Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times Barry Wain (grave mercy .TXT) 📖

He had to be talked out of wearing a military uniform and into traditional dress for his coronation. He shocked many Malays by demanding, after prayers at the National Mosque during Ramadan, that Deputy Prime Minister Musa Hitam, a Johore subject, apologize publicly for insulting him during the previous year's constitutional crisis. When Musa stood as directed, kissed the monarch's hand and apologized, the congregation broke out in applause. For the most part, though, the king performed dutifully, and he and Dr. Mahathir found it served their individual interests to cooperate. Indeed, Dr. Mahathir did nothing to expose a serious crime in 1987 — the king killed his golf caddy — which, if known, would have ruined and probably ended the king's reign. For his part, the king visibly acquiesced the following year in Dr. Mahathir's siege of the judiciary that left its independence in tatters.

In the states, however, some of the familiar frictions were at work. Kedah Chief Minister Syed Nahar Shahabuddin resigned, apparently a victim of the fallout from the constitutional crisis that left him uncomfortably opposed to his uncle, Tunku Abdul Rahman, and the rulers.[45] The Sultan of Selangor had a public row with the state's chief minister, Muhammad Muhammad Taib, over land development, complicated by the terms of Muhammad's divorce settlement with the sultan's daughter.[46] In Kelantan, the situation was much more serious, with the sultan accusing the UMNO chief minister of being corrupt. The sultan was targeted by UMNO after his uncle, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, broke with UMNO and formed his own party, which contested the 1990 general election in alliances with Parti Islam Se-Malaysia and with another opposition party. Dr. Mahathir and his supporters blamed the sultan's "political interference" for the loss of all of Kelantan's 13 parliamentary seats and 39 Legislative Assembly seats, a body blow to UMNO's pride.

A more general and widespread complaint came from the growing ranks of Malay businessmen, newly enfranchised by affirmative action policies, who found themselves shut out of some of the most lucrative investment fields by the web of interests associated with the royal houses. Young, self-confident and usually members of UMNO, these Malays saw little need to rely on the sultanates for symbolic protection. On the contrary, they resented the business competition, being particularly incensed by the alliances that some sultans had formed with established Chinese companies. According to Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin, the rulers had no compunction about writing directly to him seeking government contracts.[47]

Malay concerns about the rulers' ventures into both politics and business spilled into the open at UMNO's General Assembly in 1990, resulting in a unanimous resolution urging the royal families to uphold the federal and state constitutions. Emboldened, the delegates at the party's gathering a year later advocated a royal code of conduct. Negotiated by UMNO representatives and the rulers, the seven-page Proclamation of Constitutional Principles issued by the king on 4 July 1992 was of limited value. It was murky on many points and signed by only six sultans — the Johore, Kedah and Kelantan rulers declined — and while they said they would stay out of politics, accept federal government appointments to their respective states and refrain from active involvement in business, the code lacked constitutional force.[48]

Realizing that the consensual approach had failed, the government laid the groundwork to use its two-thirds parliamentary majority to change the Constitution and compel the sultans to behave, even though it would require the consent of the Conference of Rulers.[49] With Dr. Mahathir's tacit approval, the Malaysian press abandoned the free ride it had long given the sultans and their offspring, pouncing instead on any royal indiscretion. In one case, the out-of-favour Sultan Ismail Petra of Kelantan attracted a torrent of publicity when he walked into the customs cargo centre at Kuala Lumpur's airport and drove off in a Lamborghini Diablo, without paying the RM2.1 million import duty on the sports car. The sultan had exceeded his duty-free quota of seven cars, the government tax authorities ruled, and he must pay up. Several local businessmen ended the incident by taking up a collection and settling the bill for him.[50]

It was Sultan Iskandar's reversion to violent form, however, that "enabled shadow boxing to give way to a serious, and historic, confrontation" between the elected leadership and the monarchy.[51] Back in Johore after completing his term as king without public scandal, Sultan Iskandar was furious when his youngest son, 22, was suspended from field-hockey competition for five years for assaulting a Perak goalkeeper after a match. The sultan decided that if his son could not play, nobody else in Johore would either. On his orders, Johore hockey teams were withdrawn from competition, often at the last minute. When a leading Johore secondary school team was pulled out of a national tournament hours before it was due to start, coach Douglas Gomez criticized the decision. The sultan summoned Gomez to the palace on 30 November 1992 and thrashed him.

Seizing the moment, Dr. Mahathir's government moved swiftly to stoke popular revulsion over the assault and build a national consensus for a fresh effort to curb the monarchy. In fact, the Cabinet had laid the groundwork earlier by issuing a statement that royalty could not expect criminal behaviour to be covered up, a strong signal of support for the hockey authorities to impose the ban on the young prince. After encouraging Gomez to file a police report, Dr. Mahathir declared, "The royalty is not above the law. They cannot kill people. They cannot beat people."[52]

Less than two weeks after Sultan Iskandar's attack, the Malaysian Parliament took the unprecedented step of censuring him, with the 96 members of the 180-seat House of Representatives present at the session finding common cause. The motion said "all necessary action must be taken to ensure that a similar incident" did not happen again. It was the first time that the opposition had joined with parties from the ruling coalition to support a motion presented by the government.[53] It was also the first time