Elected Dictatorship in Malaysia

The topic of tonight's public forum, "Political Openness and Democratic Accountability in Asia: Nicety or Necessity?" invites an answer. But before giving the expected politically correct response, allow me to quote a famous 18th century British statesman William Pitt on necessity. In a 1787 speech to the House of Commons, he said,

"Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

In that light, I should be wary to plead necessity. However, I shall throw caution to the winds and say that political openness and democratic accountability is a necessity in Asia, as there are everywhere in the world. I dare do so in the certainty that no human freedoms will infringed, no tyrants defended nor anyone enslaved.

Democracy And Openness

Openness creates wealth and prosperity. In Professor David S Landes' book "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations : Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor(Paperback 1999)", openness is attributed as one of the key attributes of success--relative wealth.

This openness takes two aspect. One, a willingness to borrow whatever is useful from abroad whatever the price in terms of injured elite pride or harm to influential interests. Second, a willingness to trust your own eyes and the results of your own experiments, rather than relying primarily on old books or the pronouncements of powerful and established authorities.

Deng Xiao Peng, the Father of Reform in China, would definitely approve with his famous aphorism, "It does not matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice". However the late Deng would not agree with the need for freedoms and democracy, which he sees as a threat to the Communist Party's dominance.

Democracy engender human freedoms, necessary for economic progress. Freedom of thought and democracy is the prime motivator of invention and industry, whereas state-controlled societies remain static. This has been amply demonstrated in the last century, where the greatest inventions and paradigm-shifting discoveries originated principally from countries with some degree of freedom or social democratic traditions.

More importantly, democracy can prevent the gains from economic progress from being completely whittled away by corruption, cronyism or inefficiency and allowing some benefits to filter down to ordinary people. No one is therefore surprised when Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index(CPI) list of corrupt-free countries are democracies such as Sweden, Denmark and New Zealand, whilst the most corrupted lot are invariably dictatorships and tyrants.

The Twin Challenges Facing Asia In A Democratic Transition

In the pursuit of life's happiness, Asians value social order above all else. In a survey by the American Embassy in one ASEAN nation, Asians placed social order above individual rights as opposed to Westerners who placed individual rights or choice above social order.

Events in Indonesia highlighting the painful and at times bloody march to democracy, have placed democracy in a negative light. The natural tendency is for Asians to reject any ideas that causes social disruption and disorder even at the expense of genuine democracy.

Despite the obvious benefits of freedom, openness and democratic rule, the masses fall easy prey to lies and threats of public disorder by the ruling elite. The people's tolerance of government misrule and misgovernance is so high that at times, the dictatorship has to practically commit political "harakiri", before a democratic system can be ushered in.

This is evidenced by the shocking and sudden resignation of Indonesian ex-President Suharto in 1998. If Suharto had decided to fight it out then regardless of bloodshed, he may still have been the President today.

The only countries to have made the successful transition from a full-fledged dictatorships to a full-fledged democracy are Taiwan, South Korea and perhaps Thailand. I do not wish to expand at length on these countries though I have some experiences having visited Thailand and Taiwan, especially as an international election observer for the opposition Democratic Progressive Party in witnessing the momentous election of its candidate, Chen Shui Bian as Taiwanese President. I will leave this to my friend from Taiwan, Mr Wilson Tien.

What I wish to address, are elected dictatorships, ie dictatorship that cleverly masquerade as democracies. Democracy can not be mere form, we must embrace its full substance. Anything less is a perversion of government of the people, for the people and by the people. Democratic government may not be perfect but it is the least malignant and least oppressive form of government ever devised by man.

Even tyrants and putative dictators realise that they are powerless to resist the tide of democracy. So to vindicate their rule, these tyrants and putative dictators apply cosmetic make-up, permitting the form but not the content, showing the style but not the substance of democracy.

In elected dictatorships, regular elections are held, where the results are pre-ordained; or where rigorous candidate selection permit only those that support the ruling elite to stand; or maintain a docile and subservient press that purvey lies and fear to intimidate the voters to support the ruling elite. The ability to pull off this masquerade of pretending to be democratic makes elected dictatorships difficult to eliminate.

The people do not realise that they are an oppressed lot, ruled by an elected dictatorship where the elected tyrant's every whim and fancy is law and national assets are treated as a private preserve to be dealt as deemed fit. If the elected dictatorship finds that such subtle cunning or subterfuge does not work, off goes the velvet golf to reveal fists of steel. One of the most masterful practitioners of an elected dictatorship is Malaysia.

Malaysia; A Brief Political Update

Many of Malaysia's problems are believed to stem from the multi-ethnic nature of its population, largely a legacy of British colonialism from the 18th century to 1957, when independence was granted. Of Malaysia's 22 million people in 1999, bumis(sons of soil) accounted for 64%, Chinese 27% and Indians 8%, while the remaining 1% was made up of other minor ethnic groups.

The British colonial policy of "divide and rule" was continued by the ruling Alliance and subsequently National Front ruling party. Politics is naturally mobilised around ethnic considerations, crippling efforts to achieve national unity.

Despite regular multi-party elections, the Malaysian state has been generally authoritarian or semi democratic according to neutral political economists such as Harold Crouch, William Case, Edmund Terence Gomez and Zakaria Hj Ahmad. Most of the minimal conditions necessary for the practice of democracy in the Shumpeterian sense, particularly fair elections, adequate opportunities for independent political opinion-making and political organisation and minimal protection for the individual from arbitrary state power, hardly exists in Malaysia.

In other words, elections in Malaysia are seen as so unfairly conducted and prejudiced against the opposition, that they are a mere sham used to endorse the rule of the dictator, albeit an elected dictator.

Authoritarianism In Earnest

Such features of authoritarianism has become more pronounced since Dr Mahathir Mohamed took over as Prime Minister in 1981. There has been a steady encroachment by the Executive on all the other branches of government, the Judiciary and Parliament. The Federal Constitution has been amended so many times Parliament is just like another branch of the Prime Minister's Department.

And the Judiciary was brought into line, when the Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas together with two Supreme Court judges, was sacked in 1988 for refusing to toe the Prime Minister's line. Ever since, independence of the judiciary has become a dirty word, suspicions about its integrity publicly voiced, and no action taken against a 33 page letter outlining corruption and malpractices amongst the highest judges of the land, penned by a High Court judge who was forced to resign.

Instead of restoring public confidence in the judicial system's capability to administer justice, a judge's declared during a trial of an opposition MP that no attacks on the judiciary will be tolerated. Malaysians were cowed into silence with awards for damages in defamation suits involving tens of millions of ringgit, contempt action involving imprisonment became common and opposition leaders like myself convicted and jailed for sedition, banned and stripped of all political and civil rights.

Judges who are eminent jurists seeking reform and truth in the judiciary are hounded out of office. Even proceedings in Malaysian courts is no longer sacrosanct. Karpal Singh faces a 3 year jail sentence under the Sedition Act for the defense of his client in court, Malaysia's famous accused, ex-Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Which lawyer in Malaysia dares to act as counsel for opposition politicians now that they may well join their client in prison?

The circle of authoritarianism became complete when the Executive was emasculated with powers concentrated in the office of the Prime Minister, a virtual dictator. Which Minister dares to disobey the Prime Minister when he has absolute powers to sack any Minister without giving any reasons whatsoever. In fact, it is standard practice for certain Ministers or Chief Ministers to give the Prime Minister undated resignation letters.

The centralisation of powers in the hands of one person was achieved with the active acquiescence of the fourth estate. The press has ceased to function. There is not so much as no freedom of the press as a freedom to lie on the government's behalf coupled with a total news blackout of all unfavourable news.

The government-controlled mass and electronic media, plays its role not just in promoting and legitimising its master but also discredit the opposition and dissent generally. For those who still refuse to bow and scrape, imprisonment awaits them as highlighted by the imprisonment of Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent Murray Hiebert last year.

We have a joke in Malaysia that if you wish to know what is actually happening in Malaysia, read the Singapore newspapers. And probably vice-versa.

Economic Corruption

Malaysia is blessed with rich natural resources such as tin, rubber, palm oil, pepper, tropical timber and petroleum, and with a rapidly developing manufacturing sector. Howevcr, Malaysia is equally blessed with widespread corruption and inequitable distribution of wealth.

The government has refused to heed growing public concerns of political patronage or cronyism, abuses of power and open corruption. Estimates of losses from such financial abuses range up to RM50 billion. Malaysia's performance Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index(CPI) has worsened from 29th position in 1998 with a score of 5.3 to 32nd position in 1999 with a score of 5.1 which is of similar ranking as Namibia.

Malaysians are not surprised when:

1. we had to depend on Australian Customs to expose how wealthy our Chief Ministers are, when one of them was arrested for failing to declare cash amounting to RM2.5 million while entering Australia. Not surprisingly, the RM2.5 million cash exceeded his accumulated official income. Not only was he not convicted of corruption, he was re-elected as Vice-President of UMNO, the third highest post in UMNO;

2. a young 27 year son of a Minister without any business experience and record can become a billionaire overnight by purchasing listed companies valued at RM1.2 billion;

3. the Advisor of the Malaysian Central Bank whose speculative forays in the currency markets resulted in more than RM10 billion in losses 7 year ago escaped unpunished. Recently he was rewarded with the appointment as the Country's Economic Advisor. One wonders how much more his advice is going to cost us?

4. The head of the Anti-Corruption Agency was forced to resign for being effective. Instead of being praised for catching a senior government civil red-handed with unexplained RM100,000 cash in a raid on the latter's office, he was forced to close the case and retire after being lambasted by the Prime Minister for conducting the raid without the Prime Minister's permission. That senior civil servant with a discovered talent for "loose change" was then appointed to head Malaysia's Central Bank; and

5. the International Trade and Industry Minister entrusted with giving preferential shares of listed companies to the public, personally approved RM20 million shares to her own son-in-law. Instead of being prosecuted for corruption, she was elected to head the UMNO Wanita wing.

Such concerns coalesced around former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim after he was summarily sacked by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed on 2 September 1998. Anwar's exposes of corruption in high places, accumulation of extraordinary and unaccounted wealth of top government leaders, immunity from prosecution of crimes ranging from sexual misconduct to murder has served to galvanise a reformasi movement in Malaysia.

The impact was greatest amongst the Malays, which deserted UMNO and Dr Mahathir, in last year's general elections. For the first time in UMNO's history, UMNO received less than 50% of Malay votes. UMNO and the ruling National Front coalition was saved by non-Muslim votes, which usually voted with the opposition, but this time switched to the National Front after being totally intimidated by a campaign of lies and fear of Islamic extremism and public disorder.

The shameful arms heist of heavy weaponry in army camps in Grik followed by 2 vicious murders of non-Muslim personnel by the Al-Mauunnah Islamic extremists only served to validate the government's campaign to frighten the non-Muslims. Curiously, the government has refused to charge them for murder, choosing to detain them without trial under the Internal Security Act(ISA).

The Asian economic crisis instead of forcing the Malaysian economy to open up and undertake painful corporate restructuring has resulted in crony capitalism and political patronage becoming more entrenched. There is no moral hazard. No corporate tycoon, especially in companies like UEM, has been asked to take a "haircut" or forced to leave for their role during the financial crisis.

Instead, the Malaysian government has regulated capital controls especially fixing the exchange rate of US1 To RM3.80. Such 'cocoon-like' economic policies will only be effective if accompanied by a determined effort to wipe out the ills and implement good corporate governance, accountability and transparency. Sadly such determination is lacking. Cocoon economies can shelter a country from the depredations of currency speculators but it can also cut one off from competition, stimuli and opportunities of growth- such is a nature of a cocoon.

These underlying problems are related to the absence of rule of law and democratic institutions. Rule by law may work in the short term with an enlightened or benevolent dictator. But he is still a dictator. Tyrants and putative dictators embrace the same credo and institutions that is oppressive and opaque. Without democratic institutions and rule of law, there are no safeguards and legal guarantees for human rights.

An Elected Dictatorship

In 1970, when Dr Mahathir was in the political wilderness following his expulsion from UMNO by the late Tunku Abdul Rahman, he attended a forum organised by the Monash University Malaysian Students Union(MUMSU). He bitterly attacked Tunku Abdul Rahman for betraying the principles of democracy. He claimed that Tunku does not believe in democracy only limited democracy.

Today Dr Mahathir has gone a step further or rather backward than Tunku Abdul Rahman. He does not believe in a limited democracy, much less a full democracy. His is an elected dictatorship.

At a time when the world is moving inexorably towards enlargement of democracy, Malaysia stands out for its ever-increasing intolerance of democratic and human rights norms. The most blatant abuses such as the Internal Security Act(ISA), Official Secrets Act(OSA), Sedition Act and University and University Colleges Act(UUCA) are trumpeted as necessities to maintain order and even save democracy.

I need not explain the infamous laws. But allow me to touch on the curious impact of the UUCA. University students are banned from involving in politics, yet the non-university student of the same age can do so. So young politicians comprise mainly non-university students. Nothing against those who do not go to universities, but do we want our future leaders to be mainly non-university ones?

Confident with his manipulative powers and control of the electoral process, Dr Mahathir rejects calls to abolish such laws by claiming support for such draconian laws from the people. He has publicly reasoned that if the people felt that strongly against such laws, they can always reject the government and replace it with another that will abolish such laws, which the people have never done so.

The Malaysian government uses a Malay proverb of "seperti kera mendapat bunga(like a monkey obtaining a flower) to explain why full democracy can not be permitted in Malaysia. The monkey does not know how to appreciate the flower and will destroy it. Likening the people to monkey, democracy is like a flower that will be destroyed by the people unless there is a strong "guiding hand".

Dr Mahathir asks for time to be given to educate the people on democracy. After all, if Americans took 100 years to develop a fully functioning democracy, why can't we be given the same 100 years. Such intellectual dishonesty shines through when Dr Mahathir exhorts Malaysians to achieve Vision 2020 of becoming a developed nation.

He wants Malaysians to achieve a developed nation status in 2 generations what it took Americans nearly 200 years to do. Therein lies the puzzling question. If Malaysia can succeed in becoming a developed country in 2 short generations, why must we wait 200 years before becoming a full democracy?

A more insidious attempt by Dr Mahathir was to introduce his own brand of Asian democracy or Asian values as a counter to Western democracy or Western human rights. Dr Mahathir claimed that Asian culture and values precluded Western liberal democracy due to Asian emphasis of loyalty to the community over individual freedom, shuns adversarial relations and favours order over conflict.

Such arguments ignore the historical fact of suppression of political rights during the post-colonial era. But more dangerously, this process has also gradually socialised Malaysian to accept and even appreciate authoritarian rule, norms and institutions.

Dr Mahathir Asian values concept also contains a basic flaw in that there is no such thing as Asian values. Asians are fragmented by race, culture and religion. If there is any common thread, it is the sharing of universal values of humanism and religious norms that emphasises respect for the individual and tolerance for diversity. As the home of all the great religions of the world, Asian values in all its diverse forms is compatible with basic human rights and the liberating effects of democracy.

However by socialising Malaysians to accept the necessity of authoritarianism, Dr Mahathir has conditioned Malaysians to have no other alternative but to continuously elect a dictator. Which democratic leader in the world:

1. can so flippantly dismiss the beating of Anwar in prison black and blue until Anwar fainted as being probably caused by Anwar himself. One wonders how he got his medical degree from University of Malaya in Singapore?

2. can contradict himself by first publicly declaring Anwar is innocent of homosexuality than charging him for moral misconduct;

3. allow police brutality where pregnant women are shot dead without being given the chance to surrender; and

4. allowed an underaged rape victim allegedly involved with a Minister to be detained for 3 years whilst 14 other men who admitted in court that they had raped her were released scot-free.

What Can We Do?

Despite Thomas Jefferson's refrain that "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God", it is simpler said than done, especially against one as resourceful and determined as Dr Mahathir. Perhaps both Singapore and Malaysia shares many commonalities and similarities, whether in prosecution and persecution of dissidents, in arbitrary detention without trial under preventive laws and latterly even bankrupting of opponents in court, a new development in Malaysia no doubt acquired from masters of such devices.

If I can parallel our political development with a simple medical analogy. A man was ordered to undergo a vasectomy for his own good. After discovering that this make life pretty sterile, he was ordered to undo it to put some fun back into life. As any doctor will tell you, there is no guarantee that you'll potent back again. Neither is it fun - now that's Singapore.

For Malaysia, it is a little bit drastic and is a real-life situation. A Malay woman needed a blood transfusion to save her life. Instead she contracted AIDs from the tainted blood. She sued the Government for millions of ringgit but was told off by a Minister who said that she was not civic-minded as such suits will drive up health costs. When reminded that Malaysian courts have awarded much more for defamation, the Minister replied that this was different as defamation involved malice, whereas in her case merely negligence.

Here it seems that a man's reputation is worth more than a woman's life. Malaysia is like this woman, in dire straits yet must yield in importance to the elected dictatorship. I am sure that we neither desire an unwanted vasectomy nor a tainted blood transfusion with AIDs.

But I have faith that we can improve our nation for the better if we continue to struggle and try. There is an old Chinese proverb that says:

"If you are thinking a year ahead, sow a seed. If you are thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking one hundred years ahead, educate the people."

In this nano-second Internet age, we do not need 100 years. We will survive the legacy of these tyrants, elected or otherwise. By continuing our work to educate the people of democracy and their rights, we shall prevail. Whilst we are impatient for results, we must be patient with our resolve.

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