A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (65 page)

With time I noticed that Anwar’s criticism of the Government, especially with regard to alleged cronyism, was becoming more open. He would speak against this abuse of public trust, spicing his words with veiled hints that it involved me. He condemned cronyism in principle, which I applauded, but his words were double-edged. His rhetoric offered a morality play in which he was Good, while whoever he opposed was Bad. When he spoke out against cronyism at the top, to whom was he alluding if not to me? Above me, and above him, there was no one else. Moreover, by condemning cronyism as he did, he suggested that he never indulged in it himself. It was a clever strategy to deflect attention from his own cronyism. Senior UMNO members warned me that he was up to no good and that he was not loyal to the party. After ousting Tun Ghafar, they said, his next target was me. But I was not worried. I did not think he would succeed and was very confident of my own position.

Uncomfortable as the situation had become, I thought I could handle it and I doubted he would get enough support if he turned against me. While I still saw Anwar as an effective leader, I felt that his desire to oust me was premature. But my confidence in myself and my chosen direction has always allowed me to live with disagreement, with people who think and act differently from myself. Perhaps I was being overconfident, but to me it is important that all factions be accommodated within the party. If you remove one leader, another will surely step forward to take his place. There is no guarantee that he would be less ambitious and problematic than his predecessor. You would still have to deal with him. If Anwar were to challenge me, I knew he would have supporters and that might weaken UMNO, but I was prepared to handle all that.

A number of people close to me—people who had no stake or interest in politics—also told me what they saw and heard about Anwar. They were not put up to it so I had no reason to question their motives. By then, all sorts of stories were being circulated and encouraged. Some of these rumours of corruption and cronyism against me reached the Press. Eventually, to put an end to those allegations, I had to publish the names of all the people who had won government contracts when Anwar was Minister of Finance. The list showed that many of those who won negotiated contracts were his friends and members of his family. There were also one or two of my family members and people connected to me, but their contracts were considerably smaller. Crying “Thief!” is a good ploy to divert attention from yourself and that was precisely the strategy that Anwar employed and, I am afraid, continues to employ.

Publicly, as I have noted, Anwar cut an impressive figure. He also made an impact upon American and Western journalists with his seemingly liberal ideas. He arranged for United States senators and congressmen to visit Malaysia every year, paid for by funds he had set up. These senators and congressmen believed him to be a liberal, democratic politician and liked him. At the same time he maintained his contacts with many Muslim activists in the Islamic world. All this groundwork came in useful later; these connections and that enviable reputation stood him in good stead when he was later tried and convicted on criminal charges in our courts. They believed his story that he was framed so as to prevent him from becoming Prime Minister.

No doubt the Americans thought that he would make a better Prime Minister than I—a number of their leading newspapers and business journals said so. I was abrasive and had never been liked by the Americans. Still, I tried to please Anwar by seeing the visiting senators and congressmen and participating in the seminars he had arranged. And why not? I did not question his objective of inviting the Americans to Malaysia every year, presumably so that they might get to know Malaysia better. When action was taken against him for breaches of our criminal law these people all condemned me and demanded his release. The price of his international popularity was something my Government had to deal with later when he was arrested and tried on criminal charges, and when he claimed that it was he who dealt successfully with the currency crisis.

At home, some UMNO leaders whom he did not like or who were close to me began to complain that, as Deputy Prime Minister, he was making life difficult for them. One Chief Minister was accused of having an affair with a schoolgirl. He claimed that the Deputy Prime Minister had directed that the case be given wide publicity. In the end, the Chief Minister lost his position.

In 1993 the then Inspector-General of Police, Tun Mohamad Hanif Omar, came to see me with evidence of Anwar’s sexual misconduct. It was so serious an accusation that I thought it simply could not be true and may have been part of an outlandish plot against him. I did not suggest that any action be taken, but the police, as is their practice, continued their surveillance. No more reports came to me until 1998 when, as I will return to in a later chapter, the evidence was so compelling that I had to act.

Meanwhile, Anwar’s attempts to force me to step down became more and more obvious. Even though I was not too concerned, relations between us were becoming strained and I was beginning to have doubts that he would be a good leader and successor to me. But I had to carry on as if nothing was happening, just as I had when things became difficult with Tun Musa. That is how I deal with people—I don’t accuse them of anything, I just carry on.

When Tun Musa went against me, I thought he only harmed himself because he became unpopular within the party. Later, I was willing to have him back and I didn’t protest when his supporters wanted him to return as Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy President of the party. That had proven to be the right strategy. Now, with Anwar, I took the same view and approach. Anwar remained his disarming self and behaved as if nothing was happening. Meanwhile, I heard that there were Cabinet members who were going around saying unpleasant things about me. Yet despite what he and his allies were doing and the underhand methods he was using, Anwar retained a reputation for religious piety and uprightness.

I kept my doubts to myself. I felt confident that should he mount a direct challenge to my presidency, I would still be able to defeat him. As things turned out, my plans to step down after the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 were thwarted by the assault against the Malaysian ringgit by international currency traders in 1997-1998. No matter what my personal plans were, I could not stand down under those circumstances. I could not leave at a time when the country was facing a major crisis. I thought it was my duty to put things right first. This was especially so because Anwar, as my successor, seemed unable to deal with the situation. He had followed the IMF formula and the situation had become worse. Unless corrective actions were taken the country that my successor would inherit would go into economic depression.

ENDNOTES

[
1
] Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia was founded in 1972 and supported Islamic revivalism and the foundation of an Islamic state in Malaysia.
 

[
2
] Tan was a founder of Gerakan but formed the multiracial Malaysian Social Justice Party in 1972 after Gerakan joined the Barisan Nasional Government. In the 1974 General Election, however, he was the only member of his party to win a Federal seat. The party effectively disbanded when he retired in 1977, and most of its members joined the DAP.
 

[
3
] Datuk Abdul Aziz Shamsuddin became Minister of Rural and Regional Development in 2004 before losing his Federal seat to Khalid Abdul Samad of PAS in the 2008 General Election.
 

[
4
] Gerakan Belia 4B Malaysia, formed in 1966 to provide for a national youth movement, has served as a proving ground for UMNO youth leaders.
 

[
5
] Puteri and Putera UMNO were formed to attract greater youth participation in the party.
 

[
6
] A US politician who served in the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, Wolfowitz was also US Ambassador to Indonesia before serving as World Bank President until June 2007, when he was forced to quit over allegations involving the undue promotion of the bank’s employee Shaha Riza, who was his girlfriend.
 

When I assumed office, few people had heard of Malaysia or even knew where it was. When a Malaysian abroad told people where he came from, the next question was always, “Where is that?” For a long time foreigners thought Malaysia was in China, in the Himalayas, or even in Africa, confusing it with Malawi or Madagascar. Everyone knew Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore. Even Vietnam was better known, largely because of the war there. Malaysia, a Southeast Asian country just like the others, was the least known, and that made attracting tourists and investors very difficult.

This ignorance about our country was not surprising as Malaysia was not in the news much in its early years. Nothing spectacular had happened in our struggle for Independence, which was negotiated rather than won by force of arms. There was no long saga of bloodshed and strife of the kind that journalists and their editors love to report, as had been the case in the protracted pursuit of independence by Indonesia and Vietnam in our region, or Algeria and Cyprus closer to Europe. Our new nation had initially been called the Federation of Malaya, the successor to what many people knew as British Malaya. It was not too difficult to connect the two. But later it became Malaysia, the new name adopted after Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore joined the already independent Federation of Malaya in 1963. Singapore’s separation from Malaysia in 1965 briefly attracted international media attention, as did Indonesia’s Confrontation against the enlarged federation between 1963 and 1965. But overall, we remained a low-profile member of the international community, not known by most foreigners.

In the late 1960s our Ministry of Foreign Affairs had an allocation of only about RM14 million. We had diplomatic relations with very few countries, mainly those in the Commonwealth. Both the Tunku and Tun Razak had been pro-Western in their policies, although Tun Razak did pay wider attention to the rest of the world, as his state visits to the USSR and then China in 1974 showed.

When he became Prime Minister, Tun Hussein essentially followed Tun Razak’s policy as he did not have much time to change things. At heart he was still very close to the West, but he upheld the principle of non-alignment, which Tun Razak had embraced. Tun Hussein was a peaceable man who was wary of causing anger towards Malaysia and always tried to avoid conflict. He mended fences with Brunei, which had accused Malaysia of helping anti-establishment Bruneians during Tun Razak’s time.

When I took over I decided to review and change our foreign policy. I felt we should ignore ideological differences and be friendly with everyone. My first priority was building stronger relationships with the member countries of ASEAN as they were our close neighbours, and whatever happened to them would affect us. In any case, ASEAN was formed not as an economic community like the European Union, but in order to avoid conflicts between neighbours, such as when Indonesia launched its Confrontation against Malaysia and the Philippines claimed Sabah. I was determined that conflicts between Malaysia and her neighbours should be avoided through good relations with ASEAN countries. At a time when national sentiment in Malaysia ran strongly in the opposite direction, I even sought to establish good relations with Singapore after it separated from Malaysia.

The second priority was the small countries of the Pacific and Africa, followed by Islamic countries, and only then, the Commonwealth. I made moving the Commonwealth down Malaysia’s list of foreign relations priorities very clear when I chose not to attend the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)
[1]
 in Melbourne in 1981 and again in New Delhi in 1983. Sir Shridath Ramphal, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, and many others tried to persuade me to attend but my answer was always the same: I needed to see other countries first.
 

The world powers and the European countries came last. To the East, I regarded relations with Japan and South Korea as most important.Later, when the People’s Republic of China stopped aiding Malaysian communist insurgents, I hastened to develop strong relations with that giant nation as well.

I began pursuing these new priorities by paying visits to the member countries of ASEAN, with the exception of the Philippines. Wanting to establish good relations with Indonesia, our biggest ASEAN neighbour and the closest in terms of ethnicity, culture and language, I made a point of visiting Indonesia first. President Suharto received me and Hasmah at Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport with a few members of his Cabinet. I inspected a guard of honour with the President and we then drove together to the guest house behind the Merdeka Palace. Lining the streets along the way were large portraits of myself and President Suharto. The President was a good host and conducted me to the very door of my suite, wishing me a good stay and politely telling me that if I needed anything, his protocol officers would see to it.

Then I visited Thailand, where General Prem Tinsulanonda, the Prime Minister, received me at the military section of Don Muang airport. Again there was a guard of honour and after inspecting it, I was driven to the guest house with General Prem. We held discussions on bilateral issues and were entertained with a lavish dinner, followed by a special Thai dance performance in which the friendship between Thailand and Malaysia was the theme. I was satisfied that relations with Thailand would be good, and General Prem was particularly friendly.

I did not visit the Philippines because the problem of their claim over Sabah had not yet been resolved. The practice then was for the leaders of Malaysia and the Philippines to meet only during ASEAN or other international conferences. It was not until General Fidel Ramos was elected President that he visited Malaysia unofficially. This visit broke the ice but official visits were still not made as their claim to Sabah was still extant. Our differences could not be resolved as Filipino legislators saw it as a good issue, one that could always win popular support for the champions of the return of Sabah to the Philippines. Their politics are so divisive and fragmented, that no Philippine President has ever been strong enough to drop the claim. So the claim remains alive to this day. But at ASEAN meetings, we were cordial and we did not let the issue sour our personal relations.