Leader underwhelms Malaysians
International Herald Tribune
March 29, 2005
Thomas Fuller

A year ago Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the Malaysian prime minister, was basking in an election victory that gave his coalition 90 percent of the seats in Parliament.
 
Now, after a poorly managed crackdown on illegal workers and with little to show for his promises to fight corruption, Malaysians are showing signs of impatience.
 
"Generally people think that he is a good man," said P. Ramasamy, a professor of political science at the National University of Malaysia. "But it takes more than goodness to get at the entrenched problems in society."
 
Abdullah is part of a new generation of leaders in Southeast Asia that took over from such long-serving and larger-than-life personalities as Mahathir bin Mohamad in Malaysia, Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore and Suharto in Indonesia.
 
Observers wonder whether Abdullah will be able to put a personal stamp on his office, the way Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has done in Thailand or, to a lesser extent, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the Philippines. The picture that has emerged of Abdullah after 18 months in office is of a cautious, slow-moving man wary of upsetting vested interests, someone far less assertive and action-oriented than his predecessor.
 
Steven Gan, editor of a popular political Web site here, Malaysiakini, calls Abdullah "an accidental prime minister" because he never seemed to strive for the job but was chosen by Mahathir. "You've got someone who does not want to make firm decisions," Gan said. "He is the complete opposite of Mahathir."
 
It is not a surprise that this former civil servant with a background in Islamic studies is considered indecisive when compared with Mahathir, whose visionary and occasionally authoritarian 22-year-old rule is still fresh in people's minds. But analysts say Abdullah must act soon if he wants to be seen as more than just a transitional leader, like the now-forgotten B.J. Habibie, who served briefly after the fall of Suharto in Indonesia. "He still has a reservoir of good will, but it's slowly being depleted," Gan said of Abdullah.
 
Abdullah's closest allies say he still has a high degree of popular support, with the most recent internal survey carried out by his coalition showing approval ratings in the upper 80 percent range. That is a slight dip from a 90 percent rating six months ago, but a dream rating for most politicians.
 
Khairy Jamaluddin, a rising star in Abdullah's party, the United Malays National Organization, or UMNO, blames the "chattering elite" for the impatience with Abdullah. Jamaluddin, who is married to Abdullah's daughter, describes the prime minister as "very thoughtful" and "very sensitive on the consequences of policy action."
 
He added: "It looks slower, it looks less decisive, because he's tackling longer-term issues, longer-term priorities with longer gestation periods."
 
Yet recent criticism has also come from the normally pro-government media. An article on Sunday by a top editor at the New Straits Times, Brendan Pereira, called for "more thoughtful policy making by the government."
 
Pereira criticized the government for sending home illegal workers, most of them to Indonesia, in the hopes that they would come back legally. The government did this, "knowing full well the debilitating impact it would have on certain sectors of the economy," he wrote.
 
The bigger picture for the government, Jamaluddin said, is that Abdullah is finding it difficult to show his achievements because they are less "tangible" than the big infrastructure projects of the Mahathir era: the highways, the airport, the Petronas Towers and the administrative capital, Putrajaya.
 
Abdullah is focusing on "qualitative aspects of development" such as education and making workers more competitive, Jamaluddin said.
 
As for criticism that the government is not pushing hard enough against corruption, Jamaluddin said Abdullah decided after the election not to dig up the past. "We decided not to focus on retroactive actions," he said, "but rather look forward."
 
To the outside world, Abdullah is perhaps best remembered for freeing Anwar Ibrahim from prison in September. The former deputy prime minister and heir apparent to Mahathir had been jailed on sodomy charges that were overturned. But Anwar, too, has spoken out, saying he senses frustration in Malaysia with the prime minister's "inaction."
 
"I think he's much weaker than he was before," Anwar said in an interview this month. "The only positive aspect I can say about Abdullah is that there is still a general perception that he is probably the best bet in UMNO. He's a relatively decent guy who is well-meaning. If at all there is any hope for change, however minimal, it will be through him."
 
In the long term, many Malaysians are still hoping Anwar will reassert his political aspirations. Few politicians within the elite can match his personality and charisma, analysts said.
 
"You can't write off Anwar," said Ramasamy of the National University. "He's ambitious. He's a player."
 
But six months after his release from prison there is no clear path to power for Anwar. The opposition, including the National Justice Party, formed by his wife after his detention, is flirting with irrelevance, controlling only 9 percent of the seats in Parliament, down from 20 percent in the previous assembly.
 
Anwar admits that cooperation would be very difficult between his party and the Islamic Party of Malaysia. He said he has told Islamic Party leaders that they would have to publicly disavow the goal of creating an Islamic state in Malaysia, a goal that frightens many people in this multiethnic nation. "I told them, the political landscape has changed. Fear of terror is real," Anwar said.
 
Jamaluddin says Anwar's future in Malaysian politics is nil. "He's a political irrelevance as long as he stays outside UMNO," Jamaluddin said. "And the door is shut forever. I am sure of it."

Copyright © 2006 the International Herald Tribune