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Malaysia: Mahathir Upset Over Personal Setbacks Within Party
by Kazi Mahmood
JAKARTA (IslamOnline) - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is said to be extremely upset over the resistance from his party to widen the leadership election base and to end the corruption that is said to have crept within the party apparatus.
Malaysia's ruling Malay party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), squeezed into the center by the highflying Party Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), has rejected an offer to allow 50,000 delegates to chose the party's leaders instead of the usual 2000 delegates.
Even though the highlights of the party's one-day special assembly Saturday proved again that Mahathir has almost total control of UMNO apparatchiks, it also showed that the delegates had played their cards in preventing major changes taking place in the party.
The party passed key amendments ensuring that more Malays and professionals join the party in a bid to strengthen its base severely threatened by the PAS. It also launched a new website geared towards delivering fresh responses to the PAS.
Key amendments passed by the ruling Malay party reveal that from now on, all Malays and bumiputras qualify to become UMNO members. The party will now allow branches to approve memberships, and new members can contest in general elections. Mahathir's party currently allows only senior civil servants to contest for party posts.
Analysts, however, say that the UMNO is still a Mahathir stronghold and that challenges to his power within the party by others will not come soon.
Even though Mahathir failed to get the party's supreme council to approve extensions in the party's leadership elections from 3 to 5 years, indications are that he will still be dominant in the UMNO until at least until the 2003 annual general assembly.
One of the amendments passed by the party will insist on registered members, said to be around 3 million, around Malaysia to register if they desire to vote in the forthcoming general elections. In 1999, party insiders told IslamOnline that full-fledged members did not vote for the party.
It is not certain whether they voted for the PAS, or whether they voted at all during the elections, which saw a dramatic decline in the vote percentage of the UMNO. The party also saw a significant reduction in the number of its elected members both in Parliament and the states assemblies.
All the seats lost by UMNO either went to the PAS or the National Justice Party (NJP), lead by the wife of jailed former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
Mahathir has said that the strength of the UMNO will ensure long-term political domination in Malaysia for the Malays, the majority of which are Muslims comprising 55% of the population. The UMNO believes that the Islamic opposition will bring chaos to the country and take the Malays on a backward course.
Mahathir said that the changes brought in the party's constitution would not be enough to win back Malays who seem to have deserted the party for the PAS. He said the fractured community would have to be rallied back to the UMNO by strong actions that would strengthen the party.
"Amending the constitution on its own will not ensure success. Strong actions are needed to strengthen UMNO and equip it to face and overcome challenges in the coming decades," he said during his speech to the delegates.
Observers who participated in the UMNO meeting said they fear the party did not do enough to bring the Malays back and unify the community, where UMNO stock support has rested since its creation.
It has been the first time in Malaysia's history that Malays have deserted the UMNO for another party, in what observers say are signs of changing times. Some observers told IslamOnline they believe the party is cracking from within, but that the Prime Minister is too powerful for the cracks to be seen.
A large section of the general public, mostly Malays, say the fear within the party they have supported for generations has reached a tear and wear limit. Even though many say they do not have anything against Mahathir personally, they insist that the party is facing the gallows in the aftermath of the oldest serving UMNO president and Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Islamic activism has taken root in Malaysia and the PAS is set to benefit to the maximum from the rise of Islamic consciousness among the Malays, another observer aligned to the NJP told IslamOnline.
He said that UMNO's attempt at reinventing itself following the 1999 disaster has not been accepted in the general public. "The return to Islamization by the UMNO party has not only kept the Malays away from it, but has also shown signs of resistance from the non-Muslims," Abul Majid said to IslamOnline.
"Besides the Anwar issue, which the majority of the Malaysians now believe is a political trial, the issue of UMNO turning to better Islamic ideals than that proposed by the PAS has made the Chinese and the Indians think twice," he added.
The UMNO, he said, has educated non-Muslims in Malaysia to fear Islam as it is presented by the PAS.
"Now that the Malays has left them, they want to be more Islamic than anyone to bring them back. That will alienate the non-Muslims who kept the National Front alive by rejected the PAS and its allies during the 1999 elections," continued Abdul Majid.
On the setbacks met by Mahathir within the UMNO party itself, Abul Majid told IslamOnline that the rejection of some major proposals to alter the constitution, which did not make it to the voting stage, represented strong resistance from party delegates.
"The UMNO members are tired of the rule of the Supreme Council on them. They fear for the future of the party and they fear Mahathir does not have too long to go and this might leave them in the dark." Majid said.
He agreed that Mahathir remains the man to defeat in UMNO and that the prime minister looks set to end his political career in style.
Mahathir wanted at least 50,000 members to elect the party leadership, instead of 2000 delegates, represented at the party's special assembly on Saturday. The delegates, drawn from 165 divisions, rejected the idea.
Party insiders said the 2000 delegates have grown too powerful and have become real powerbrokers in determining the fate of party leaders. By widening the base of the party members who would elect leaders, it was hoped the UMNO would return to its grassroots ideals.
Majid said that it was this rejection, and the knowledge that these 2000 delegates might be corrupted, that brought Mahathir to tears Saturday.
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