Mahathir the failure.
The saga of Mahathir Mohamad continues, though not to his advantage. You may recall that Mahathir left UMNO, supposedly on a dare — though really to forestall his own deepening legal troubles — and called for other party members to follow him. His intent was to bring down the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, whom Mahathir detests for reasons that do Badawi credit — namely, the PM’s abandonment of the narrowness, corruption, and oft-vicious parochialism of Mahathir’s own rule.
A centerpiece of the PM’s program is the reform of the Malaysian judiciary, which is laid out in admirable detail by Malaysia’s law minister, Zaid Ibrahim, here. Critical to the reform is the rooting-out of practices involving the “fixing” of judicial appointments. In Malaysia, the selection of judges of meant to be an impartial, apolitical process. In the past several months, a royal commission has uncovered compelling evidence that under Mahathir’s rule, it was anything but — and there is direct evidence that Mahathir himself was involved. The inevitable legal repercussions for Mahathir are all the explanation needed for his frenetic efforts to bring down the government now.
Mahathir’s logic is, sadly for him, deeply flawed. Assume for a moment that he does bring the UMNO-led coalition down through a series of defections at his behest. It is likely that his old nemesis, Anwar Ibrahim, would ascend to the Prime Ministership — and can Mahathir truly believe that Ibrahim will refrain from pursuing the judiciary case to the hilt? Of course, Ibrahim will do it for vengeance rather than justice — it would be far more creditable for Malaysia were the process to culminate under the leadership of the current PM, Abdullah Badawi.
It looks like this is exactly what will happen. Not a single UMNO MP — not even his own son — has elected to follow Mahathir out of the party. The ruling coalition stands, and the wheels of justice continue to turn. This incredible outcome could merely reflect a failure of planning on Mahathir’s part — instead of acting on a “dare,” perhaps he should have laid the groundwork for a party rebellion more assiduously. More probably it reflects the former PM’s precipitous loss of stature in Malaysia and amongst his own erstwhile proteges. Mahathir is the past, yes — but he is also a discredited past, increasingly revealed as corrupt and vengeful. His break with UMNO has only served to clarify just how much UMNO already broke with him.
UPDATE: This AP story has a good synopsis of events, but also casts Mahathir’s defection as one of many troubles slowly sinking the Badawi government. This is, I think, getting it exactly backwards: Mahathir’s ruckus is a net positive for the government, inasmuch as the former PM has now done all the work needed to demonstrate that it has nothing to do with him and his baleful legacy. One of PM Abdullah Badawi’s delicate tasks was to navigate the shoals between continuity of party, and abandonment of Mahathir-era corruption and bile. Now Mahathir has done this work in full. If I were Badawi, I would be tremendously — and quietly — pleased.
