The smart man would not have bet on Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi celebrating New Year as the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Either Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim would have exercised his crossover option and seized power or the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, would have ousted Abdullah in the party polls.
How things change in a few days.
Two recent developments have thrown the entire Malaysian political system into haywire and now all bets are off.
First was blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin’s stunning statutory declaration which, among other things, alleged, based on hearsay, that Najib’s wife Rosmah Mansor was present at the scene when Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu was blown up by a pack of C4 explosives.
Raja Petra alleged that a military intelligence report of the crime was passed to Abdullah, who in turn passed it to his son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin for safekeeping.
Second was the equally sensational police report made by college dropout Saiful Bukhari Azhar that he was sodomised by Anwar against his will while working as a special assistant to the de facto Opposition leader.
The main protagonists mentioned in Raja Petra’s declaration have all come out to strenuously deny the allegations made against them and police investigations are on-going with statements taken from Rosmah and Khairy.
Anwar, meanwhile, has been in and out of the Turkish Embassy in Kuala Lumpur claiming that his life is in danger and that Saiful’s allegations are part of a Government conspiracy to engineer his downfall, just like what his former mentor Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad did in 1998.
Whatever the truth is in both cases, it matters very little.
Malaysian politics over the last few years does not concern itself with the truth. It is obsessed with perception, true or otherwise. Often whoever spins the best story on the Internet, in the numerous blogs that have mushroomed in the face of state-controlled media, gains the trust of the public. In these two cases the same has happened.
Although many find Raja Petra’s declaration ludicrous, Najib has struggled with the perception that he and his wife are somehow connected with the Altantuya murder. The perception that links Najib to the Altantuya case refuses to go away partly because the man at the centre of the controversy, Abdul Razak Abdullah Baginda, was known to be a close friend and advisor to Najib.
It is also unfortunate that Razak was also involved in the Scorpene submarine deal which the Opposition alleges resulted in huge kickbacks for people connected to the transaction. Strengthening this perception is the role played by Musa Safri, Najib’s chief bodyguard, who referred Razak to the alleged Altantuya murderers who were then members of the police’s special action unit.
So while Najib has come out to strongly deny his involvement and Rosmah’s presence at the scene of Altantuya’s murder, many analysts and observers feel that the damage from Raja Petra’s declaration has been done. Unfortunately for Najib, he is also struggling in the perception battle over Saiful’s allegations of being sodomised by Anwar.
Whether Barisan Nasional leaders like it or not, many Malaysians never believed Anwar was a homosexual. The original trial that put Anwar away in prison saw the public prosecutor changing the date of the alleged offence, a fundamental error that for many confirmed their suspicions that this was a conspiracy to get rid of Anwar.
So when Anwar’s wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail flashed a photo at a recent press conference of Saiful posing at Najib’s office with one of his senior aides, many jumped to the obvious conclusion that this was all a ploy by Najib’s camp to eliminate Anwar from the Malaysian political equation.
Again, although Najib had to explain that Saiful visited his office to request for a scholarship before he started working for Anwar, in the court of public perception many refused to buy that explanation. So as far as the Kuala Lumpur chattering class is concerned, the biggest loser in both cases is Najib.
For many who dabble in the politics of perception, they don’t believe that Abdullah has been tainted as much. For all his weaknesses, Abdullah is generally not seen to be Machiavellian in his ways and public perception has excluded him from both knowledge of and involvement in the Altantuya murder to any role in the latest allegations against Anwar. This has an impact on national politics.
Before Raja Petra’s declaration, Najib had a clear path to the Prime Minister’s office. Rank-and-file Umno stalwarts were piling the pressure on Abdullah to retire before the party polls at the end of the year. Senior Cabinet members like Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yaasin and Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim openly hinted that if Abdullah didn’t bow out gracefully, he would be thrown out like Tun Ghafar Baba in 1993.
Abdullah was clinging on just because Najib allowed him to. There was apparently at first a secret handshake between the two men that Najib would not challenge Abdullah as long as the Prime Minister gave a specific date for his retirement. When Abdullah was hesitant to commit to a date for fear of being a lame duck leader, Najib’s camp began stepping up the pressure. They joined up with their once arch-nemesis, Muhyiddin’s supporters, to begin rallying enough nominations for Najib and Muhyiddin as the party’s main ticket in December. And then things fell apart.
Although the Raja Petra declaration and the allegations against Anwar have largely not changed the equation in Umno, Najib’s public perception seems to have been affected. As far as Umno members are concerned, they still want to get rid of Abdullah and install Najib by December. But they must not underestimate public perception. They must not think that Umno is an island unaffected by the way the rest of the country thinks. That is the mistake they made during the last general election.
Umno was too Umno-centric and forgot about the rest of the country. As a result, BN was punished. Today, the man who is worse off in the public’s eyes is not Abdullah but Najib.
Abdullah’s problems – ineffectiveness, weak leadership and nepotism – are more innocuous compared with the issues associated with Najib – the Altantnuya case and political conspiracy. Anwar would relish at the thought of having just Najib to deal with. And this is precisely Anwar’s strategy. He is piling the pressure on Najib to force the Deputy Prime Minister to oust Abdullah now rather than later.
Anwar believes that Najib thinks he can survive this onslaught only if he quickly replaced Abdullah as Prime Minister in order to use all state apparatus to fight for his political survival. By hitting Najib hard, Anwar is hoping for Najib to lose patience with Abdullah’s soft approach and force the Prime Minister out. Then Anwar will get what he wants – a PM with public perception problems.
Umno cannot see this. In its haste to dump Abdullah, it forgets one fact: with Abdullah gone and a severely damaged Najib to contend with, Anwar will be much closer to his endgame that Umno is aware.
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