Mahathir menghadapi begitu banyak masalah sekarang. Tindakkannya semakin menjerut dirinya sendiri. Dia menghadapi bantahan rakyat dari pelbagai sektor yang semakin meningkat arusnya. Malah rakyat sudah mula pandai mengugutnya pula.

Protes Peniaga: Ekonomi Semakin Parah

Dia berdepan dengan protes para pengekspot tempatan yang mahukan ringgit dinilai semula kerana ekspot tidak kompetetif. Banyak pengekspot menyimpan hasil di luar negara untuk menekannya sehingga rezab antarabangsa negara susut begitu banyaknya pada suku pertama tahun ini sahaja. Jika rezab menurun di bawah paras 3 bulan impot (dari 4 1/2 bulan sekarang) ekonomi akan menjadi kritikal. Amerika yang meleset menyebabkan kurangnya ekspot dan FDI manakala Jepun yang sakit menyebabkan Yen rendah dan matawang serantau lemah sehingga pengimpot serta pelabur menjauhi Malaysia. Sekarang harga minyak kelapa sawit dan getah pula meragam - tentulah pengekspot dan petani tidak akan mampu bertahan.

FMM dan satu delegasi peniaga Cina telah mengadu kepada Mahathir dan mencadangkan kawalan matawang diubah sedikit tetapi cadangan itu tidak diterima.

Protes Pekerja: Pekerja Sudah Marah:

Dia juga menghadapi protes MTUC bulan Mei nanti. MTUC tidak puashati cara dana KWSP diperjudikannya sesuka hati. Mereka mahu KWSP lebih bertanggungjawab dan telus kepada pekerja kerana itu wang simpanan mereka. Isu potongan KWSP 11%-9% sudah lama dibantah MTUC - malah ia 'haram' atau bercanggah dengan akta pekerja jika dilaksanakan sebelum dipinda aktanya. MTUC juga membantah skandal KWSP-time dotCom, dividen KWSP terendah 26 tahun sudah, skim anuiti dan lain-lain lagi.

Piket MTUC akan menjejaskan imej Mahathir di seluruh negara walaupun Daim sudahpun tiada.

Protes Dalam Umno: Ahli Umno Mula Membebel Secara Terbuka

Bantahan dari dalam Umno pun sudah mula kedengaran. Dia telah dikritik secara terbuka oleh BBM secara tiba-tiba. Umno Johor sudah tidak menyembah mengampunya seperti dulu lagi. Ramai mula menganggap beliau satu liabiliti. Kekalahan Aziz Shamsuddin dalam pertandingan bahagian baru-baru ini sudahpun menunjukkan beberapa tanda.

Fauzi pula mengejutkannya dengan sindiran yang amat tajam sekali yang menjejaskan imejnya. Di sini ugutan meletak jawatan ADUN cukup mengerikan Mahathir kerana sebarang kekalahan akan terpercik ke Perhimpunan Agung Umno yang hampir tiba. Politik wang yang berleluasa menyebabkan ahli Umno sendiri menyimpan dendam dan ugutan dalam bentuk bukti yang boleh menghancurkan pemimpin tertinggi Umno.

PEMBANGKANG TIDAK PERLU ADA

Sila maklum rakyat tidak memerlukan kehadiran pembangkang kerana mereka memprotes melalui ketua atau kesatuan mereka - FMM, Delegasi Peniaga Cina, Ketua Kesatuan. Tetapi bilangan yang memprotes ini amat ramai sehingga terjejas ekonomi kesannya.

Sekarang serangan keADILan cuba ditumpulkan dengan menangkap sebahagian besar pemimpinnya melalui akta ISA. Kepimpinan parti ini begitu mengancam Mahathir kerana kempennya lebih berkesan dan bertenaga dari PAS yang agak terhad capaiannya dan sedikit lembut garangnya.

Mahathir memang tidak toleran kepada kritikan terhadap dirinya. Dia akan mencengkam tanpa belas atau kasihan kepada sesiapa. Kali ini internet telah menjadi mangsa juga. Malaysiakini telah pun diserang kredibilitinya dan kini dua pahlawan siber - Raja Petra dan Hishamudin Rais telah diserkup ISA.

Mahathir sudah mula bimbang kebangkitan rakyat secara semulajadi itu. Beliau telah melancarkan kempen untuk menggoda rakyat kembali melalui Pakej Merangsang, OPP3, dan mungkin juga dengan berkrisis dengan Daim.

Beliau juga sudah mula menemui rakyat untuk mengemis populariti - khususnya selepas tragedi Kg Medan. Malah beliau juga melawat beberapa bahagian Umno, termasuk di Selangor dan Gua Musang. Universiti juga tidak terkecuali - beliau ke UIA untuk menaikkan imejnya walaupun secara mencuri kerana dia memang tebal di pipi.

Mahathir kini dihantui oleh faktor Anwar. Inilah faktor yang menyebabkan rakyat keluar dari kepompong untuk membantah beliau. Rakyat telah terangsang sejak kezaliman dilakukan terhadap Anwar. Inilah sesuatu yang tidak diduga oleh Mahathir walaupun dia telah memenjarakan Anwar dan menghukumnya dengan seaib-aib tuduhan dalam sejarah Malaysia.

-TJr Kapal Berita-

Sydney Morning Herald

19Apr2001 AUSTRALIA:

News And Features - Leaders - Mahathir at bay.

The Malaysian Government of Dr Mahathir Mohamad is adopting increasingly repressive and spiteful tactics to curb dissent within the majority Malay community. Its resort last week to the draconian Internal Security Act to detain seven Opposition activists without trial and Dr Mahathir's recent strident rhetoric are not signs of strength, but of desperation. It is not that his coalition government faces any immediate threat it has a healthy parliamentary majority and does not have to face a national election until 2004. It is just that the Prime Minister is behaving as though he is running out of time and ideas.

There was hysteria in this week's suggestion by Dr Mahathir and other leaders of his United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) that some of the seven people arrested last week had sought support, including weapons and explosives, from radicals in Jakarta to help them organise violent anti-Government demonstrations. The same can be said of the Prime Minister's wild overreaction to criticism of him in the foreign media and on the Internet. He has threatened to further tighten Malaysia's already restrictive media laws, suggesting that Internet messages are urging people to kill him. As for the Internal Security Act, this is colonial-era legislation originally directed not at political dissent but at a communist insurrection.

Dr Mahathir's real problems are of his making, the product of autocratic intolerance of critics or rivals. His decline began with his ruthless pursuit of the man who had been expected to succeed him, Mr Anwar Ibrahim, who was tried, convicted and jailed for 15 years on what were widely regarded as trumped-up charges of corruption and s###my. Had Dr Mahathir not acted with such single-minded malevolence towards his potential challenger, transforming him into a political martyr, there might now be many fewer demonstrators for young radicals to organise and many fewer disillusioned Malay voters rallying to Opposition parties. UMNO has good reasons to worry about the growing popularity of the main Islamic Opposition party, PAS [Parti Islam se-Malaysia].

UMNO still has time to rebuild its popular support before the next election, but it will be hard to do it with the obdurate Dr Mahathir at its helm. The Government is beset by allegations of corruption, involving financial help for tycoons linked to UMNO. Urban poverty was highlighted by racial clashes between Malay and Indian squatters last month. The economy has been hit by falling demand and low world prices for palm oil and rubber. The durable Dr Mahathir could be the next Asian autocrat to learn the hard way that he has outstayed his welcome.

17Apr2001

MALAYSIA: ANALYSIS

Anwar factor haunts Malaysia's Mahathir.

By Simon Cameron-Moore

KUALA LUMPUR, April 17 (Reuters) - Not all of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's problems are as simply dealt with as the opposition activists police locked up ahead of a banned street protest last week.

Winning back lost support is a lot harder.

His own party is grumbling, the economy is stumbling, workers are angry, business lacks confidence, the Islamic opposition won't talk to him, and, try as he may, Mahathir can't make the Anwar Ibrahim issue disappear.

The humiliation and jailing of his former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, who was sacked 2 years ago and then imprisoned on sex and graft convictions he says were fabricated, remains the most divisive issue splitting Mahathir's ethnic Malay power base.

Mahathir's United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) is watching the clock tick down on elections three years away, after its worst result since 1969 in the last vote 18 months ago.

Although the 75-year-old prime minister has said he will not serve another term, many people believe Mahathir won't let go.

"He can't solve these problems of waning support through economic polices," says Khoo Boo Teik, a political scientist at Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang.

"It's mostly to do with Anwar, the Malays reaction to his treatment and the government's loss of credibility."

No-one thinks Mahathir, who calls Anwar immoral and unfit to rule, will cut short the 15 year jail term, though many think his successor might do to win favour with disenchanted Malays.

"Hopefully we can have somebody for leader who can add a new dimension and bring less baggage of the past. Dr. Mahathir has the baggage of the Anwar issue and that will not go away," a senior UMNO member told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Seven pro-Anwar activists were locked up last week, ahead of a weekend civil rights procession on the anniversary of Anwar's first conviction.

Police invoked the Internal Security Act (ISA) allowing detention without trial, accusing the seven of planning riots and seeking weapons and explosives. Mahathir says the pre-emptive arrests kept the peace and protected democracy in Malaysia.

The opposition, who brought several thousand Anwar supporters on to the streets for a peaceful protest on Saturday, say it's all rubbish. It has asked for proof but failed on Tuesday to secure the early release of the activists.

WHAT ABOUT THE WORKERS?

Some of the jailed activists had led a campaign, called "Save the Peoples' Money", attacking the government over a series of bail-outs for favoured Malay tycoons.

After discovering its money was being invested in these tycoons' firms, Malaysia's biggest union, representing half a million workers, announced it would hold a one day picket on May 12 to protest the way the state-run pension fund is being run.

The Employee Provident Fund (EPF), with nearly 10 million contributors, paid its lowest dividend in 26 years last year.

The Islamic clerics in Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), which leads the four party opposition front, have used their pulpits to rail against corruption generally.

But at religious teach-ins outside the sanctity of mosques, PAS leaders really let rip at Mahathir and UMNO.

Wrapped up in religion, it is a potent message for poor Malays who have missed out on the country's very real economic advances during Mahathir's rule. UMNO leaders appear at a loss as to how to persuade PAS to tone down attacks they fear are deepening divisions among Malays, leaving their coalition dependent on support from ethnic Chinese and Indian parties.

Efforts to draw PAS into talks on Malay Unity, have, after four months, come to naught.

Meantime, UMNO's has problems in its own ranks.

Grassroots members have told Mahathir that money is deciding internal elections for divisional leaders, who will vote in the party president and Supreme Council members in 2003.

And one disaffected UMNO member rocked the party by lodging a complaint with police calling for an investigation of alleged mismanagement of timber concessions by UMNO Secretary General Khalil Yaakob, the information minister. The economy can't help lift spirits.

Last month's racial clashes between Malays and Indians in a squatter area outside Kuala Lumpur highlighted the plight of the urban poor and festering social problems.

And falling export demand from the United States and Japan and low world prices for plantation crops, palm oil and rubber, have pinned down the economy. The government is spending to ease the economic hardships Malaysia is facing, but Mahathir knows he has to boost UMNO's image.

This month he launched a "Meet the People" campaign. One key question now is likely to be what the people have to say.