[Mahathir sebenarnya sudah semakin lemah sebab itulah dia begitu marah sehingga pelajar pun menjadi mangsanya dan Puan Aliza, isteri Saari Sughib disumbat kedalam lokap Taiping semalam. Termasuk yang ditahan itu adalah 2 remaja berumur antara 14-16 tahun. Tidak lama lagi mungkin kanak-kanak pun akan ditahan juga. Tidakkah ahli Umno yang dikatakan berjuta-juta itu merasa malu dengan tindak-tanduknya?

Tangkapan-tangkapan sebegini hanya akan memudaratkan Umno. Dollah Badawi baru sahaja berikrar bulan lepas Umno akan memberi perhatian yang lebih kepada isu hak-hak kemanusiaan dan kebebasan bersuara tetapi itu rupanya omong kosong sahaja. Sepatutnya tidak ada lagi tangkapan ISA selepas Hakim Hishamuddin memberi kata-dua.

Akibatnya..sekarang bukan sahaja isu Anwar menyebabkan rakyat menolak Umno. Isu keluarga, isu kasih-sayang dan hak-hak seorang rakyat yang teraniaya menjelma pula. Dan ini mungkin lebih dahsyat dari isu Anwar kerana ia berputik dari rasa cinta. Buktinya - kaum remaja yang dulunya tidak menonjol sudah timbul pula.
- Editor]

http://www.ft.com

The Financial Times, UK
16th July 2001

Populist causes sap Mahathir's power base

By Douglas Wong

When Mahathir Mohamad became Malaysia's prime minister 20 years ago, Soviet troops were in Afghanistan, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were still settling into office and the Iranian revolution was at its height.

"I have seen all kinds of politicians, I have seen various theories and theologies, I think that being 20 years in the office, you must have learned something," he said last month. As Asia's longest serving leader, Dr Mahathir has led his multiracial coalition to five election victories and his country from third world to within sight of the first.

But the last election victory in 1999 was accompanied by a swing against the coalition's anchor party, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), which Dr Mahathir has so far been unable to reverse.

For the first time last month, he warned that an opposition victory in elections, due by 2004 when over 1m new young voters will be on the rolls, "is no longer that difficult".

Malaysia's economy, having survived the Asian financial crisis and the capital control measures which Dr Mahathir instituted in response, now faces a global slowdown, which has already tipped neighbouring Singapore into recession.

But while he will be 76 this year, and had a heart bypass operation in 1989, Dr Mahathir has shown no signs that he is ready to step down.

"I just cannot walk out and leave everything in a state of not being prepared for continuing the progress of this country," he said last year.

Although he entered office as a champion of his Malay community, which accounts for over 60 per cent of Malaysia's 23m population, Dr Mahathir once said that his proudest achievement in office was bringing them closer to Malaysia's Chinese and Indian communities.

In fact, an official survey last year showed that there was almost no social interaction between students of different races at University Malaya.

Analysts say that one reason for this, and the erosion of Malay support for the government, has been the rising appeal of traditional Islam to the Malay community.

Pas, the Islamic opposition party, won two state governments and overtook the Chinese-based Democratic Action party (Dap) as the main parliamentary opposition in 1999 and is now confident that it can form the next federal government.

While its stated objective is to create an Islamic state, Pas has espoused popular issues, such as judicial independence and fighting corruption and cronyism, to attract broader support and has formed an uneasy alliance with other opposition parties, such as the Dap.

The government is responding. Abdullah Badawi, Dr Mahathir's deputy, pledged last month that Umno would pay greater attention to issues such as human rights, freedom of speech, corporate governance and judicial independence, which are important to the younger generation.

Umno has cracked down on 15 party members found to have breached rules against money politics. Separately, Dr Mahathir's second son, Mokhzani, quit business and politics and Daim Zainuddin, who as finance minister and Umno treasurer had been the target of criticism for improper use of government and party funds, quit all his posts.

Dr Mahathir's brand of Islam with which he confronts the Pas is a modernist one. He has appointed women to his cabinet and key government positions, such as the governor of the central bank.

A consistent thread in his two decades of rule has been the embrace of science and technology and opposition to Islamist groups following the example of Iran's revolution.

Keeping the peace in multiracial and multireligious Malaysia has been the justification for many of the country's restrictive practices, such as control of the media and detention without trial.

In a 1985 showdown, security forces killed 15 Islamists who had called for the need to create an Islamic state through revolutionary means.

According to Farish Noor, a political scientist, Dr Mahathir's government was able to withstand Muslim critics in this and other cases because of the strong Islamic credentials of Anwar Ibrahim, who had joined Umno in 1982.

Mr Anwar rose rapidly to become Mahathir's designated successor but in 1998 was sacked after they fell out over how to respond to the financial crisis.

Dr Mahathir also accused Mr Anwar of corruption and s###my, charges which Mr Anwar denied but was later convicted of in judgments he is appealing.

Whether the two leaders can be reconciled, or Dr Mahathir can find another way to address the challenge posed by Pas and the populist causes it espouses, is likely to be the last episode of his rule.