From Agenda Malaysia, 3rd May 2000

By Rehman Rashid

It was the turquoise drinks that did it.

The sky-blue balloons were only to be expected. The eggshell-blue party livery on headscarves, pocket squares and ceremonial wear was also predictable. But the 1,200 frosty tumblers of cerulean iced sugar-water, 10 to a table in the Mandarin Oriental’s vastly sumptuous Grand Ballroom ­ that was a cute touch.

It set the sweetly surreal tone for the arrival, accompanied by a stately entourage in Indian, Chinese and Malay traditional costumes, of Dr Wan Azizah Ismail, member of parliament for Permatang Pauh and president of Malaysia’s upstart opposition National Justice Party, at their first anniversary dinner.

Parti Keadilan Negara celebrated its first birthday May 1 in one of Kuala Lumpur’s newest and most luxurious hotels, a venue so lavish the party apologised for it. The apparent extravagance was necessary, they explained, because the event had been rejected by a slew of lesser venues. (This was among the reasons the anniversary feast had been delayed almost a month; the party having been founded on 4 April 1999.

Among the other reasons: a by-election defeat last April 1 and a seriously abortive public demonstration on April 15.)

It was hard to say if the hoteliers’ cold feet were due to ‘pressure from above’, as some of them said, or whether they simply felt being associated with the nation’s newest oppositionist outcasts wasn’t worth the grief. The party was determined to party, however. "We’d have held our dinner in a football field if we had to," said one of the event’s organisers.

The Mandarin’s ballroom resembled a football field in size alone. The surroundings imparted to the event an ambience of establishment glamour incongruous with its current situation in Malaysian politics.

Keadilan is struggling. The party’s coffers are bare. Its five seats in parliament amount to almost nothing in the face of the Barisan Nasional coalition government, led by prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s mighty Umno. The party’s central icon, ex-deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, languishes in jail and in the thrall of a lengthy court process to determine his sexual proclivities. Keadilan’s role in the presumptive opposition alliance, the ‘Barisan Alternatif’, continues to be dogged by the incompatibility of its partners’ manifestos.

Outside of the party’s membership, Keadilan seems a frail, quixotic endeavour, receiving from the general public scant attention and some sympathy, but not much hope. Inside, however, it’s a different story.If it was an Alternative Malaysia that flowed well dressed up the marble staircase and over the thick carpets of the Mandarin Oriental that evening, it looked unnervingly like the other one. More than 1,200 attended the RM100-a-seat event, filling the ballroom to capacity with a smiling, animated, multiracial, middle-income, gender-neutral, urbanised, youthful throng.

At the head table were Keadilan party chiefs and their opposition partners in parliament, represented by Parti Islam SeMalaysia president Fadzil Noor, Tan Seng Giaw of the Democratic Action Party, and Parti Rakyat Malaysia vice-president Sheryll Stothard. In the foyer were stalls selling books, tapes, souvenirs and apparel, including a new line of RM35 golf shirts discreetly embroidered with Anwar Ibrahim’s illegible signature. ("This is what we call ‘understatement’," said a vendor.)

Not much of which was in evidence inside. The audience listened appreciatively to speeches by lawyer Zainur Zakaria ("Our struggle must be measured by the pursuit of justice,") and Dr Wan Azizah ("God doesn’t give us greater burdens than we can bear.") In an interlude calculated for drama, Dr Wan Azizah’s daughter Nurul Izzah came onstage unannounced to read out a message from her father in prison.

There had indeed been some drama behind that. Some party officials had objected to the idea. Among the significant trends emerging in Keadilan is a pressure to shift away from the canonisation of Anwar Ibrahim as the party’s guiding light and leading figure. The party’s future relevance to Malaysia, these quarters feel, requires that it distance itself from the now tainted and ambiguous figure of the individual whose fate catalysed its emergence, and redirect that focus onto his saintly wife.

Objections duly noted, the committee went ahead with Nurul’s turn anyway. Her father’s message, delivered in what has become the teenager’s trademark urgent, breathlessly impassioned tone, spoke of the anniversary as a time for introspection and reflection. "A year for Keadilan," she relayed, "has been an age in Malaysia’s political history."
Then came an auction of a brace of cakes baked by Dr Wan Azizah and her daughters; bidding began at RM200 and they went for RM2,000 each. This was followed by protest songs from ex-Blues Gang lead vocalist Ito, and a gleeful sequence of stage skits culminating in a choreographed chorus of the party’s obdurate rallying cry. With the lusty hosannas of "REFORMASI!" echoing about the ballroom’s lofty gilded ceiling, the evening’s surrealism was complete.

The dinner had been planned as a fund-raiser for the party’s depleted accounts. They may have cleared some RM50,000 out of it, but it was obvious that the evening was more gratifying for its organisers as a restoration of faith. "This augurs well for the long-term future of the party," said former Anwar aide Kamarudin Jaffar, now Pas MP for Tumpat. The attendance, he noted, "reflects a wide cross-section of Malaysian society." He contrasted this with earlier Umno splinter groups. "These are no longer just frustrated Umno members. It’s a far wider community."
Party deputy president Dr Chandra Muzaffar seemed more ebullient than he’d been in months. The success of the event, he said, proved that "despite all that has happened, a lot of people still care about social justice." He acknowledged, however, that "after one year and the elections, we must have newer and more creative strategies."
Dr Wan Azizah herself was the bustling, beaming cynosure of the evening. "It’s very encouraging," she murmured between photo-shoots.Keadilan at one year old is years away from maturity as a political alternative in this country. It may yet prove to be, as detractors warn, just another failed attempt at the noble and enduring, but hitherto manifestly unworkable, idea of non-racial party politics in Malaysia. A proposed merger with PRM, whose aracial platform is similar to Keadilan’s, is progressing only fitfully, if at all. The party wrestles uncomfortably with the conflicting polarities that constitute the opposition benches of Malaysia’s parliament, its reach still exceeding its grasp by a hefty margin.