This Is About The System Not Najib

---

 


So, who is in charge? Anwar? Zahid? Or are they all being manipulated by Najib from his control room at Kajang HQ?
– Mariam Mokhtar
It is not about who is in charge, but rather, who is conspiring with whom to maintain power and reshape the political landscape.
People forget that when Anwar Ibrahim was ejected from the Umno paradise, he changed everything. When the opposition denied Umno/BN its two-thirds majority, it demonstrated that people's power could overturn decades of political hegemony.
When the opposition assumed control of certain states, it sent shivers down the back of the Malay political establishment because it demonstrated that change was inevitable.
Najib Abdul Razak is not the first kleptocrat in this country. He is just the first Big Cheese who was caught. And the only reason why he was caught was because he lost an election and the machinery of government was controlled by the winners.
I know people don’t want to read this but it's true. The very same people who enabled Najib when he was in power, were also part of the crowd who brought him down.
People fail to understand that Tommy Thomas’ book was an indictment of the system, a system of which he was a part. The winners were not interested in reforming the system.
Indeed, while Pakatan Harapan was imploding because of the machinations of the old maverick and with the collusion of the Malay establishment, we were told that all of these were the figment of the imagination of the press.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his deputy Ahmad Zahid HamidiI read all these people who are talking about the independence of the judiciary and their sole criteria seem to be if Najib walks or not.
An independent judiciary in a functional democracy is so much more than that. From lower courts to the highest echelons of the bench, nothing has escaped the corrosive effects of Umno rule or felt the ameliorating reform promised by Harapan.
The prime minister who led the government during Najib’s fall from grace is now accused (and rightly so) by the present prime minister of being, well, a kleptocrat.
The old maverick may be chagrined at this accusation but remember, Najib did not build the kleptocracy, he merely inherited it. All of this is part of the ketuanan system.
Now the winners have a different agenda. Mariam actually made the prima facie case for some sort of conspiracy to free Najib.
Remember, with the ketuanan system, all these actors are interchangeable. Everyone, especially in Umno, has skeletons in their closets neatly arranged between their expensive Italian suits.
But also keep in mind that this is the dying system. What we are dealing with now is something much more different. It is a system which the establishment has very little control over. And this is what the progenitors of the ketuanan system are reckoning with now.
The theocratic state in waiting understands that they have no need for prime ministers in the sense of someone leading the country. All they need is a figurehead.
New theocratic model
When we talk about Anwar, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Najib and especially Dr Mahathir Mohamad, what we are talking about are the dying embers of the old ketuanan system. The new theocratic model is different.
Former prime minister Muhyiddin YassinWhen Muhyiddin Yassin was kicked out by Harapan and Ismail Sabri Yaakob was kicked out by Umno, these legacy coalitions did a huge favour for the theocratic state in waiting.
It became evident that you really did not need a strong man-type leader, but rather, various power brokers who could overturn the democratic will of the people.
The ketuanan system has become the theocratic foundation of this country. Perikatan Nasional (PN), because of electoral legerdemain has become the realisation of theocratic dreams of fellow Islamic travellers within the bureaucracy.
They do not care about democracy. They do not care about the royal institution and they are as obsessed about controlling the non-Muslims in this country as they are controlling the majority Malay polity.
PAS’ propaganda is far more sophisticated than Umno’s and Harapan’s and displays a keen understanding of how Malay society works. If anything, PAS has evolved - not ideologically - when it comes to courting the Malay vote, having learnt much from its partners since becoming mainstream.
Do you know who benefits from Najib walking free? The theocratic state. Why? Because it demonstrates that everyone from the political apparatus to the royal institution is corrupt.
PN has already demonstrated what it thinks of the royal institution and Anwar saying that the royal institution has the sole discretion for Najib’s pardon is a boon for Islamists who believe that it is they who should have total control of the country and not democratic institutions or royal institutions.
As I said in my last piece, what the old guard hopes to do is leverage the bureaucracy and strengthen entitlement programmes, as a means to connect with the struggling majority polity.
Remember all this “unity” comes with a price. Does anyone really think that Zahid and Umno are doing this for the betterment of the country? What they want is to set a precedent.
For Umno members working within and without the party, hooking up with PN if this unity government falls is business as usual, but of course, what they fail to realise is that they will not be part of a right-wing government but rather a theocracy, which eventually consumes them.
If the strategy behind freeing Najib is the coalescing of power and influence which would benefit this unity government, this is an extremely risky strategy.
Young people, especially from the Malay community, are disenchanted with mainstream politics. They view PN as a workable alternative to the power-sharing formula which, in decades of propagandising, has taught them is to their expense.
The reality is that the theocratic state in waiting has slain more Malay sacred cows in their quest for political hegemony and the fact that we do not have a government which is a strong, secular alternative makes the situation even more precarious.
Ultimately, what all this indicates for Malaysia is that the ketuanan system, new or old, is merely a suicide pact. - Mkini
S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

---