In his interview with Asiaweek (Jan 26), entitled 'When you grow old, you face reality' Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad touched upon a number of issues. His comments on PAS and Anwar Ibrahim in particular need to be examined in depth. 

Going to hell

He alleges that "PAS threatened people not well versed in religion, that if they voted for Umno they would go to hell. We had Umno ladies who had consistently voted for Umno, saying, I am old now, I am going to die soon, I will vote for PAS to make sure that I will not go to hell." 

This is an allegation that Umno has made against PAS since the 1955 Federal Election. Even if it is true that some PAS workers use such a campaign line, no electoral study in the last 45 years has shown that fear of going to hell is the reason why PAS wins votes. 

In any case, one should ask: if this is the reason, why the hell did hell suddenly have such a great impact in 1999? The truth is a variety of other reasons - and not the fear of hell - were responsible for PAS's success in securing 27 parliamentary seats and capturing Terengganu, apart from retaining Kelantan with a bigger majority than in the 1995 election. 

Treatment of Anwar 

One of these reasons Mahathir had alluded to in his interview: the cruel, inhuman, unjust treatment of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim. Terengganu leaders, for instance, like Tuan Guru Hadi Awang, the mentri besar and PAS deputy president, have openly acknowledged that the picture of Anwar's bruised and battered face which was widely circulated through the length and breadth of the oil-rich state was the decisive factor which swung the vote to the PAS-led Barisan Alternatif. 

Incidentally, Terengganu voters, like their counterparts in the other states knew, contrary to what Mahathir suggests in Asiaweek, that it was not Mahathir, as an individual person, who had beaten up Anwar. What horrified them was that such a brutal assault of a former deputy prime minister could take place under the Mahathir regime. The voters were incensed that Mahathir had tried to conceal the truth about the incident 

And the assailant was none other than the then Inspector-General of Police and for at least four months and that even after the truth was established through an independent Commission of Inquiry, Mahathir refused to apologise to Anwar for imputing in public that Anwar may have deliberately inflicted the injury upon himself in order to win the sympathy of the masses. 

To put it in a nutshell, it was Mahathir's failure to uphold the most basic principles of truth, justice and accountability in the Anwar assault that cost him the votes. 

Ills of the land 

Mahathir also forgets that the Anwar episode had made a lot of people aware of the ills of the land: of authoritarian dominance; of the curtailment of dissent; of the abuse of power; of elite corruption; of the widening gap between the have-a-lots and a have-a-littles; of the marginalisation of the poor and powerless. 

It was through the Anwar episode that the masses - and not just an educated minority - realised that the judiciary was in a state of crisis, that the Internal Security Act (ISA) was an evil law, that most of the mainstream media served as a propaganda tool for the Barisan Nasional. 

For some Malay-Muslims the critical challenges facing the nation emanated from the government's lack of commitment to Islamic tenets. Mahathir, they alleged, had made some insensitive remark about the Prophet. He had also criticised some of the ulama. This further eroded his and the government's credibility. 

It is for all these reasons that the 'well-educated', the 'professionals', to use Mahathir's terms, turned against Umno and the BN. It was not because PAS had preached hatred against the government. The Mahathir government had brought about its own decline. 

Mahathir, as is obvious from the Asiaweek interview, will never admit this. He is, in that sense, in a state of perpetual denial. He will never accept that he is the primary cause of the political crisis that besets the nation. 

The whole truth 

His comments about his relationship to Anwar also reveal that he is not prepared to come to grips with the truth, the whole truth. He says that "this man [Anwar] who had been brought up by me, pushed up until he became my deputy was all along working for himself." 

While it is granted that Mahathir brought Anwar into the government and assisted in the latter's ascendancy within the party, it would be wrong to ignore what Anwar had done for Mahathir. Whenever there was a crisis in Umno or the government centering around Mahathir's political moves and manoeuvres, it was always Anwar who came to his rescue. 

This was true of the 1983 crisis involving the powers of the Rulers as it was true of the 1991 crisis related to the status of the monarchs. In the intense factional struggle for control of Umno from 1986 to 1988, Anwar was Mahathir's most faithful and most affective campaigner. 

Neither is it true that Anwar "built up cells in every organisation, in the police, in the armed forces, in the civil service, among the students, among the university teachers, abroad." Mahathir does not offer any concrete proof of these so-called 'cells'. 

There were a lot of people within the government, in the statutory agencies, in the private sector, in the NGO arena, who supported Anwar's leadership and policies. But it was not a personality- oriented support. Anwar himself never emphasised personal loyalty. This is why, for instance, he sought endorsement and assistance from the private sector for projects that benefitted the people like the government's low-cost housing programme rather than for grandiose ego-boosting schemes. 

It is partly because of his people-oriented programmes that Anwar was popular with the grassroots. It explains why a significant segment of society, especially within the Malay community, rallied around him as soon as he was sacked from the government and Umno in early September 1998. 

They saw him as a leader who was concerned about, and cared for, their needs. Besides, the popular perception of the man was that he was - compared to many other cabinet ministers - religiously inclined and morally upright. It is this, his public image and his popularity - rather than some imaginary 'cells' that he had created - that account for his spontaneous mass support. 

Overthrow 

Mahathir also alleges in the interview that Anwar "was plotting" and that "once he became deputy prime minister his next step was to overthrow me." Here again, there is no attempt to substantiate his claim. The Malaysian public however knows that when he was the DPM from 1993 to 1998, Anwar had on numerous occasions reiterated his loyalty to Mahathir. 

Nonetheless, there were events taking place especially during the regional financial crisis in 1997 and 1998 that were not known to the general public at that time which would show whether there was any basis at all to Mahathir's allegation about Anwar. 

As finance minister, Anwar was deeply perturbed by some of the measures adopted by Mahathir to overcome the crisis. The latter's bail-outs of huge corporations linked to the ruling elite - his son's shipping corporation being the most notable example - widened the rift between the two men. Mahathir viewed Anwar's reluctance to support the bailout of Mirzan's firm (Mahathir’s son) and other companies as a challenge to his authority. 

Since the public perception of these bailouts was largely negative, criticisms of Mahathir's handling of the financial crisis began to mount within political and business circles. Allegations of corruption, cronyism and nepotism were gaining currency. In a situation where the ringgit had depreciated, the value of stocks and shares was less than one-fifth of what it was before the crisis, and capital outflow, both foreign and domestic, massive, Mahathir knew that attacks on him could jeopardise his position. 

He became increasingly apprehensive when some of Anwar's supporters began to raise questions about his response to the economic downturn. To add to his woes, Suharto's 32 year iron-fisted rule came to an ignonimous end in neighbouring Indonesia in May 1998, following months of popular agitation against 'corruption, collusion and nepotism' fueled by the economic turmoil in the country - turmoil triggered off by the same financial crisis that had hit Malaysia and other East Asian states. 

Preemptive strike 

Because Mahathir felt that his own authoritarian grip upon power was threatened, he decided upon a preemptive strike against the only person who could pose a challenge to his position - his deputy. He resurrected allegations of sexual misconduct against Anwar - allegations which he himself had dismissed as baseless in August 1997 - in order to denigrate and humiliate him and destroy his political career. 

It is a point of great significance that in his Asiaweek interview Mahathir does not mention even once Anwar's alleged 'sexual misconduct' as the reason for his removal from government and the party. Unwittingly, he seems to suggest that the real reason was that Anwar wanted 'to overthrow' him. But from our analysis it is only too obvious that it was Mahathir's own fear that he would be challenged that made him act against his deputy. 

Fear 

That even totally unfounded fears of losing his position are enough to prompt him to act against a person is borne out by a disgraceful event in his political past. Because he was misled into believing that a full bench of the Supreme Court would make a decision in the celebrated case involving Umno's legality that could go against his interests, Mahathir decided to recommend the removal of the then Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas from office in 1988. 

Charges were fabricated against Tun Salleh, a tribunal found him guilty of 'judicial misconduct' and an innocent man was ousted from the judicial perch in the only case of its kind anywhere in the Commonwealth! If we reflect upon the Tun Salleh incident, we would discover some striking parallels to the Anwar episode. 

This is why in the ultimate analysis, the political crisis facing Malaysia today does not stem from PAS turning the people against the government or Anwar trying to topple Mahathir. They are largely the product of one man's obsession with power - power that he has exercised for almost 20 years.