The Anwar Episode: An Analysis

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The drama in Kuala Lumpur is more than a two-man show. Dr Chandra
Muzaffar outline the reasons for the charges laid against Anwar Ibrahim.

ONE month after he was sacked from the government and the ruling party,
a lot of people are still wondering what was the real reason behind
Anwar Ibrahim's expulsion. Is Anwar's ''low morals'', his indulgence in
homosexual activities, as alleged by the prime minister and Umno
president, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the real reason? Or is the former deputy
prime minister and Umno deputy president, the victim of ''a high-level
conspiracy'', as Anwar and his supporters maintain?

Relationship

To understand Anwar's dismissal one has to understand the relationship
between Mahathir and Anwar. It was Mahathir who brought Anwar into
government, in 1982. It was Mahathir who groomed Anwar, accelerated his
ascendancy within Umno, and exposed him to a variety of governmental
roles until he assumed the mantle of deputy Umno president and deputy
prime minister.

Anwar was indisputably Mahathir's heir-apparent. Though the older man
was instrumental in the younger man's meteoric rise, there is no doubt
Anwar himself is an astute politician with a knack for mass mobilisation
and for the intrigues of intra-party manoeuvres.

Besides, he was also a gifted orator with tremendous rapport with his
followers.

Resentment

Anwar reciprocated Mahathir's patronage by giving unstinted support to
the latter whenever he was confronted by a political crisis. From the
1983 Constitutional crisis through to the 1987 Umno split to the 1988
Judicial calamity to the 1991 curbing of the powers of the Sultans,
Anwar was Mahathir's loyal lieutenant, garnering support for his boss.
This relationship between the two men created quite a bit of resentment
within UMNO, especially among party stalwarts who had joined the
organisation long before Anwar was co-opted into government.

In fact, from 1982 itself, there were groups who sought to drive a wedge
between Mahathir and Anwar through poison-pen letters and whispering
campaigns. To his credit, Mahathir ignored these sinister moves and
stood by his deputy. Then in May 1997, Mahathir sent the clearest signal
yet to Umno, the government and the people that Anwar would be his
successor by appointing him Acting Umno president and acting prime
minister when he went off on two months' leave.

Anwar's adversaries in the party, some corporate figures who regarded
his ascendancy as a threat to their interests, and a few individuals in
certain public institutions viewed his appointment as a danger sign.
They were more determined than ever to stop him at all costs.

In June 1997, they circulated a signed document alleging that Anwar had
an adulterous relationship with the wife of his confidential secretary,
on the one hand, and a homosexual relationship with his wife's former
driver, on the other.

Close aides of the prime minister brought both the document and the
individuals who had made the allegations to his attention as soon as he
returned from leave. The prime minister, according to the local media,
got the police to investigate the allegations and, in early August 1997,
he announced publicly that investigations had revealed that there was no
basis to the allegations.

Subsequently, a member of the government, in response to a question in
the Malaysian Parliament, reiterated that the allegations were baseless
and that the two individuals who had levelled the accusations against
Anwar had, through sworn statements, repudiated their earlier
allegations and were completely penitent.

Developments

The sex allegations would have ended there -- except for a series of
developments since August 1997 which brought those allegations into the
limelight again and which impacted adversely upon the Mahathir-Anwar
relationship. It is these developments which provide the key to an
understanding of the present crisis.

As the ringgit and the stock market declined and businesses collapsed
and people lost their jobs, in the wake of the East Asian financial
crisis, the general public became more and more critical of the
leadership of Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Though the crisis was largely due to external factors -- volatile equity
capital suddenly exiting East Asian markets -- the popular perception
was that Dr Mahathir had not managed the economy well.

His frequent, and often justifiable, attacks upon currency speculators
as the main culprits behind capital volatility were distorted by the
foreign media as the insane rantings of a leader who did not want to
come to terms with the weaknesses in his own economy.

The foreign media, on the other hand, portrayed Anwar, who was also
Finance Minister, as a sober and sensible chap who understood global
financial markets. Their lavish praise for him created the impression
that he was ''their man''. Some of them even suggested that Anwar and
not Mahathir should be running the country. In fact, in June a number of
regional and international newspapers and magazines openly called for
Mahathir's resignation. Their stance created a serious schism between
the two men.

Approach

The foreign media, in a sense, brought to the surface certain
differences in approach between Mahathir and Anwar in their handling of
the economic crisis. Right from the outset, Mahathir preferred a credit
expansionary policy aimed at stimulating the economy and preventing it
from sinking into recession. Anwar took the more conventional route and
sought to cut back on expenditure and impose a credit squeeze.

For Mahathir, lowering interest rates was important so that businesses
could get back on their feet; for Anwar, maintaining a reasonably high
interest rate was one way of checking capital flight.

These differences which generated some uneasiness in the market did not,
however, cause the split between the prime minister and his
deputy-cum-finance minister. What exacerbated the situation was Anwar's
initial reluctance to endorse some of the rescue operations of big local
corporations hit by the financial crisis.

One of these corporations which had accumulated huge debts was
Konsortium Perkapalan -- a shipping firm associated with Mirzan
Mahathir, the prime minister's son. There were a couple of other
bail-outs too, allegedly linked to corporate figures close to the prime
minister which Anwar was not enthusiastic about.

Demonstrations

As the rift between Mahathir and Anwar widened, yet another factor began
to impact upon their relationship. This was the explosive situation in
Indonesia which came to a head in May 1998. Suharto was becoming the
principal target of massive street demonstrations that zeroed in upon
his long tenure -- 32 years in power -- and the enormous wealth that his
family had accumulated during his rule.

In the end, popular fury over his ''nepotism, cronyism and collusion''
forced Suharto to quit. Opposition political parties, non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) and youth and student groups in Malaysia, already
critical of the growing involvement of Mahathir's sons in big business,
and somewhat unhappy about the prime minister's own long stay in power
(17 years by July 1998) began to draw parallels between Suharto and
Mahathir. Some of them felt that the time had come for Mahathir to
retire.

This explains why Mahathir became paranoid about the Indonesian
situation. It should be emphasised at this point, however, that there
are significant differences between the Suharto and Mahathir leaderships
and between Indonesia and Malaysia which some of Mahathir's critics fail
to appreciate.

Unlike Suharto, Mahathir is a popularly-elected leader who derives his
mandate from a democratically constituted electoral process. Unlike the
Suharto family, Mahathir's children have not established monopolies over
entire sectors of the economy. Neither corruption, nor poverty nor
authoritarianism in Malaysia today bears any semblance to the situation
in Indonesia under Suharto.

Be that as it may, the question of corruption, cronyism and nepotism was
raised by some Umno Youth leaders close to Anwar at the party's annual
assembly in June.

Dr Mahathir saw it as a naked attack upon his leadership. Though he
managed to blunt the attack by revealing that others, including Anwar's
family and friends have also benefitted from the allocation of shares
and the government's privatisation programme, the raising of the
''corruption, cronyism and nepotism'' issue at the assembly worsened the
deteriorating ties between Mahathir and his heir-apparent.

Protege

Mahathir was now convinced that the UMNO Youth criticism, seen against
the backdrop of attempts to draw parallels between him and Suharto;
Anwar's lukewarm attitude to certain bail-outs; differences in approach
towards the economic crisis between him and Anwar; the foreign media's
antagonism towards him in contrast to the accolades showered upon Anwar;
and the general erosion of support for his leadership, were clear
indications that there was an organised, systematic endeavour to force
him out of office.

The man behind this endeavour, Mahathir reasoned, was Anwar Ibrahim. He
therefore decided to move against his protege.

It is revealing that it was around this time, in June, that the sex
allegations that Mahathir had dismissed in August 1997, re-surfaced
through a thick book entitled ''50 Reasons Why Anwar Cannot Become Prime
Minister'', which included a whole host of other slanderous charges
against the deputy prime minister.

The book, inter alia, alleged that Anwar was not only a womaniser and
sodomist but also a murderer, who was corrupt, had abused power and was,
at the same time, a CIA agent and a traitor to the nation.

At the Umno General Assembly, the book was distributed free to party
delegates. In spite of a court injunction restraining the distributor
from circulating the book or its contents, ''50 Reasons'' is readily
available and has appeared in different forms. Incidentally, the High
Court judge in granting the injunction described the book as ''one long
poison-pen letter'

That this poison-pen book designed to smear and vilify Anwar should
appear at about the same time as when Mahathir had lost confidence in
his deputy is no coincidence. The book, it is obvious, was written at
the behest of Anwar's adversaries (some of whom were responsible for the
earlier document) in order to character assassinate him.

It appears that Mahathir who was angered and incensed by what he
regarded as his heir-apparent's betrayal and disloyalty, was not averse
to the production and distribution of the poison-pen book. He knew it
would serve his purpose of slandering and shaming someone who had the
audacity to go against him.

Thus, Anwar's enemies succeeded finally in merging their goal with
Mahathir's motive.

Loyalty

Mahathir's insistence on loyalty to him is not in itself an unusual
feature of politics. In most political systems, ancient or modern, a
deputy or the number two man is expected to be loyal to his chief.
Within Umno -- given its feudal history and culture -- unquestioning
loyalty to the paramount leader is one of the most cherished traits of
membership.

It is because Mahathir was absolutely certain that Anwar had betrayed
him that he marshalled all his resources to annihilate him. The
virulence and viciousness of the annihilation can perhaps be best
explained by the fact that Anwar was, all said and done, Mahathir's
protege.

There is perhaps another explanation too for the harsh and cruel
treatment of Anwar. Mahathir may be personally convinced that Anwar is a
sodomist. One detects in Mahathir a strong revulsion for what is legally
and morally described as ''unnatural sex''.

Camouflage

But Anwar and his supporters would argue that the bit about sodomy is
nothing more than a cheap camouflage. The real reason why Mahathir has
gone all out to destroy and denigrate Anwar is because he fears that the
latter will not protect his family's business interests after his time.
By questioning the bail-out for Mahathir's son, Anwar was telling his
boss that he was not prepared to salvage the Mahathir family.

For an ageing leader who has witnessed what had happened in South Korea
and what is now happening in Indonesia, Anwar's attitude was the
antithesis of the iron-clad guarantee he was looking for in a
post-Mahathir era.

Conclusion

Our analysis has shown that at the root of the expulsion of Anwar from
the government and the party is the question of power. Mahathir sensed
an attempt to ease him out of power. He responded to the perceived
challenge with vigour and without scruples. Anwar felt that Mahathir's
power base was weakening. He sought to send a message -- and was
repulsed. How this power struggle camouflaged by issues of morality and
justice will play itself out in the next few weeks is anybody's guess.

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