A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (41 page)

My application went to the Disciplinary Committee. Among the members of the Committee were Tan Sri Syed Nasir Ismail, Tan Sri Syed Jaafar Hassan Albar, Tun Musa Hitam and Tan Sri Senu Abdul Rahman. Tun Ghazali Shafie and Tan Sri Aishah Ghani, the Wanita Chief, were also Committee members but could not attend. The Committee met and approved my application and in the first week of March, the Central Working Committee endorsed the findings of the Disciplinary Committee. When informed of their decision I said, “I am happy to hear it. I hope to be able to serve UMNO in any way that is possible for me”.

The politicking began immediately.

Syed Jaafar offered to step down from several posts in the party—including the Central Working Committee—to make way for me, so that I could play a more significant role. “It is better,” he said, “[that] I sacrifice my position in the party to give a chance to a much younger man”.

I said straightaway that it was not necessary. My return to UMNO should certainly not result in Syed Jaafar or anyone else withdrawing. I said I would wait my turn and any membership of the Central Working Committee should be determined by the annual General Assembly to be held in June. A few days later I was reported to have had “a verbal battle” with Syed Jaafar. At the time I thought that the Press was exaggerating but on hindsight, perhaps they knew better than I did.

Syed Jaafar’s offer may have been made in good faith but that does not explain why, when I later became Deputy Prime Minister, this UMNO strongman showed extreme displeasure and tried to get UMNO Youth, of which he was chief, to go against me. Still, this Press drama did not detract from the happiness I felt at being in UMNO again. I looked forward to playing a significant role in its affairs and, through it, to serve the Malays and Malaysia. The feeling of emptiness that had descended upon me when I was cast out of UMNO was lifted.

ENDNOTES

[
1
] In his book
May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969
, Soong alleges that the May 13 riots were not the result of inter-ethnic tension, but of an attempted coup by an UMNO faction.
 

[
2
] According to the Five Power Defence Agreement, created after Britain ended its defence guarantee of Malaysia and Singapore, the five countries would work together should there ever be the threat of attack against Malaysia or Singapore.
 

[
3
] Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand are signatories to the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality to keep the region “free from any form or manner of interference by outside Powers”.
 

[
4
] Malaysia’s agenda for national development is packaged and implemented in plans that each span five years.
 

[
5
] Parti Sosialis Rakyat Malaysia was founded in 1955 and was inspired by Indonesia’s fight for independence. It has since merged with Parti Keadilan (Justice Party), forming Parti Keadilan Rakyat (People’s Justice Party).
 

On 8 March 1972, I was readmitted into UMNO amid a flurry of headlines. I was very happy that my years of isolation were finally over and being back in the party that I believed in so strongly was invigorating. The possibilities seemed limitless as I might now once again contribute to the party, perhaps even to the Government. Best of all, I was with friends and colleagues again, like-minded people with whom I had had many passionate discussions about politics. That was something I had missed very much during my years of being an outcast.

As it turned out, it was to be an eventful year not just for me but for the country as well. Tun Razak had taken over the premiership from the Tunku and I felt he was going to introduce policy adjustments in keeping with our independent national status. We did not need to be so tied to the British and the West as we had been when Tunku was at the helm. We would also be tackling the intricate details of some basic Malay problems more seriously.

My readmission into UMNO was well covered in the Press. At that time, the 
Straits Times
 was still a Singapore paper, owned by the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation and run by British expatriates. Famed even then for his searing candour, journalist Tan Sri A. Samad Ismail wrote a very encouraging piece in the Malaysian edition about my return to what he called “a new UMNO”. The article focused largely on his observation of my character during my years away from the party. Even now, I feel self-conscious quoting from it, but I do so to show the atmosphere in which my re-admission into UMNO took place.

Samad correctly said that my dispute was never with the party: “Throughout his days of separation from the party,” he wrote on 22 March 1972, “he carried himself with dignity and detachment…He denied rumours that he was planning to form a political party or had plans to join another political party. ‘There is enough disunity among the Malays without me making it worse,’ he had said…his quarrel was not with the party but with its past. But the chapter with the Tengku [Tunku] was closed and Mahathir never revived it.

“…
His was the voice of a section of the people yet to be satisfied with the changes envisaged for them by a new leadership,” Samad continued. “But Mahathir played his part with diffidence. He could be a thorn had he wanted to. If he was a source of embarrassment it was not of his own making. He was not petty; he addressed himself to a larger audience, standing by the sidelines,
aloof from party squabbles. He was critical without being hostile.”
 

I had never been particularly close to Samad so I was pleasantly surprised by the article. But later, when I was Minister of Education, he wrote a nasty piece about me which I felt was blatantly unfair. When I rang him up to register my protest, his reply was characteristically curt: “If you don’t like it, you can tell Tun Razak”.

The other Malaysian-owned vernacular papers were equally positive. The Jawi-script 
Utusan Melayu
 had a cartoon of me as Superman flying in towards a crowd of welcoming UMNO leaders. That was more than a little over the top and it embarrassed me greatly. I also knew it would cause those who disliked me, including several veteran UMNO leaders, to resent my return even more. Still, despite its exaggeration, I appreciated the show of support.

UMNO was to hold its annual assembly in June of that year and new members of the Supreme Council were to be elected. There were many who wanted me to be on the Supreme Council—my staunchest supporters even began to propose my name as a candidate for one of the three Vice-President’s posts.

This aggressive approach to pursuing party and political positions was something new. Prior to this Malays often refused to be nominated, even to be Members of Parliament, saying modestly that they were not qualified. That gentle attitude generally lasted only until people realised that when you become a Member of Parliament or a State Assemblyman, you also become 
Yang Berhormat
 (The Honourable) and get an allowance, even if you don’t have any qualifications. Then the rush was on! To become an office boy a person needed some educational qualifications but none was required—even now—to become a representative of the people, a lawmaker or even a Prime Minister.

These days, the desire for prominent positions and their accompanying high status has become rife among Malays. Status-seeking is a pervasive obsession of modern Malay society. Malay culture, notably middle-class and urban Malay culture, has become more individualistic, competitive, egoistic and materialistic. Even people who have done little want to become Members of Parliament and, once elevated, very few are prepared to step down. When I resigned as Prime Minister, several of my long-serving Ministers said they would follow suit, but in the event, almost none did.

These days, incumbents are also challenged all the time. Everybody wants to be an UMNO Vice-President. This may be the democratic thing to do, but I doubt that we yet understand the fundamental workings of democracy. In a democracy you support the winner. You may run him down during a campaign and you may vote against him, but once the votes are counted you close ranks and throw your weight behind the one who wins. This way the party and the country remain united and strong. Today however, there is no functional democracy in the party, so the whole game has changed.

Also, in UMNO, members continue to support their own candidates long after elections have been held. Candidates for party positions continue to pursue their opponent, whether he is defeated or not. If he is defeated, he is shamed and forced to defend himself, and by asserting your own power, you show how pitiful the loser’s position can be. If he has won, you undermine him by obstructing and frustrating him at every turn. This pattern does not make for a strong party. Ultimately, it weakens the Government, its capacity and authority. The higher up you go, the worse it is. If there is a contest at the Deputy President’s level and there are two or more candidates, the losers and their followers will refuse to support the winner. A splinter group may even form, as indeed happened after I defeated Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah in the 1986 party elections.

In a democracy, it is crucial for people to accept that there will always be winners and losers. That is why I sometimes felt that there should not be a contest at certain levels, for certain positions in the party. People either genuinely did not understand how elections worked, or they simply did not care. The good of the party is regarded as secondary—what matters is individual ambition.

During the Tunku’s time, even though the UMNO rank and file were unhappy with him, no one would have challenged him or his Deputy or even the three Vice-Presidents if the incumbents were still in position. This is a strong trait in the Malay culture. Typically, it is unwritten, even unspoken. This same time-tested culture of respecting those who hold positions and deferring to their right to hold such offices gave UMNO great strength in its early years.

So, despite the insistence of my supporters, I felt it was too soon for me to run for Vice-President. It was not in keeping with the party tradition that I valued and was likely to antagonise the incumbents and other older leaders. I hesitated a great deal but in the end, support from the divisions, especially those in the north, was very strong and voluble. It was hard to resist.

The incumbent UMNO Vice-Presidents at that time were Tun Ghafar Baba, Tun Sardon Jubir and Tan Sri Syed Nasir Ismail. Tun Ghafar was a grassroots man, while the other two enjoyed great stature as party leaders who had been on the scene since the founding of UMNO. The decision to contest would have been an easier one if at least one of the incumbents withdrew. Then there would be a vacancy to fill and a contest would have to be held. But none did, so any new candidate would appear to be challenging all of the incumbents. To offer such a challenge would be a gross departure from UMNO’s ways at the time.

Finally, a month before the Assembly, I succumbed to the pressure from my supporters and agreed to contest the Vice-President’s post. It was a thin line to walk. I did not want to disappoint them, but I also knew I had to be careful as I would be unpopular if I were seen to be too ambitious. Going for the Vice-President’s position would hardly be considered a modest move.

I did not think I would win so I hedged my bets, but not going for broke undermined my bid. I lost that election for Vice-President. Tun Sardon, Tun Hussein Onn and Tun Ghafar were elected instead. Tun Hussein’s success was telling as he had left UMNO with his father, Dato’ Onn, when the latter formed the Independence of Malaya Party in 1951. Apparently Tun Hussein was now fully rehabilitated in the eyes of UMNO members. Everyone knew that Tun Razak had engineered his return to the party, so no one questioned Tun Hussein’s political loyalty.

I was not too disappointed about losing as I did not think it would affect my future. Instead, I felt vindicated as I obtained the highest number of votes as a member of the Supreme Council. UMNO can be quite subtle in some ways. The voting results indicated that the rank and file did not feel I was ready for the Vice-President’s post. But they wanted to show their support through a big vote for me as an ordinary member of the Supreme Council.

For someone who had returned to UMNO only three months earlier, I felt I had done very well. Now I was again going to be in UMNO’s decision-making body. My anticipation was heightened because I felt sure that under Tun Razak’s leadership, the Council would no longer be the rubber-stamping body it had been during the Tunku’s presidency.

Tun Razak and the Tunku were completely different personalities. The Tunku had been imperious and would simply announce major decisions without any prior discussion. Tun Razak, on the other hand, valued discussion. Even during the Tunku’s time, when I was a member of the political committee headed by Tun Razak, he invariably made sure that we contributed, deliberated and planned. He was much more acquainted with the rank and file and they did not feel the same remote awe towards him that they did with the Tunku. Consequently, Tun Razak did not seem as distant. Initially, however, I myself felt that he was such a great personality that I had difficulty addressing him. It felt almost like addressing royalty. But slowly, I began to remind myself that he was not a royal.

I came to admire Tun Razak immensely. He understood administration, planning, and implementation, and so he understood what he needed to do for the Malays and the country. During his term as Prime Minister, he focused on rural development, something he initiated during the Tunku’s time. His foreign policies were also different from the Tunku’s. Tun Razak was less Western-oriented and was more inclined towards non-alignment and establishing diplomatic relations with every country, irrespective of ideology or system of government. He established relations with China and many of the Eastern Bloc countries, and he even visited the Soviet Union and China. The Tunku never set foot in the latter. I am not sure he ever visited Russia.