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| Anwar shouldn’t unilaterally decide on Sabah, S’wak CM Posted: 27 May 2011 04:53 PM PDT
He dosen't seem to realise that people in Sabah and Sarawak prefer their chief ministers to be elected by democratic means The people in Sabah and Sarawak prefer the chief minister to be elected by democratic means and decided by the respective governors in accordance with the constitutional provisions. Any departure from this would be an exercise in illegality, and ultimately, futility. Joe Fernandez, Free Malaysia Today De facto Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) chief Anwar Ibrahim attributes his poor showing at the April 16 Sarawak state elections to, among others, the idea of a Dayak chief minister. Anwar was entertaining an online news portal's TV network earlier this week on his monumental failures in Sarawak, as in Sabah earlier. Like his equally naïve interviewers, he didn't seem to know whether he was coming or going on Sarawak. Anwar's take was that the Malays in Sarawak were put off by the idea of a Dayak chief minister and refused to award even one seat to the party. He claimed that the minority Malays, only 20 per cent of Sarawak, accused him of promoting the idea of a Dayak chief minister at their expense. Anwar, it appears, tried to unsuccessfully reason with them that the Dayaks were in a majority in Sarawak and therefore the chief minister should come from that community. For those unfamiliar, Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud is a Melanau and therefore a Dayak. The difference is that unlike the great majority of Dayaks who are Christian if not pagan, Taib is a Muslim. However, he has a Christian paternal grandfather and as many Christian relatives as Muslim ones. He also avoided talking about Islam like the plague since he knew that the Dayaks were watching him like a hawk. Taib even blasted the recent seizure of bibles in Malay print in Kuching as "stupid". It was enough to secure the release of the bibles. Interestingly, no Sarawak Malay has ever been chief minister of the state. All four chief ministers so far have been Dayak, Taib and his predecessor and maternal uncle Abdul Rahman Yakub being Muslim, and the first two being Christians i.e. Stephen Kalong Ningkan and Penghulu Tawi Sli, both Iban Dayaks from the Sarawak National Party (SNAP). The Ibans, the biggest community in Sarawak, failed as chief ministers, because of opposition from the other Dayak communities i.e. Bidayuh, Orang Ulu and Melanau. The Sarawak Malays are in no position to object to a chief minister on the grounds that he's Dayak or a non-Muslim. To digress a little, the Sarawak Malays are in fact Bidayuh living on the coasts of the Kuching division and Ibans along the coast of the other division who converted to Islam. The Brooke dynasty referred to them as Malays after the fashion of the colonial British who used it as an umbrella term to describe various ethnic groups in Peninsular Malaysia. Also, it's unlikely that the Dayaks will ever support the idea of a Sarawak Malay being chief minister of the state. If one is thrust on them, he won't last in the tumultuous politics of Dayak country. It's more likely that a Sarawak chief minister would continue to come from among the non-Iban Dayaks – the creed is not in question – and this would ensure political stability in the state. If a Sarawak Malay wants to be chief minister he should not deny his Dayak heritage. PKR's emphasis on a Dayak CM, in any case, led to allegation among the Sarawak Malays that such a candidate would turn the state into a Christian one, according to Anwar. The de facto PKR chief is like a "bull in a china shop" raising a preposterous non-issue. He naively treads, like all Peninsular Malaysians, where even devils and angels dare not. Sarawak is Anwar's second monumental blunder in Malaysian Borneo after Sabah. In Sabah, Anwar thundered that there was no way he would have Jeffrey Kitingan as the Sabah PKR chief". Jeffrey, who has many Musli relatives, was accused openly by Anwar of being a racist and harbouring a hidden Christian agenda, whatever that means. Anwar was playing politics where he should not be doing so. Jeffrey pushed for the idea that the Sabah PKR chief should be democratically elected by the division chiefs and not appointed by the party headquarters (read Anwar) in Kuala Lumpur. Anwar would have none of it and wanted a Muslim to head Sabah PKR although the majority of the members were non-Muslim Dusun, including Kadazan (urban Dusun), and Murut. Anwar's excuse is that the Muslims, no doubt the illegal immigrants with MyKads included, were now in a slight majority in Sabah. Baru Bian seen as stooge for Anwar He decided unilaterally that the Sabah chief minister should be Muslim. He does not seem to realise that the local Muslims in Sabah were not a homogenous community and were further divided into Dusun Muslim – Ranau, Bisaya and Orang Sungei, among others – Bajau, Suluk, Brunei Malay, Irranun, Banjar, and Cocos-Keeling, among others. In "compensation", Anwar decided also unilaterally that the chief minister of Sarawak would be Dayak and Christian. He went on to appoint Baru Bian, an Orang Ulu Christian, as Sarawak PKR chief. No one in Sarawak accepts Baru because he was not elected but thrust on the membership by the party headquarters (read Anwar). That's one reason why PKR failed to interest the people of Sarawak on April 16. Baru was seen as a proxy and stooge for Anwar and Peninsular Malaysians. Jeffrey's stand in Sabah, meanwhile, was that if the division chiefs in Sabah elected a Muslim head, so be it. Anwar did not want to risk elections and deal with the possibility of a non-Muslim head. Eventually, Jeffrey left amidst accusations that he was the King of Frogs, a label he has explained, and interested only in party posts and positions and in being number one and chief minister. Jeffrey's explanations that his politics was all about the people, the issues, principles, policies and priorities, and not posts and positions, were pooh-poohed by Anwar and drowned out by the propaganda barrage from party headquarters. Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan thinks that Anwar made many promises to Jeffrey, all of which he had no intention of keeping, made use of him to build up the party in Sabah and eventually played him out. If anyone is obsessed with the ethnicity and faith of the chief ministers of Sabah and Sarawak respectively, it's politicians from Peninsular Malaysia. They don't seem to realise that Peninsular Malaysia – Malay, Chinese, Indian – is no political model for Sabah and Sarawak.
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| WIKILEAKS: ‘Anwar lacked Dr M’s clout in tackling Islam’ Posted: 26 May 2011 02:31 PM PDT
A leaked 1997 diplomatic cable shows that the US had backed Dr Mahathir's version of moderate Islam but felt that Anwar was too soft to handle the religious conservatives. Following the messy beauty contest incident, Mahathir had then announced that by early 1998, the government would unify syariah laws at the federal level, thus sharply curbing the autonomy of local religious authorities. K Kabilan, Free Malaysia Today
The US embassy here had given its tacit approval to Dr Mahathir Mohamad's hardline approach against Muslim conservatives in Malaysia as it was in line with the "US interests and values", revealed a leaked US confidential cable from 1997. However, the US diplomats were highly concerned if Mahathir's successor as prime minister could cope with the growing Muslim conservatism. They were specifically worried if Anwar Ibrahim, who was Mahathir's deputy at that time, had the "political position or the desire to take on Muslim conservatism as vigorously as Mahathir has done". "Moreover, Anwar, if he does become the next PM, will not have Mahathir's almost unquestioned authority. Thus, for political reasons he may be reluctant to take strong stands that upset the vocal religious constituency," they added. And they concluded that in the long run, the "growing proportion of Malays in Malaysia's ethnic mix will probably lead inexorably to the further Islamisation of Malaysian society". The details were revealed in a cable sent by the then US ambassador in Malaysia John R Malott to the US State Department in Washington on Dec 23, 1997. The confidential cable was leaked by whistleblower site WikiLeaks exclusively to FMT today. The year 1997 was a critical year for Malaysia as Mahathir was facing a major financial crisis. He was also facing problems with haze and the country's zealous religious officials, added the cable. Mahathir takes charge The cable said several incidents involving "zealous Islamic authorities" have angered Mahathir during this period. They include:
Following the messy beauty contest incident, Mahathir had then announced that by early 1998, the government would unify syariah laws at the federal level, thus sharply curbing the autonomy of local religious authorities. "Theoretically, the government's plan for standardisation of syariah law will require the agreement of the states' ruling sultans, but such constitutional niceties have rarely delayed the PM before. "The 'unification' of syariah law early next year is already a fait accompli and conservative clerics know it, but don't like it," added the cable from the ambassador. The cable further stated that Mahathir then in his keynote address at the Umno meeting in September 1997 had called on Malays to reject extremism and noted the results of sectarian violence in Bosnia and the Middle East. The confidential cable added that Mahathir also criticised Muslims who put more stock in outward appearances (such as traditional clothes and beards for men and headscarves for women) than in leading a moral lie. "Such a speech might sound sensible enough to Western ears, but by all accounts it was a disaster with the largely Malay audience, including Deputy PM Anwar, sporting traditional dress and goatees and most of the women, including Anwar's wife, wearing headscarves," it stated. Malott said that Mahathir's "attack" on "extremist" Islam soon saw a fiery reaction from conservative Muslims, including the Selangor mufti who had apparently labelled the prime minister as an apostate. "Reportedly, Friday sermons at many mosques have included both oblique and direct criticism of the government. The police confirmed publicly that anonymous 'poison pen' literature criticising the PM is circulating at mosques," added the US cable. The Selangor mufti, who had denied ever calling Mahathir an apostate, was replaced by the state religious authorities on the grounds that the state needed a mufti whose views "were acceptable to all" and that a replacement was needed due to the mufti's advanced age. This prompted the US embassy to point out that the age reasoning was curious as "the PM himself has repeatedly stated that he will not step down, though he is one year older than the mufti". Anwar will lack authority The US cable stated that Mahathir's moves to modernise Islam made even the moderates feel anxious over the tone and direction taken by the prime minister. However, the top US diplomat felt that Mahathir "consistently advocates a moderate Islam squarely in line with US interests and values". "The PM, for better or worse, is not afraid to take on anyone, including conservative Islamic groups that generally have negative views toward the US. "Mahathir is also important as a voice of moderation within the international Islamic community," added the secret cable. The cable then went on to describe how Anwar, labelled as Mahathir's "good conscience", "has not proven he has either the political standing or the desire to take on conservative Islam". Malott, who was a firm Anwar loyalist following his sacking as the deputy prime minister in 1998, felt that Anwar who started off as a Muslim activist seemed loath to confront his former Muslim associates. "Anwar's reaction to the beauty pageant incident, which happened while the PM was out of the country and Anwar was in charge, was much less vigorous." Malott said that "Anwar, if he replaces Mahathir, will not have his predecessor's almost unquestioned authority". "Thus, for political reasons he may be reluctant to take strong stands that upset the vocal religious constituency," Malott added in the cable.
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