Contents

Bangkok Post: A Mockery of Democracy
Asian Wall Street Journal: Tyranny of Information Helps Mahathir Win
Jakarta Post: Mahathir Should Learn From Suharto
Straits Times, Singapore: Hard Knocks for UMNO Ministers
International Herald Tribune: Mahathir, In Victory, Is Dealt A Major Loss
Business Times Singapore: NF's Share of Vote Falls Across Board
The Economist: Victory Does Not Vindicate Mahathir

                  This editorial appeared on 4 Dec 1999 in the Bangkok Post newspaper

                  The win by 73-year-old Mahathir Mohamad's coalition Barisan Nasional in Monday's Malaysian
                  elections is a remarkable feat. Although the ruling coalition dropped 20 seats and there was a big
                  swing for the strict Islamic opposition Parti Islam se Malaysia, for most outsiders the result would
                  seem to show Malaysians giving a resounding endorsement for their leader Dr Mahathir.

                  What is disappointing is that this disparaging, anti-Western leader mocks the use of the word
                  democracy when referring to his country's general elections. His poll on Monday was close to
                  exactly the opposite of what democracy is all about, yet the aged leader had the audacity to trumpet
                  to the world his coalition's "democratic" re-election as the governing power.

                  The Bangkok-based Asian Network for Free Elections, which is led by the esteemed Gen Saiyud
                  Kerdphol, had a multi-national team of electoral experts in Malaysia to peruse the election process.
                  Its conclusion was that the election was "anything but free and fair".

                  Under the Malaysian constitution, all those eligible to vote are entitled to do so. But more than
                  680,000 young eligible voters were denied their constitutional right to vote because they had not had
                  their names placed on the electoral roll by the electoral commission.

                  It is a fact that young people had turned out in great numbers to support disgraced ex-deputy prime
                  minister Anwar Ibrahim, and human nature shows that young people tend to be more rebellious. Dr
                  Mahathir has never lost a chance to expound to the world his country's ability in the field of
                  technology, but somehow, the election commission was unable to update its electoral roll to include
                  young voters coming-of-age for nine months leading up to the vote.

                  Illegal immigrants, long the bane of Malaysian society, suddenly found themselves able to gain
                  temporary ID cards after years of fruitless attempts. But the ID cards came with a catch -- the
                  recipients, believed to number hundreds of thousands, had to vote for Barisan Nasional. It is
                  interesting that while the young eligible voters were unable to get on the electoral rolls, the illegal
                  aliens who'd just received their Malaysian ID cards were.

                  This election also showed more clearly than ever before the extent to which Dr Mahathir has taken
                  control of the Malaysian media. His coalition's propaganda dominated the news headlines during the
                  nine-day campaign. More than 1,000 full-page pro-Barisan Nasional advertisements appeared in the
                  local media. The opposition reported that most of their advertisements were not accepted for
                  publication but the few that were, were heavily edited.

                  It virtually became impossible for the opposition to refute the outlandish and, at times ridiculous,
                  claims by the ruling coalition while the opposition had to take solace in the Internet to put forward
                  their facts on widespread corruption and malpractice by the government.

                  Worried that the Chinese would leave the Barisan Nasional in force, much of the campaign was
                  targetted at scaring them into believing instability would follow if the opposition coalition gained
                  power. Using a strategy of continual bombardment of blatant lies and scare-mongering, the Chinese
                  did take notice and they finally supported the ruling coalition.

                  The world's superpowers are quick to voice their disapproval of the Burmese junta or of the
                  Pakistan coup generals for being undemocratic. They respond by putting in place economic sanctions
                  in an effort to force the return of democracy.

                  Admittedly in Malaysia, on the surface the majority of the populace have supported and voted for
                  the ruling coalition. But the totalitarianism practised by Dr Mahathir in Malaysia is oppressive and
                  dictatorial and his perverse use of the word democracy should attract not plaudits, but sanctions

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by Y.T. Chong Asian Wall Street Journal

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's ruling coalition, the National Front, won another landslide victory in Malaysia this week, retaining its two thirds majority in parliament. It may seem miraculous to the outside observer that Dr Mahathir has managed to weather Asia's worst economic storm to date, while at the same time overcoming the scandal caused by the sacking, jailing and subsequent beating of his once anointed successor Anwar Ibrahim. However, one major reason for this outcome is clear: the ruling coalition's control over the local media.

Two-thirds majority notwithstanding, Dr. Mahathir did not escape unscathed from this week's elections. The jailing of Mr. Anwar resulted in a major rebellion among his grass-roots supporters - the Malay masses. The United Malay National Organisation, the dominant party in the ruling coalition, lost 20 seats in the election, dropping to 74 from 94. Still, when all the ballots were in, Dr. Mahathir received what appeared to be a ringing endorsement of his 18-year rule.

How did he do it? The answer can be found in the tyranny of information exercised by Dr. Mahathir and his government. The 73-year-old authoritarian ruler exercises undue influence over all electronic and print media in the country, with the exception of the Internet. He has done this partly through ownership and partly through oppressive legislation.

Over the nine-day campaign, for example, the National Front bombarded the Malaysian electorate with approximately 1,000 pages of fullpage advertisement in all the local newspapers. By contrast, the mainstream media refused to run all but a few of the opposition's ads, and even then, some were heavily edited.

Added to the lopsided ad campaign was the one-sided reporting and commentaries published by Malaysia's major newspapers. Nearly all the publications gave undue prominence and praise to the National Front while suppressing the counter-offensive leveled by the opposition. Opposition charges of high-level massive corruption and abuse of power by the National Front were largely ignored by the newspapers.

Some newspapers even went so far as to concoct and print blatant lies in an attempt to inflict irreparable damage to the opposition. TV and radio joined in the fray by pounding out endless pro-National Front propaganda. Access to these electronic media was largely denied to the opposition.

Chinese voters were the prime target of the National Front's propaganda blitz. Because the Malay vote was split by the sacking of Mr. Anwar, the Chinese, who make up nearly 30% of the electorate, became even more important in determining the election result. With this in mind, National Front publicists zeroed in on the most vulnerable spot of he Chinese psyche - the fear of chaos and instability. Opposition supporters were relentlessly and unfairly portrayed as street mobs. Moreover, Dr. Mahathir repeatedly warned of a recurrence of the 1969 racial riots should the National Front lose its two-thirds majority.

Dr. Mahathir's scare-mongering, combined with the recent memory of violence against Indonesia's ethnic Chinese, made for an extremely effective campaign. The opposition found it virtually impossible to counter the National Front offensive during a nine-day campaign period without reasonable access to the mass media. Hence, through a campaign of fear and misinformation, the National Front succeeded in causing the greatest exodus ever seen of. Chinese votes from the opposition camp to the ruling coalition.

This week's Malaysian election, like others in the past, was a travesty of democracy. In addition to the mass media being controlled by one party to the grave disadvantage of the opposition, the supposedly independent Election Commission apparently also operates under the dictate of the ruling party. Future legal appeals of unfair and unlawful electoral practices are futile. Under such a system, the ruling party can stay in power in perpetuity in spite of regular elections, unless and until it self-destructs.

By hanging on to power at any cost, Dr Mahathir has undermined the integrity of Malaysia's democratic institutions, including the parliament, this press, the police and the judicial system. What is most abhorrent is his insistence on wearing the hypocritical hat of "democracy", while practising totalitarianism.

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This article was published on 1 Dec 1999 by the Agence France Presse news agency

JAKARTA (AFP) - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad should take a lesson from the historic changes in Indonesia and bend to calls for greater democracy in his country, the Jakarta Post said Wednesday. Mahathir on Monday won an unprecedented fifth term with his National Front coalition winning 148 of the 193 parliamentary seats and keeping power in nine of 11 state assemblies.

He is now Asia's longest serving elected leader, having adopted the mantle after the fall of former Indonesian president Suharto in May 1998 who stepped down after 32 years amid political and social upheavals here.

But the results also saw big gains for the Islamic opposition in Malaysia after the sacking and jailing of ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim divided the sympathies of ethnic Malays.

The results should serve as a wake-up call to Mahathir in power for 18 years, the Jakarta Post warned in an editorial.

"Mahathir, obviously, should lend an ear to the demands of his people and realize that a government that offers economic prosperity alone with no social justice and democracy can never win its people's full support." the English-language daily wrote.

"It is expected, therefore that Mahathir will be more open and receptive to public criticism, especially clarifying the opposition's allegations of his giving favours to his cronies in the country's big projects and other issues of abuse of power.

"He should best learn from Indonesia's experience that, in an era of reform and the prevalence of democratisation process in the region, he could not but give greater freedom of speech and fairer distribution of wealth to his people.

"No less important is that arrests of those critical of him and his government ... should no longer happen if he wants to demonstrate to the world that he rules Malaysia democratically."

Mahathir had watched warily the toppling of Suharto in May 1998, fearing the upheaval in his giant neighbour could have a knock-on effect in Malaysia.

Since Suharto's fall, Indonesia has witnessed monumental changes, including the release of scores of political prisoners jailed under the former strongman and the establishment of special commissions to investigate past excesses and abuses.

The new government of President Abdurrahman Wahid has pledged to end the culture of corruption and nepotism which was fostered under Suharto.

And Suharto himself is also under investigation amid allegations that his family stashed away a fortune during his rule.

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From The Straits Times of Singapore 2nd December 1999

By BRENDAN PEREIRA IN KUALA LUMPUR

FROM the top down, no Umno minister was spared the backlash from a split Malay electorate in Malaysia's 10th general election. Apart from four who lost their seats in Parliament, 14 others had their victory margins slashed significantly.

The drop in voter support for Umno leaders suggests certain trends beyond the fall of Kelantan and Terengganu to the opposition Parti Islam (PAS). These include:

Significant inroads made by PAS in Kedah, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad's home state. The Islamic fundamentalist party took more parliamentary seats in Kedah than Umno, winning eight of 15 seats there. Its candidate ousted Datuk Abdul Hamid Othman, leaving the government to find a religious man for the next Cabinet. Even Dr Mahathir saw his majority cut to 10,138 votes from 17,226 four years ago.

The groundswell of anger over the sacking of former Deputy PM Anwar Ibrahim was real. A popular leader like Deputy PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi saw his majority reduced from 17,834 in 1995 to 11,175 this time round.

The protest was stronger in the Klang Valley, home of the Reformasi movement, and National Unity and Development Minister Zaleha Ismail bore the brunt of it -- she won in Gombak by just 1,176 votes, a fraction of the 30,878 majority in 1995.

The effectiveness of the hate-and-slander campaign by the opposition coalition, Barisan Alternatif. Ministers Rafidah Aziz and Megat Junid Megat Ayob were targets of allegations by Anwar and his supporters for months. Datuk Rafidah survived, but Datuk Seri Megat Junid -- portrayed by PAS as the man who plotted Anwar's downfall -- did not.

Dr Mahathir's Barisan Nasional retained its two-thirds majority in Parliament, but the victory was marred by the fall of Kelantan and Terengganu and the spreading influence of PAS in Umno strongholds.

Former DPM Musa Hitam called for an in-depth post-mortem of the "why, where and how we went wrong". He said: "We must ask ourselves why fewer Malays are supporting Umno than before."

For some, the soul-searching has already begun. Umno Vice-President Najib Tun Razak was shocked to keep his seat in Pahang's Pekan constituency by a mere 241 votes -- he romped home with more than 10,000 votes to spare in the previous two elections. Blaming party workers on the ground for failing to give an accurate picture to Umno leaders, he said: "Everybody should report the true picture to the top without hiding any information. Don't just say 'Datuk OK, Datuk OK'."

The picture that emerged on Polling Day showed that PAS managed to penetrate Pahang's rural areas on the back of its religious credentials and hate campaign against Umno. It won no parliamentary seat there but garnered a healthy percentage of votes and, significantly, snared six state seats. The Anwar factor had an effect here, as in other Malay states. http://straitstimes.asia1.com/

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From The International Herald Tribune 1st December 1999
By Thomas Fuller

KUALA LUMPUR - The Malaysian general election has produced a convincing victory for the ruling coalition but a striking loss for the party of Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad. The coalition retained a two-thirds majority in Parliament, with 148 seats, but Mr. Mahathir's party, the United Malays National Organization, the largest party in the coalition, lost more than 20 percent of its parliamentary seats.

Now, Mr. Mahathir is more beholden than ever to his ethnic Chinese and Indian partners in the coalition, setting the stage for behind-the-scenes horse trading as his allies demand a greater voice in the running of the country. The remarkable gains by the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party in the country's traditional Malay heartland also raise the prospect of increased Islamicization as well as demands for more control over oil and gas assets in the northern state of Trengganu.

The Islamic opposition won there for the first time since independence. Results from Trengganu illustrate the extent of the losses sustained by Mr. Mahathir, who was born, began his career and still has his constituency in a nearby state. The Islamic party took control by tripling its seats in the state assembly and winning all eight parliamentary seats. That is a huge shift from the 1995 election, when the Islamic party won just one parliamentary seat.

The Malays of the heartland also abandoned Mr. Mahathir in his own state of Kedah, where the Islamic party won more than half the parliamentary seats. In the last election, Mr. Mahathir's party swept all 15 seats. Kedah had always been a Mahathir party stronghold, so much so that the head of the party's campaign in Kedah had named the campaign ''E-Z 99.''

The irony for Mr. Mahathir in the results Monday is that he began his political career four decades ago with such pro-Malay zeal that he was expelled from the party he now leads and his seminal book, ''The Malay Dilemma,'' was banned. The book called for reform of the entire political system, giving Malays privileges over and above what other races were given. Now, three decades after he wrote that book, the champion of the Malays has been forced to rely on votes from ethnic Chinese Malaysians, the very people he accused of being ''chauvinists'' in his book.

''UMNO has been licked,'' said Abdul Razak Abdullah Baginda, executive director of the Malaysian Strategic Research Center, referring to the Mahathir party. ''Forty percent of UMNO cabinet members lost. There was a major swing across the Malay belt, and it was the Chinese votes that helped to save a lot of the Malay candidates.''

In broad terms, Chinese voters, who make up 25 percent of the population of 22 million, swung to the government, while Malay voters, who make up more than half, swung to the opposition, especially in the north.

The election radically changes the makeup of the opposition. The Islamic Party, with 27 parliamentary seats, is now the clear leader of the disparate parties that make up the Alternative Front. The largely ethnic-Chinese Democratic Action Party received 10 seats, and the National Justice Party, founded this year by the wife of Anwar Ibrahim, the jailed former deputy prime minister, got five seats.

Chinese voters in traditional opposition strongholds swung to the government largely because they feared instability and an opposition alliance that included a party whose stated aim was an Islamic state in Malaysia, a prospect that was relentlessly repeated by the government-controlled media.

''The Islamic state trump card was very, very potent,'' said Lim Kit Siang, who led the parliamentary opposition for three decades but was defeated in the state and parliamentary seats that he was contesting. His deputy, Karpal Singh, lost with him.

In what could be the chief paradox of the elections, the abandonment by the ethnic Chinese of their opposition parties has only served to reduce the leverage they had over the Islamic Party in the opposition. The lopsided opposition now has a very weak Chinese voice.

The defeat, Mr. Lim said Tuesday, ''has brought about the very situation that they were trying to avoid.'' The election also highlighted the importance to the national coalition of the two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Together they contributed 30 percent of the ruling coalition's seats.

http://www.iht.com

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From The Business Times, Singapore 2nd December 1999

Malacca, Negri Sembilan, Pahang, Perak, Perlis see swings away from NF of over 10% By Mohan Kuppusamy

The fall in the percentage of popular vote for Malaysia's incumbent National Front coalition in Monday's general election was across the board in most states, an analysis of voting trends shows. Analysis of how voters cast their ballots for parliamentary seats shows that in Selangor, one of the country's most economically developed states, the Front's share fell by a thumping 20 per cent over the 1995 figures.

In addition, Malacca, Negri Sembilan, Pahang, Perak and Perlis saw swings away from the Front of more than 10 per cent. In Chinese-majority Penang, the Front's decline in popularity, as measured by the parliamentary vote, was lower at 51.36 per cent from the 60.76 per cent in 1995.

Even in Johor, the state where the Front swept all the Federal seats, its share fall to slightly less than 73 per cent this time from nearly 80 per cent of the popular vote in 1995. The exception was Sabah, where the Front improved its share of the popular vote from about 52 per cent to about 59 per cent.

The number of eligible voters for Monday's election was 9,564,071. The Election Commission used the 1998 electoral rolls. However, about 680,000 citizens who registered to vote since then could not get on to the electoral roll in time for Monday's election. The figure is sharply higher than the average 200,000 who register to vote annually in previous years. Voting is not compulsory in Malaysia.

The main beneficiary of the shift in voter sentiment was the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, known by the Malay acronym PAS. In the contest for the state assemblies, PAS retained control of Kelantan on the east coast of the peninsular and took over the government in neighbouring Terengganu.

As measured by how it performed in the Malay seats it contested at federal level, its popularity has grown in Kedah, the home state of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. PAS increased its share of parliamentary seats in Malay areas to 80 per cent from nothing in the 1995 election. PAS also made substantial inroads into Malay areas in Pahang, Penang, Perak and Selangor at the state level.

All Cabinet ministers, bar one, saw their popularity, as measured by parliamentary votes cast in their own constituencies, decline. Four ministers were defeated outright as were five deputy ministers. Dr Mahathir's majority fell to 10,138 from 17,226 in the 1995 general election. Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi saw his majority decline to 11,175 this time from 17,834 in the 1995 election.

One of the defeated ministers, Abdul Hamid Othman, a minister in the PM's Department, lost by 478 votes. He won in 1995 with a majority of 2,134. He lost his seat to the author of a best-selling scatological political satire, Shahnon Ahmad. http://biztimes.asia1.com

This leader editorial appeared in the 4 Dec 1999 edition of The Economist

When the Asian financial crisis swept through the region in 1997 it destroyed conventional wisdom as well as economic growth. "Miracle" economies were shown to be prickable bubbles, their political stability a mirage, and "Asian values" a load to tosh. Or were they? When they gathered in Manila last weekend for an annual summit, many of East Asia's leaders were celebrating economic recovery, and reaffirming their faith in doing things the Asian way. Stranger still, the most outspoken advocate of "Asian values" has just received a ringing electoral endorsement. On November 29th, the coalition led by Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's prime minister, was returned to power with a majority barely dented by the turbulence of the past two years. Of all the region's leaders, he was fiercest in blaming the crisis on foreign conspirators and rejecting fundamental political and economic reform. Has Dr Mahathir been vindicated?

Certainly he has a case to put to those who, like this newspaper, have criticised his policies while praising the reformist urges of some of his neighbours. Malaysia was always the odd one out of the four worst-hit Asian economies. Unlike Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, it did not have to turn to the IMF for a bail-out. And whereas leaders in the other countries have stressed the need for reform, and sought the approval of western financiers, Dr Mahathir has railed against hedge funds and currency dealers -- indeed westerners as a class, not to mention the entire international financial system.

But Malaysia is also different in another respect -- it has weathered the crisis without a change in government. Politically, the treatment of his former deputy and now opposition figurehead, Anwar Ibrahim, may have outraged some, but it seems not to have alienated too many voters. The government's handling of opposition has been heavy-handed (all to literally -- Mr Anwar was beaten up in prison by the chief of police). But Malaysia has not, despite some large street protests, descended into the sort of communal violence seen 30 years ago. Dr Mahathir's supporters are quick to highlight the contrast with neighbouring Indonesia, whose democratic transition has been uncertain, bloody and bad for business. Nor, on the economic front, has the rejection of IMF orthodoxy brought the disaster many predicted. Since he ring-fenced the currency, the ringgit, with capital controls in September last year, the economy has recovered. After shrinking 7.5% in 1998, GDP is likely to have grown by about 5% this year. It is hard to argue that this impressive political stability and economic resilience has really been achieved entirely in spite of Dr Mahathir. After 18 years in power, he surely deserves some credit. But he must also take the blame for storing up political and economic trouble for the future.

Looked at more closely, the election results do not, in fact, amount to quite the resounding personal triumph for Dr Mahathir that they might seem. He is prime minister by dint of his leadership of his own party, the United Malays National Organisation, which dominates the ruling 14-party coalition. UMNO enjoyed many electoral advantages: a mass membership of some 2m (nearly a fifth of the electorate); vast powers of patronage; a slavishly sycophantic press; the absence, in jail, of Mr Anwar; and, allege the opposition, dirty tricks such as the use of phantom voters. Yet, despite all this, UMNO lost votes to an Islamic opposition party.

The real lesson of Indonesia Dr Mahthir, in his pragmatic way, has shrugged off the setback. But it shows one danger of his determination to quash dissent within UMNO: a growth in the politics of religion. One of his great achievements until recently, however, has been to defend secular politics, preserving relative harmony among the Malay (Muslim) majority and the Chinese, Indian and other minorities. Dr Mahthir's ruthless way of dealing with those who oppose him has also done subtler harm to Malaysian democracy. Over the years he has faced down many of the checks on his authority -- the traditional rulers (the sultans), the judiciary, the Muslim clergy, the press. All this has tightened his grip on power and makes him a hard act to follow. By the same token, it increases the risk of instability when he does go. This is the real lesson of Indonesia: it is not democracy that destabilises, so much as over-staying authoritarian leaders, grabbing ever more power to themselves.

Similarly, Dr Mahathir's economic policies have postponed rather than avoided difficulties. The damage done by exchange controls has been limited by a number of benign factors: calmer global markets, a regional recovery, and favourable exchange-rate movements elsewhere. The controls have not stopped Malaysia's recovery. Nor have they been used, as was hoped, as a breathing space for painful economic restructuring. Even a much-touted consolidation of the banking system has stalled.

That Malaysia's economy has bounced back so quickly is more a measure of its relative health when the crisis struck. And that is partly a tribute to its success in attracting foreign investment. Dr Mahathir, now the scourge of globilisation, has in fact been one of its great beneficiaries. So much so that he has been able to fend off the pressures for economic and political reform to which his neighbours have had to yield, and to prolong his own rule. That is a shame. The doctor should change his prescription.

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