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BWeek: Can Mahathir Run M'sia Minus His "Alter Ego"? (Daim) By Michael Shari 17/6/2001 4:42 am Sun |
[Segala-galanya telah dirancang - termasuk pengunduran Daim dan
Mokhzani agar Mahathir dapat terus bertahan kerana akar umbi sudah
pun bosan sehingga BBM tiba-tiba bertukar peranan.
Oleh kerana Daim meletak jawatan ini bermakna cuti dua bulan itu
mungkin telah digunakan untuk menutup lubang agar tidak dapat dicungkil
untuk menjadi bukti dan bahan siasatan.
Daim tidak boleh ditangkap kerana bukan dia seorang yang berperanan.
Lagipun kerusi Merbok itu lebih disayang walaupun Mahathir memekik anti
korup dan anti politik wang. Daim sudah lama bermain, menjaga dan memberi wang untuk seseorang
yang mempercayainya sekian lama di dalam diam... Dia terpaksa berundur
kerana sudah terlalu terang sehingga Mahathir turut terancam. Jika
tidak Mahathir akan lekas tumbang kerana ribut sudah datang.
- Editor] JUNE 18, 2001 NEWS ANALYSIS By Michael Shari Can Mahathir Run Malaysia Minus His "Alter Ego"?
Without former Finance Minister and party moneyman Daim Zainuddin, the
Prime Minister now faces a Herculean task
By all accounts, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has had a
symbiotic relationship with Daim Zainuddin since the late 1980s. It was Daim
who held together the business empire of Mahathir's ruling political party,
United Malays National Organization (UMNO), commonly known as Malaysia
Inc. Daim installed his personal proteges as CEOs of corporations that
raised money for the party. And it was Mahathir who held UMNO itself
together, saving it from breakup in 1988, jailing dissidents under the
draconian Internal Security Act, and ensuring election victories with loyal
employees every five years. To hear diplomats and UMNO insiders tell it, Mahathir could not have done it
without Daim, and Daim could not have done it without Mahathir. "Daim is
Mahathir's alter ego," says an economist in Kuala Lumpur.
But now that Daim has resigned from the government and all but turned in
his party-membership card -- relinquishing a string of powerful posts from
Finance Minister to UMNO treasurer to UMNO Supreme Council member --
he retains absolutely no official power. So far, Mahathir hasn't replaced
Daim. Indeed, he kept Daim's resignation a secret for six weeks until early
June, when Mahathir announced that he was taking the reins of economic
policy in his own hands (see BW Online, 6/5/01, Malaysia's Ministerless
Finance Ministry"). As a result, Mahathir faces the Herculean task of single-handedly holding
together the entire structure that enjoins UMNO and Malaysia Inc.
Meanwhile, the party is under siege -- both from the opposition Islamic
Party of Malaysia and internal strife within UMNO -- and the economy is
showing signs of a sharp downturn. The question is, can Mahathir pull it off?
BAILOUTS. If Mahathir does succeed in keeping the entire structure intact, he'll
have to address an increasingly widespread belief that the Malaysian
economy can no longer support it. UMNO cadres returning from party
meetings in the countryside tell diplomats that they're overwhelmed with
vehement complaints about several recent bailouts of UMNO-linked
companies, from the national airline to an Internet service provider. Bank
Negara Malaysia lost nearly $3 billion in foreign reserves during the first
quarter of the year, and after two weeks of playing catch-up, reserves
continued to drop in the second half of April, reviving months-old rumors
of a possible devaluation. In April, manufacturing sales -- a key driver of Malaysia's economy --
dropped 6% from March, and employment in the manufacturing sector
dropped 1% during the same period. In mid-June, the Malaysian State of
Johor defaulted on $15 million in debt to the national government, and
economists fear other Malaysian states could follow. "Signs of a downturn
are everywhere," says one of the economists in Kuala Lumpur. As a result,
analysts have lowered their annual economic growth predictions from 5% to
4% or less this year. Much depends on how Mahathir plays his cards at the elite levels of the
ruling party in the next few weeks. He is expected to take his time filling the
various posts that Daim left empty, which is expected to generate a feverish
round of horse-trading at the annual UMNO General Assembly in late June.
Signs are that the outcome may have been largely preordained. "Daim spent
the last two months cleaning out his files," says another economist in Kuala
Lumpur. "That suggests that some sort of planned succession may already be
in place." Next, Mahathir is expected to turn to the dozens of politically connected
corporations that Daim has protected since he became Finance Minister in
late 1998. Since then, they have been shielded from regional currency
volatility by capital controls and a government-backed debt-restructuring
program that has simply housed their debt. That was supposed to be
supported by a now-defunct national plan sponsored by Daim to merge all
58 Malaysian financial institutions into several banks that would come under
the control of Daim proteges. Diplomats say Mahathir may simply wait for the CEOs of more than a dozen
UMNO-linked corporations, such as CEO Halim Saad of construction-and-telecoms
conglomerate Renong, to wear out their welcome before replacing them. "He'll
let them twist and turn in the breeze," says a diplomat in Kuala Lumpur.
SETTING AN EXAMPLE. Mahathir may want Malaysia Inc. to at least appear to be reforming, and he's
attempting to set an example for Daim's proteges. In April, Mahathir's son
Mokhzani sold stakes in two companies after an abortive restructuring exercise
and told the local press that he was getting out of business. In late May,
Mahathir overturned a government plan to issue $1.6 billion in bonds to bail
out a light-rail operator run by Renong. As if to drive the point home,
Mokhzani resigned as treasurer of UMNO Youth, the party's youth wing, a week later.
It also looks as if the government isn't going out of its way to give Daim a
graceful exit. On June 15, rumors swept Kuala Lumpur that he had been
arrested, and his former colleages in the Cabinet and the party leadership
didn't rush to deny them. "What Daim does in the future, I don't know," Deputy Prime Minister
Abdullah Badawi, who is now widely viewed as the second most powerful
man in Malaysia after Daim's resignation, told reporters. "But for the time
being, Daim is not a subject of police investigation." That message could
hardly have been comforting to those who fear for the future in Daim's
absence. |