Smokescreens and disinformation: a distraction of issues

Forget about Mahathir. He is history. The future is not with Mahathir. Mahathir is about the past. The future lies in the hands of the present Prime Minister. Whether Abdullah stays in office or gets ousted will be what will decide our future. So let’s stay focused. Let’s see how to kick Abdullah out.

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Information Minister cautions Mahathir

On Friday, 4 April 2008, Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek cautioned former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to be careful with his words lest they do more damage to Umno. He also said many of the things that Mahathir is now criticising were actually introduced by him when he was party president.

He said the tragedy that saw Umno being declared illegal in 1988 during the leadership of former prime minister and former Umno president Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad should not be allowed to be repeated. Therefore, Dr Mahathir should be careful when making public statements, added Shabery. He said Umno was previously deregistered because of the various statements that were made openly and now it could be destroyed in other ways.

"I feel it would be appropriate that Tun (Dr Mahathir) exercises more caution in making statements because we don't want the demise of Umno, the destruction of Umno, and the deregistration of Umno that occurred during his leadership to be repeated in another form," he told reporters after attending for the first time the Information Ministry Monthly Assembly at Wisma Radio, Angkasapuri in Kuala Lumpur Friday.

"I fear that Umno will sink further after it first began to sink during Tun Dr Mahathir's reign when Umno was deregistered," Shabery said. He was commenting on the criticism made by Dr Mahathir who claimed that members of the Umno Supreme Council now were afraid to voice their opinions to convey a message to the top leadership.

Responding to Dr Mahathir's criticism that the present breed of supreme council members dare not speak up to convey a message to the party leadership, Ahmad Shabery said during the former prime minister's leadership many regulations were imposed including a resolution passed at the Umno General Assembly that there should be no contest for the president and deputy president's posts and several other "difficult" regulations.

"There was no contest (for president and deputy president's posts) after 1987 but now he is saying it is undemocratic. The Malays have not forgotten all these things but maybe Dr Mahathir has forgotten. "I am sad to talk about all these things but the openness in Pak Lah's era should not be taken advantage," he said.

Bernama reported that at one time, he said, Umno supreme council members cannot be challenged in their divisions and they also cannot contest. Division chiefs in Kelantan cannot be opposed when Dr Mahathir was the state Umno liaison head, he said.

Ahmad Shabery said the former Umno president had also reminded delegates to the Umno General Assembly in 1997 that any criticism about the party and its leadership can only be made through the party channel, via branches, divisions and the supreme council and not outside the party. (MySinchew)


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Yes, the first act by the newly installed Minister of Information is to embark on a campaign of smokescreen and disinformation. This is a typical strategy of distraction, which an accomplished strategist like Mahathir himself normally uses. When you have a pain in your leg, get someone to hit your head with a hammer. The pain in your head would distract you from the pain in your leg. It is not that the pain in your leg has gone away. It is just that the pain in your head is greater than the pain in your leg so you focus on the pain in your head and you get distracted from the pain in your leg.

Okay, for purposes of argument, let us agree that it was Mahathir who was instrumental in introducing the ‘no contest for number one and number two’ rule. And to make sure it would be difficult for anyone to mount a challenge, it was also Mahathir who introduced the ‘30% nominations from Umno divisions’ quota. This would mean Mahathir is guilty as hell and was the culprit who ‘killed’ democracy in Umno.

Then, let us put Mahathir on ‘trial by public opinion’ (because there has been no Registrar of Society laws broken and you can’t actually get the police to arrest him or the Attorney-General to charge him for this ‘crime’) and pronounce him guilty. So we now find Mahathir guilty as charged. But then there are a few things wrong here.

First of all, after Mahathir left the scene, Umno refused to reverse his ‘violation’ or ‘crime’ of ‘killing’ democracy in Umno. In fact, Umno upheld the ‘no contest for number one and number two’ rule plus also upheld the ruling of the ‘30% nominations from Umno divisions’ quota. Why did Umno not wipe the slate clean and erase the Mahathir ‘legacy’ so that democracy could be restored in Umno?

Secondly, Umno always defends its President cum Malaysia’s Prime Minister by arguing that one man does not make the decisions either in Umno or the government. All decisions made are made on a collective and unanimous basis by the Umno Supreme Council and/or the Cabinet, they keep telling us. In that case, why is Mahathir now blamed for all the ills and wrongs in Umno and the government? Many a time we have heard Ministers and political leaders argue that the party President and/or the Prime Minister should not be taken to task for any shortcomings because the entire ‘team’ came to a particular decision and supported that decision.

Are they now saying that what we alleged all this time is true -- that one man and not the entire Supreme Council or Cabinet made all these wrong and unpopular decisions? You can’t one day defend your leader-in-office by saying that the decisions were collectively and unanimously made and then, once he is out of office, you turn around and say that he and he alone made all the decisions. Are we therefore also right in accusing Abdullah -- on the advice of his family -- of making the decisions in Umno and the government all by himself? Or will this allegation only be true once Abdullah is out of office and not be true while he is still in office?

Okay, let us assume that Mahathir is the dictator everyone makes him out to be and that he ruled the Umno Supreme Council and the Cabinet with an iron first and single-handedly made all the decisions -- while everyone else in the Supreme Council and Cabinet actually disagreed with these decisions. Did anyone protest? Did anyone resign? Did anyone speak out against these decisions? Did anyone wash his/her hands and distant himself/herself from the decisions? In fact, what everyone did was to speak up in support of Mahathir’s decisions and publicly and openly state that they support the decisions and that the decisions were unanimous and got the support of the entire Supreme Council and/or Cabinet. The fact that everyone stood behind Mahathir and publicly endorsed him and declared that the decisions were collectively and unanimously made makes everyone, and not just Mahathir alone, guilty of everything that Mahathir is alleged to have done.

Soon after Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over from Mahathir on 1 November 2003, they proclaimed a new era of clean, transparent and democratic governance. Abdullah even led the congregation in prayer to demonstrate that he is the true imam that they claim him to be. No Prime Minister before this has ever led the congregation in prayer. And to ensure that no one misses this wonderful scene, they splashed photos and video-clips of Abdullah leading the congregation in prayer all over the newspapers and TV. This perception of a ‘New Deal’ resulted in Barisan Nasional garnering almost 92% of the seats in Parliament in the 21 March 2004 general election.

Malaysians were promised sweeping changes. After 22 years of Mahathir’s less than transparent regime and rule with an iron first, Abdullah was a breath of fresh air. But the sweeping changes never came. What happened instead was that a new set of cronies was created and they ‘swept’ in a mere two years what took Mahathir 22 years to achieve. They set themselves on turbo-charge, overdrive mode and did more damage in a mere two years what took Mahathir 22 years to do.

Then, also in 2004, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah announced that he was going to make a bid for the Umno Presidency and Umno, in turn, announced the ‘no contest for number one and number two’ rule. Umno also upheld the ‘30% nominations from Umno divisions’ quota. Sure, Mahathir may have been the culprit who had introduced these rules but Umno refused to abolish or amend them but instead defended them to the hilt. Why can’t these ‘undemocratic’ rules be removed? Why can’t they undo all the ‘damage’ that Mahathir had created? Why can’t they restore democracy in Umno, which had been eroded by Mahathir? Why use all those iron-fisted rules, which had been introduced by Mahathir, instead of reforming the party by discarding all those things Mahathir had done which is damaging the party and which makes a mockery of democracy?

Forget about Mahathir. Forget about what Mahahir did. Mahathir is no longer in power. Those currently in power must prove that Mahathir is everything they say he is by dismantling Mahahir’s ‘legacy’ and by restoring what Mahathir had eroded. But they are not doing this. They blame everything on Mahathir. After declaring that it was a collective decision, they now blame the entire thing solely on Mahathir. But they refuse to undo what Mahahir did. They still uphold the rules that Mahathir introduced, which were meant to deny any challenge to the Umno Presidency and Deputy Presidency. And they use these same ‘undemocratic’ rules of Mahathir to prevent anyone from challenging Abdullah and Najib Tun Razak.

Okay, so Mahathir is a slime-ball and scumbag. Mahathir is a dictator and undemocratic. Then remove what Mahathir introduced. Restore Umno to what it was before Mahathir ‘destroyed’ it. By upholding Mahathir’s policies, it only gives an impression that Mahathir is right and did no wrong.

Yes, there is currently a smokescreen and disinformation campaign going on. They are hitting us on the head to make us forget the pain in our leg. This is nothing but an exercise in distraction. And the new Minister of Disinformation is the man tasked with the job of distracting us and with the job of leading us up the garden path of disinformation. And if you don’t believe me then take at a look at these two issues, which have captured the attention of the entire mainstream and ‘alternative’ media.

First let us look at the Director of ACA issue. It is being alleged that Mahathir blocked an investigation by the Director of the ACA. Was this so? The then Director of the ACA was investigation the Secretary-General of the Economic Planning Unit, which comes under the Prime Minister’s Department. The Sec-Gen of the EPU complained to his boss, who also happens to be the Prime Minister, that the ACA was rude and abusive and that the so-called investigation was actually a witch-hunt and political persecution.

Now, this may sound hard to believe, but I have a lawyer friend who was representing the Director of the Commercial Crime Division and they arrested him on the eve of Hari Raya, manhandled him in his office in front of his staff, handcuffed him in a very rough manner until they injured his wrist, and threw him into the lockup for the night. And the whole thing was on trumped-up charges of not replying to a letter whereas he had replied, but not the way the ACA wanted.

So, yes, the ACA is capable of doing such things and it appears like they still do that until today. Anyway, since the Sec-Gen of the EPU comes directly under the PM’s Department, Mahathir called the ACA Director to enquire into the allegation that the investigation was mala fide.

Mahathir, in fact, did the same thing many times in the past. For example, in the Abdullah Ang case, Mahathir summoned the IGP, Tun Haniff Omar, to ask whether Abdullah Ang is really guilty. Haniff confirmed he is. Mahathir asked whether the police had the evidence. When Haniff also confirmed that the evidence was overwhelming, Mahathir replied, then do what must be done.

Abdullah Ang went to see Mahathir and, down on his knees, cried and grabbed Mahathir’s leg and asked for help. Mahathir replied that it is now a police case and they have evidence of wrongdoing so he is not able to lift a finger. This was Mahathir’s ‘best friend’ but still Mahathir would not intervene and Abdullah Ang went to jail (though there is another story of what happened after he was sent to jail).

Anyway, back to the Sec-Gen of EPU story. The ACA Director, who was summoned to explain the facts of the case, shouted at Mahathir and stormed out of the room in a huff. Mahathir was shocked and totally speechless. This was the Prime Minister and yet the ACA Director had the gall to scream at him. Mahathir did nothing though. He did not demand the ACA Director’s resignation. The Director, however, dropped the investigation although Mahathir did not demand that he do so. Why did he drop the investigation if there was evidence that the Sec-Gen of the EPU had committed a corrupt act?

Okay, let us look at another case. This one involves the sacking of Tun Salleh Abbas, the Chief Justice. The story being spun is that Mahathir ordered his sacking and Zaid Ibrahim, the new ‘Minister of Law’, wants to resurrect the case and make an issue out of it. But did Mahathir really sack the Chief Justice?

What happened was that the Chief Justice had a home next door to the Agong’s and His Majesty’s house was under renovation. The Chief Justice was displeased with the noise and pollution and he wrote a letter to the Agong with copies to all the Rulers complaining about the matter. The Agong was upset with this insolence on the part of the Chief Justice. Writing a complaint letter is one thing and could be forgiven since this was a genuine grievance -- though an audience would have been the correct protocol instead of a complaint letter -- but to copy the letter to all the Rulers smacks of pressure.

The Agong was outraged and demanded that Mahathir sack the Chief Justice for this insolence that tantamount to misconduct. Mahathir, however, replied that he does not have the authority to sack the Chief Justice and that this can only be done through a Tribunal. The Agong then commanded (titah) that a Tribunal be set up, which was to report direct to His Majesty. The Tribunal found the Chief Justice guilty of misconduct and sent its recommendation to the Agong, who then removed the Chief Justice.

Hey, Mahathir is guilty of many things. One thing he is guilty of is for detaining me under the ISA, arresting me under the Sedition Act, arresting and handcuffing my wife, and the beating I received in the Dang Wangi Police Station at the hands of Bakri Zinin in front of my wife. I would certainly like Mahathir to pay for these crimes. But I am not about to make him pay for crimes he did not commit. And if he is guilty of destroying democracy in Umno, then the present leaders should dismantle everything that Mahathir did. But they refuse to do this. They accuse Mahathir of many breaches and violations and accuse him of destroying democracy but they still uphold all those rules imposed by Mahathir, such as no contest for number one and number two and the 30% nominations ruling.

Umno is embarking on a smokescreen and disinformation campaign. They want to distract us from the real issue, the impending hot contest in Umno to oust Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. They want us to focus on Mahathir’s wrongdoings so that we do not look at what is about to happen in Umno. Forget about Mahathir. He is history. The future is not with Mahathir. Mahathir is about the past. The future lies in the hands of the present Prime Minister. Whether Abdullah stays in office or gets ousted will be what will decide our future. So let’s stay focused. Let’s see how to kick Abdullah out. We can deal with Mahathir later. And let us also not forget that Abdullah is using all those undemocratic and iron-fisted rules imposed by Mahathir to cling to power and to prevent Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah from challenging him later this year.

That is the real issue.