Mishaps notwithstanding, the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, would succeed Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed. He needs to clothe himself in heroic grandeur to lift him out of the ordinary to be demigod successor of Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed. So, in an interview with Bernama, he makes the astounding revelation that his grandfather, Sheikh Abdullah Fahim, chose the exact time and date, midnight on 31 August 1957, through Islamic astrology, Malaysia would get its independence from Britain. The link is tenuous. He is unsure. As the Bername report says (The New Straits Times, p5), "Abdullah thinks that after hearing about the talks which would be held in London, they may have asked about a possible date for independent. 'What I know for sure,' he said, 'is that when they wanted to set the date, my grandfather, Sheikh Abdullah Fahim's suggestion was accepted as the most suitable date for the independence of our country.'" This could well be true but I am astounded that an important nugget as this is kept hidden during the 28 years Dato' Seri Abdullah has been in government.

He mentions he was with his father in Kuala Lumpur when the Union Jack was lowered and the Malayan flag raised to mark independence. His father, Dato' Ahmad Badawi, was UMNO deputy youth chief, is an UMNO collossus in his own right, but he was a staunch supporter of Dato' Sir Onn Jaffar, the founding president of UMNO. When Dato' Sir Onn walked out of UMNO in 1951, those of his supporters met at Dato' Ahmad Badawi's house. One important decision reached there was for the UMNO religious wing walk out to form what is now UMNO's most potent challenger, PAS or the Pan Malayan Islamic Party as it was then known. Understandably, he does not mention this in his interview.

But the importance of this interview is to link Dato' Seri Abdullah to the momentous events of the past so that when he becomes prime minister, he could secure it against all challengers by this tenuous link. For the successor to Dr Mahathir comes with a great disadvantage: he was too young to be a member of UMNO at its birth on 11 May 1946. The first four prime ministers were, which gave them an inbuilt advantage against challengers. So, whoever is prime minister after Dr Mahathir must fight hard to retain UMNO support to cling to office. For Dato' Seri Abdullah, he has another advantage: he was not elected as deputy prime minister, after his appointment as deputy prime minister, after the Anwar Ibrahim affair, the elections which was to annoint him was orchestrated so he would be returned unopposed.

The pressure on him is incalculable. Dr Mahathir insists he would stay on until October 2003. Few in politics today believes he would even then. He strings Dato' Seri Abdullah along, deciding who should be his deputy, what he may or may not do. There are other claimants in the wings, who could well throw caution to the winds and challenge whoever is the candidate for UMNO president in the party elections next year. UMNO politics is in flux, the more so as the country suffers from an overdose of a leader whose wings are clipped and his voice ignored as the combatant challengers go their own way. What Dato' Seri Abdullah did was so he would remain amongst the frontrunners. He knows the dangers he face if he remains long under his leader's shadow.

So, he does whatever needs to be done to ensure he has at least a pipsqueak advantage over his other challengers. He is already caught in limbo with Dr Mahathir's insistence that the defence minister and UMNO vice president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, be his deputy prime minister. He has the domestic trade and consumer affairs minister and UMNO vice president, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, in mind. His effective mentor, Tan Sri Musa Hitam, does not, and prefers, like Dr Mahathir, Dato' Seri Najib. That both Dr Mahathir and Tan Sri Musa both want him as Dato' Seri Abdullah's deputy has to do with the Malay concept of 'hutang budi', literally, a cultural debt, as important in Malay feudal life as honour in Sicilian life. It was Dato' Seri Najib's father, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, who protected Dr Mahathir and Tan Sri Musa from the then prime minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, after he sacked Dr Mahathir from UMNO and Tan Sri Musa as executive secretary of UMNO after the 1969 racial riots. They want to repay this hutang budi by ensuring Dato' Seri Najib is deputy prime minister.

The New Straits Times editor-in-chief, Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad, was for than a decade political secretary to Tun Razak. When he tried to have his son appointed Dato' Seri Najib, he was rebuffed. Dato' Seri Najib did not consider he owed Tan Sri Abdullah a hutang budi. It is not noticed or so obvious, but the two men are at daggers drawn. He stalked the defence minister by suggesting he was too ambitious than was good for him, first having his reporters waylay Dato' Najib to have him support Dato' Seri Abdullah unreservedly, and then suggest to the Prime Minister about this and how nice it would be if Dato' Najib was Dato' Seri Abdullah's deputy. It fitted in with Dr Mahathir's hutang budi. And put more pressure on Dato' Seri Abdullah than he should have.

The infighting within UMNO to isolate Dato' Seri Abdullah is in earnest. So he needs this albeit tenuous link to keep himself in the race. He exercises his powers to appoint his acolytes in key places. The former journalist, Dato' Kalimullah Hassan, is the new chairman of Bernama, replacing a Mahathir appointee, Dato' Abdul Kadir Jasin; the latter is rumoured to return to the New Straits Times group as chairman in place of Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad. He dishes out millions of ringgit in business and other deals to those close to him, to build a political and business machine he does not have. His personal popularity is unquestioned, but he is, to not make a fine point about it, a political lightweight. He does not have a political machine as Dato' Seri Najib, nor the persistence and verve of the Joker in the UMNO presidential stakes, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah aka the hermit of Langgak Golf.

So he weaves a personal link to the momentous events of the past. But so in keeping the selection of Malaya's independence date in the family, he runs foul of the Islamic purists. He now proclaims it was Islamic astrology, as opposed to, say, Hindu astrology, which decided on a momentous date of Malaya's history. When Islam in Malaysia takes a political role and its relevance is fought not on religious but political grounds, UMNO and PAS trading insults over how it should dominate politics in Malaysia, it was, in one sense, unwise of Dato' Seri Abdullah to have brought the question of Islamic astrology into the open. Unless he insists Islamic astrology exists, against the weight of current pro-Wabbist view of Islam extant in Malaysia. Official Islam, since the 1950s, has removed from its practices every celebration or practice that conflicts with the purist Islam both UMNO and PAS now wants imposed. Islamic astrology is one. Mandi Safar is another. These are sufi and Shia traditions that crept into the Islam which came to Malaysia via Gujerati merchants, and accepted by the early Malay converts to Islam from Hinduism and animism after Parameswara became Sultan Muzzafar Shah 600 years ago.

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

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Terbitan : 31 Ogos 2002

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