TAG 098

[Daim memang tidak pandai berniaga tetapi licik menggunakan peluang dan kuasa untuk membalun harta dan pintar lari sebelum terjadi apa-apa. Dulu beliau ke Amerika ketika Dato' Harun Idris dibicara dan kini di saat ekonomi negara sedang menjunam dengan dahsyatnya sehingga berbagai rancangan baru dan lama (yang tepaksa dipatah balik semula?) telah dilakar pada awal tahun ini sahaja tetapi tidak menjadi juga.

Dengan bercuti di Amerika dan mengurus sendiri percutiannya tanpa diketahui sesiapa termasuk adik iparnya - nampak jelas dia mahu bersembunyi terus dari dicari oleh pihak yang berkuasa. Daim seperti begitu takut banyak bom yang akan meletup nanti berikutan piket MTUC, sakit Anwar yang semakin ketara dan perhimpunan agung Umno. Dan mungkin juga ISA (buat politik wang) sebagaimana yang terlepas kata oleh Mahathir kepada media.

Krisis Daim-Mahathir dikatakan bermula dari penggabungan bank di mana saranan Daim telah ubah suai oleh Mahathir. Begitu juga pelantikkan Zetti yang meminggirkan orang pilihan Daim, Mustapha.

Perlantikan Nor Mohamad Yakcob oleh Mahathir untuk turut menasihat PM sedangkan hanya Daim seorang yang Mahathir perlu dan sepatutnya menerima nasihat dikatakan punca krisis juga.

Tawaran lumayan SingTel kepada time dotCom yang tidak izinkan turut menjadi punca kerenggangan hubungan mereka berdua. Singtel baru-baru ini mengejutkan dunia dengan membeli Optus di Australia.

Sementara itu orang Daim di NST telah diganti oleh loyalis Mahathir, Abdullah Ahmad yang telah menguasai editornya. - Editor]

Terjemahan: SPAR-03-005

Daim Akan Bersantai

(Daim's Holiday Plans)

Oleh: FEER

Daim akan mengendurkan ototnya di Amerika.

Menteri Kewangan Malaysia Daim Zainuddin akan berlepas ke Amerika Syarikat untuk beristirahat yang dipercayai disebabkan adanya jurang pergeseran antara beliau dan bos (ketua Penyangak - penterjemah) nya. Daim akan bercuti selama dua bulan dan akan menghabiskan sebahagian cutinya itu di Hawaii dan Washington, demikian laporan beberapa orang diplomat Asian. Tidak adapun sebarang jadual mesyuarat dan dia membuat urusan perjalanan itu sendirian, termasuk tempahan hotel dan kereta sewa, walaupun adik-iparnya, Ghazzali Sheikh Abdul Khalid merupakan seorang duta di Washington. Percutian Daim ini dikatakan satu lambang pergeserannya dengan Perdana Menteri Mahathir dan dilihat sebagai langkah awalan yang akan disusuli oleh pengundurannya daripada kementerian itu.

-FEER-

Terjemahan: SPAR-03-005

Rencana Asal:

FEER

Daim To Unwind In America

Malaysian Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin is heading to the United States for a breather that is widely believed to have been prompted by a rift with his boss. Daim is taking two months off and will spend part of that time in Hawaii and Washington, according to Asian diplomats. He is planning no official meetings and is making all of the arrangements himself, including hotel bookings and car rentals, despite the fact that his brother-in-law, Ghazzali Sheikh Abdul Khalid, is ambassador to Washington. Daim's leave is said to represent a rift with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and is seen as a precursor to his eventual departure from the ministry.

Rencana Tambahan:

http://www.feer.com/2000/_0005_25/p73.html

SHROFF: MALAYSIA

Parting Ways?

By Simon Elegant
Issue cover-dated May 25, 2000

That there could be a rift between Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and Daim Zainuddin, his finance minister, used to be a laughable idea. Other ministers come and go, including three deputy prime ministers, but the single enduring figure at Mahathir's side during his nearly two decades in power has been Daim.

Questioning a friendship that stretches back 50 years, hardened by layer upon layer of shared political and financial endeavour, does almost seem foolish. But a series of mostly behind-the-scenes rifts over recent months provides enough evidence to make Shroff wonder whether Malaysia's dynamic duo may finally be on the verge of a split.

"It all goes back to the banks," says one Daim associate, referring to the government's 1999 mandatory scheme to consolidate the country's 58 financial institutions into a handful of super-banks. After special pleading by a number of businessmen, Mahathir announced in November that the number of anchor banks would be raised from the six mandated by Daim's Finance Ministry to 10 or more.

It was a slap in the face to Daim, who subsequently told two visitors in conversation that he had offered his resignation over the affair.

MORE DISAGREEMENTS

Then came the general election in November and all seemed patched up between the two men, who have consistently and vigorously denied rumours of a split. But as the country's political focus began to shift to the just-completed triennial elections for leadership positions within the ruling United Malays National Organization, evidence of further disagreements began to seep out.

One area of dispute, sources close to the decision-making process say, was the appointment of a new governor for the country's central bank, Bank Negara. Daim's preferred candidate was his former deputy at the Finance Ministry, Mustapha Mohamad. But, according to sources close to the government, the prime minister preferred a more neutral candidate, choosing the bank's first woman governor, the respected economist--and politically unaligned--Zeti Akhtar Aziz.

Another key issue was control of the country's most influential English-language daily, the New Straits Times. Editorial control had formerly rested with executives and editors close to jailed former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. But since Anwar's downfall, the paper has been run by figures widely perceived as being affiliated with Daim. Then in late April staunch Mahathir loyalist Abdullah Ahmad took over editorial control of the paper, a move widely seen as yet another slight to Daim.

The final area of dispute was also a corporate issue, but this time on an international scale. The heavily indebted Renong conglomerate, a group with close ties to Umno, announced that it had secured a strategic investment from Singapore Telecommunications as part of a scheme to restructure its Time dotCom subsidiary. Many analysts saw the move as a boost to both Renong and its executive chairman, Halim Saad, a Daim protégé.

But at the last minute, Mahathir's reservations about allowing even a 20% stake in a unit of a key Malaysian group to go to a Singapore company sank the deal, which executives say was backed by Daim. Instead, Time dotCom appears set to get a capital injection from Khazanah, the government investment arm chaired by Mahathir.

On top of all this came the appointment in mid-May of Nor Mohamad Yakcop as special adviser to the prime minister on economic affairs, a post that had never existed because, as one analyst puts it, "it didn't have to: Daim was the only special adviser the PM needed or wanted."

That could be the final straw for Daim, who has long said that he returned to government (his first stint as finance minister lasted from 1984 to 1991) only to help the country in a time of crisis, and would prefer to return to private business as soon as he can.