means? Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad, Dr Mahathir's Dr Goebbels, is from Kelantan -- he was MP for Kok Lanas and deputy minister at the time of his detention in 1976 under the very ISA he now unreservedly backs -- And he does 'campur tangan' when he can in Kelantan.

UMNO decides it needs a new more vibrant UMNO in Kelantan, one in which its eminense grise -- one Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, of whom it is possible you might not have heard of -- must be given a chance to weave his magic to unseat PAS. In Dr Mahathir's view, for UMNO's survival, PAS must be routed in Kelantan. The last time PAS was in office there, UMNO forced it out in a deliberate confrontation of the type one Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim adopted when he was dismissed from UMNO and the government. In Malaysia, what is sauce for the gander is not for the goose. So, UMNO ran PAS out of town in what it saw as a victory. Dato' Seri Anwar cools his heels in Sungei Buloh for doing exactly that.

Or is this yet another Goebbellian view that the Great Man has outlived his usefulness, and should, if necessary by force, to consider spending more time with his grandchildren? Why did the NST decide not to report the Colloquim on Dr Mahathir Thought? Lesser colloquims get greater coverage. Is it because the Great Man would be a laughing stock, or that the only ones would could be guaranteed to support it are those beholden to UMNO, the government, or the Great Man himself. Whatever it is, it raises more questions than answers. Besides wondering why Dato' Mustapha decided to become the Great Organ Grinder's monkey a few years before he is 60 years old.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my

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Terbitan : 25 April 2002

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