Life as a grassroots politician in Wangsa Maju
reminded me of the British New Wave film This
Sporting Life, featuring Richard
Harris’s debut acting in a leading role, which won Best Film at the 1963 Cannes
Film Festival. This film was one of the regular
Saturday evening screenings in the RMC canteen, among many great films we
enjoyed during our years in the college. Based on a Richard Stone novel of the
same name, This Sporting Life tells
documentary-like the working class life of a pugnacious Yorkshire coalminer
turned professional rugby league player.
It is not so much the tragic realism of the storyline that reminded me
of my political life, but what the critic John Russell Taylor wrote in 1980
that,"every scene in the
film is charged with the passion of what is not said and done, as well as what
is”. That seems to summarize what it was
like in UMNO local level politics in my constituency, and higher up in the
power hierarchy.
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| Suleiman is on my left (1996) |
Suleiman Salleh
was my political alter ego in those days in Wangsa Maju. A loyal and experienced political lieutenant,
he was wise to the ways of UMNO politics, blooded as he was in the UMNO Youth
movement. He more than anybody else in my inner circle, embodied the resilience
and gobblededash of grassroots leadership. Beyond my own engagement at the
grassroots, he was my eyes and ears of
the activities of the different factions, and goings-on at the branch level. Over the seven years I was in UMNO Wangsa
Maju, Suleiman showed me the ropes, first as divisional secretary, and later as
advisor after I moved him to become general manager of Yayasan Wangsa Maju,
which I had set up early in my term to serve my constituents. With his calm demeanor and natural diplomatic
skills, we managed to keep the peace among the ambitious individuals and factions
in the division. Each began to sponsor
new branches in order to increase their influence, at the same time expanding
the division in terms of membership, the goal being to achieve greater
representation and seigneurial control, and eventual victory in divisional
elections, with the division chief’s post as the ultimate prize, and where
political ambitions never end, the upper reaches of political representation.
UMNO as an
organization had always been feudal and patriarchal, from its early foundation
to the present day, even though it professed and on the surface practiced a working
democracy. As a Malay political party this feudalistic milieu is to be expected,
as Malay society as a whole despite modernization and education is still a
feudal society. As the stakes in
economic pay-off got bigger in subsequent years, and the political struggle within
the divisional party got nastier, fanned by the networks of loyalty to and
fortunes of the particular leadership higher up the hierarchy to the national
levels of political power, these political games throughout the divisions eventually
consolidated into a culture of “warlordism” in UMNO, fueled by money
politics. In this feudal structure underlying
UMNO politics, the lord-vassal relationship between national and grassroots
leaders had remained unchanged if not becoming more entrenched. Suleiman Salleh understood all this, and through
him and beyond my own personal relationships with the various UMNO national
leaders, I became even more attuned to the nuanced interplay of politics and
personality in UMNO’s political culture.
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| Mat Ya in on the left and Suleiman on the right |
If Suleiman was
the administrator-strategist, Ahmad Yahya (Mat Ya) was the master tactician.
Mat Ya was the epitome of political loyalty, the consummate party worker (the “gurkha” or the self-deprecating term “balachi” in local parlance) and closely
lined up with the national leadership (mainly Pak Lah). Having decided on a strategy, not just in
ensuring the success of our “slate” of candidates in a divisional election and
therefore maintaining control of the local party organization to ensure the
leader’s political longevity, but in the everyday maintenance of peace and good
relations among the factions, Mat Ya would be my “go to” guy to take the
necessary action or initiative. It is a
lot of hard work, and meetings and “teh tarik” sessions. And intrigue. It is Umno politics, so cool
and calm on the surface, so much decorum, least as manifest in the long list of
salutations at the opening of every speech, but so vicious underneath, so
uncouth sometimes. More so, these days. In politics you don’t play by the
books; it is run by expedience and ambition. The favourite tagline in my
speeches and small group interaction was for practitioners to desist from
creating something out of nothing, nor to reduce something (significant) to
nothing, to make the small large and the large small! But,
such exhortations merely fell on the proverbial duck’s back. It was just how things are, and how things
are done, whether at the grassroots or at the higher levels of politics.
“Stories” whether true or not true, are the currency of politics. As some wise guy had cracked, rumours usually
are half-truths, which in politics you confirm or deny, or simply make no
comments depending on your political moment.
Mat Ya, as loyal as he was to me, having mastered the game, practiced
it.
This political
life takes a lot of hard work, endurance, skin and compromise. I was not made
nor trained for it, no matter how long I had associated with politicians before
I became a politician of sorts myself. This is why I think I admired
politicians who went on to achieve success at the higher levels, for their survival
instincts and political longevity. With
UMNO in power for so long, politics became a professional career, and some felt
almost a hereditary right. That’s
feudalism. I almost knew, when I decided
to take up the challenge, that without a high post in the political hierarchy,
or government, my political life will be foreshortened by half. I will not survive it, and my future in
Wangsa Maju was proportional to the amount of money I was willing to spend to
maintain my position. I was not so naïve to expect anything less.
Over the seven-year
period I was the ketua bahagian in
UMNO Wangsa Maju, and as wakil rakyat for a good part of the period, I had
spent from my own sources an estimated total of RM5 million to pay for the
local party organization and its activities, to pay for staff in both the party
and wakil rakyat office, and make “contributions” to all and sundry that
approach you for “help”. It was part of
the job and the expectation. Usually,
politicians at this level are “sponsored” by towkays (expecting a return on their favours), or maintained by a
business, or survived financially on contracts or “projects” handed down to
loyal followers of a minister, or genuine donations from friends or relatives.
Solicitations for funds, at the official and personal level, were the order of
the day. Different pretexts and devices
are proffered to extract or exact tribute (con-tribute?) from the political
leader - a program here and a khenduri
there – to sustain the political process.
I was fortunate to have an on-going business to keep this political
business going, but it was not sustainable. It will not last; that I knew.
I was amazed at
how over the years the party had become, in the small and in the grand order of
things, an efficient machine for the extraction of tribute and rent, from small
donations, through to contracts, and to grand corruption today. This was a far cry from what I had thought,
or convinced myself, as to the purpose of my joining UMNO, to serve the country
and the people, as I had assumed was the aim and purpose of all the friends I
had engaged with in politics. How naïve
I was! In the early days of my direct
involvement in UMNO I had asked myself, often, how do the party grassroot
members maintain their participation in party activities, or continue to loyally
support their leaders - is it for the “cause” as embodied in the party song?
Loyalty to the party flag? I wondered
whether they ever tire of the political games and routines, and eventually, at
some point in their membership and support of the party activities, attending
functions and rallies and putting in the time and energy to man political
campaigns at election times, to eventually ask “what is in it for me?”. I have never heard it asked, not directly,
but it was palpably there; it was in their action, in their body language, and
their insinuations. It, their political
participation, is sustained by expectations, of some benefit; and their support,
and loyalty, disappears eventually as the expectation dissipates.
In pursuit of
the purpose I was sent to Wangsa Maju, and my election as the wakil rakyat, I
tried to maintain a level of service to my constituents. But no matter how much I tried to plan them
as a genuine service, the activities and programmes I implemented took on the
form of a political pay-off or a personal appropriation. Or expectation thereof. Or even if it was meant to be a genuine
service, such as when I donated computers to the schools in the district
through the Wangsa Maju Foundation I had set up at the beginning of my term as
wakil rakyat, my opponents still manage to turn it into a political exercise,
or spin it as a mere political gimmick.
Or, when I donated to a mosque committee that genuinely sought
assistance and I genuinely meant it as an
infaq, the branch leader whom I sent the donation through extracted a
personal “commission” (without my knowledge) before passing the remainder on to
the mosque. Or, when a branch leader
asked for personal assistance for the tenth time but this time to support his child’s
school fees, and I failed to oblige, he switched camp and withheld his support
for me, even though I had acceded to his other requests the previous nine
times. And all individual votes counted,
as though it was every time the deciding vote.
In politics, all values are relative and loyalty contingent. Increasingly,
your political tenure is as long as you continue to finance it. To ignore this was at your personal peril as a
political leader. So on to the political
games politicians play.
This monetization
of politics reaches its height during the party election season, which comes on
every three years. This is the time when
money flows like water; politicians call this season, “durian runtuh” (durian harvest). From the
branch elections, the field of play moves through the divisional elections on to
the national party runoff, with higher and higher payoffs. It is not uncommon to see branch and
divisional officials and delegates to the national party general assembly
during the election season having new motorbikes and cars at the end of the
political harvest. This is how the
political process in UMNO gets corrupted.
At the end of my first term, after an extended
honeymoon period since sponsoring the set up of the new UMNO division, I had to
face fresh divisional elections for the next three year term, and the prospect of
being challenged for the Wangsa Maju division chief post. Through the first four years, I had tried to
maintain an equidistance from the several factions in the party. I could not escape, however, being identified
with the Lembah Pantai group that I had brought over with me when forming the
new division, plus the new branches we established in the Setiawangsa section
of Wangsa Maju.
The whole constituency was conveniently
divided into two geographical subdivisions by Jalan Genting Kelang, which cuts
the old Setapak area from the Jalan Gombak junction of Jalan Pahang that takes
you from the KL central area to Ulu Kelang to the northeast of the city,
through the old Wiedeburn Rubber Estate (which was my old route to the Klang
Gate Dam during my early years growing up in Kampong Baru). To the north of Jalan Genting Klang was the
former parts of Setapak which were in the older UMNO Batu Division before the
subdivision including Taman Ibu Kota, Taman Melati and Taman Wirajaya, while to
its south were the newer Setiawangsa sections including Mindef, the armed
forces headquarters (18,000 military votes strong). In this section were included the old parts
split off from the Titiwangsa Division. The older Setapak zone were made up of
branches that were the stronghold of the faction led by Nuraidah, my deputy,
and Shafie Abdullah, the Youth Division chief, both of whom led the opposition
faction to Azman Attar in the old Batu Division, which had considered
themselves the legitimate leadership successor when the new Wangsa Maju
Division was formed, and were largely lined up against my Lembah Pantai/Setiawangsa
alignment whom they considered usurpers to the division leadership, whose relatively
newer branches in the latter southern zone constituted my main political
support. For a time.
Those were the battle lines that had formed by
the time in 1996 when the new triennial divisional elections for the new
leadership came around. The divisional campaign
was intense, as was to be expected.
While I was unopposed in the first previous term, on account I was the
leader chosen by the UMNO Supreme Council to sponsor the formation of the new
division, Shafie Abdullah, now free from further deference to me, this time
provided the main challenge to my divisional leadership post. He chose Haji Ghazalie as his running mate
for the deputy division chief, while on advice of Suleiman to appease the
Setapak branches I chose the branch chairman of Taman Wirajaya as my candidate
for deputy head of the division.
Nuraidah, my incumbent deputy division head, was conscripted by Shafie
into his chai for the Wanita chief
post, while I nominated the wife of
Hj. Ghazalie as the Wanita chief candidate on my slate. Politics!
But this still did not take the cake in this ongoing political game of
thrones. Unbeknowest to me and to my
absolute surprise, Mat Ya also decided to throw his hat into the ring and
formed his own slate of candidates. So,
the contest for political leadership of the Wangsa Maju division had now become
a three-cornered fight.
At that time I felt betrayed by Mat Ya. My main support group, led by both Suleiman
(who by then had resigned from the divisional secretary’s post to avoid a
conflict of interest in working for me in this new contest) and Mat Ya, that
had been solidly behind me that had contributed to my hold over the division in
the past four years, seemed now to have broken up. This split would certainly undermine my
chances of retaining the division chief’s post.
But Suleiman appeared calm when I turned to him to make sense of what
was going on. I had got wind of this
breakup earlier through the political grape vine, but had then thought that
that was just rumour mongering. Games
politicians play! At the time, I had
sensed building up in the division a wave of resentment from Mat Ya’s faction,
following some changes in the divisional committee when I appointed a new
hononary divisional secretary to replace Suleiman (after I moved the latter to
Yayasan Wangsa Maju), as well as a new information chief, and made Hanafiah
Yunus as my political assistant in the constituency office to handle my wakil
rakyat duties. Mat Ya’s associates, who
were also my supporters, were not happy with these personnel moves. But, I had faith in Mat Ya, and his personal
loyalty to me.
In fact, I did offer him the secretary’s post
much earlier but he had opted against it.
He had preferred to remain in charge of special projects in UMNO Wangsa Maju,
which was his forte. I had appeased him,
and to show my gratitude, by giving him a quota for his cement dealership from
my Tenggara Cement business. But his “people”, those of his own followers did
not take favourably to these developments.
To them, erroneously from my point of view, the changes I had made at
the divisional administrative level had political motives and was seen as a
discrimination against their so-called “marhein” (wretched of the earth) status
which they claim to represent, to contrast with the “elite group” (represented
by Hanafiah, Samsuddin Hussein and Azman Idris) whom they accused I had
seemingly favoured because of my business association with them at the
time. That was the impression that I had
inadvertently created, but certainly not my intent! In politics, perception often to stumps
reality, and I was still too polically wet behind the ears to realize the implications
of the changes I had made. As
Sirajuddin, the political correspondent of Utusan Malaysia, had subsequently
implied in his column, the corporate side of my persona had evidently overtaken
the political side. But, heck, from my
side of the table I am an academic by training, a professional by vocation, and
still learning the political ropes.
However, that was not what the political folks of Wangsa Maju expect,
and that excuse was not acceptable.
To handle this
split in my support, and in hindsight seemingly in frustration, I called
Suleiman and Mat Ya to conference, and set an ultimatum: resolve this factional
matter between them, or I will stand down as candidate for reelection as
division chief. I told them that I want
the matter resolved and that the two sides in my support group come back
together by the time I returned from my Australian holidays. I didn’t tell them that I had not planned for
the trip yet, but deep down I was playing my own political card. The two sides did subsequently send me to the
airport to catch my flight to Melbourne.
Suleiman and Mat Ya did resolve matters, in
their own way. My slate did win the
subsequent divisional elections held in June of that year, and I was
successfully returned as Wangsa Maju division chief for another three-year term
to 1999. I did have to go through the
three-cornered fight with Shafie and Mat Ya, and they both lost. Apparently, Suleiman and Mat Ya had contrived
the political gambit (the three-sided contest) in order to prevent the
so-called marhein group who had backed Mat Ya from going to Shafie’s side, the
real challenger to my
who had previously been briefed on the
divisional election results nationwide as is his responsibility, would remark
in congratulating me on my success when we met later in the Member’s Lounge in
Parliament, that I had come of political age when “snaring both fishes on the
same line” in the Wangsa Maju elections.
He well knew Mat Ya’s reputation, and I was ever grateful to both Suleiman
and Mat Ya for their political skills to secure my political longevity.
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