Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times, Barry Wain [best mystery novels of all time .txt] 📗

wanted to explain why he was going to appoint Dr. Mahathir, but could not bring himself to utter the words.[46]

Ghafar Baba was also unhappy at being bypassed and refused to serve in Hussein's Cabinet, though he kept his senior vice president's post. The most disappointed, however, was Ghazali Shafie who, lacking grassroots appeal in UMNO, had missed what appeared to be a heaven-sent chance to be directly appointed prime minister-in-waiting. Undeterred, Ghazali pressed ahead with one of the most cynical power plays ever conducted in Malaysian politics, designed to stop Dr. Mahathir becoming prime minister and to claim the prize for himself.

His political cover was the factional fighting within UMNO, which flared anew after Razak's death. Conservatives, who already had been targeting left-leaning members of Razak's "palace guard", smelled blood once he was no longer around to protect them. With the Beijing-backed Malayan Communist Party still engaged in guerrilla warfare against the government, the Tunku's contemporaries criticized Razak's young advisers for his shift towards a non-aligned foreign policy, which included establishing diplomatic relations with China. On the domestic front, the conservatives, basically old-style laissez-faire capitalists, detected creeping socialism as official agencies in support of the NEP proliferated under Razak. While the rallying cry of the Old Guard was subversion at the heart of government, several issues, in reality, were being contested. Among them was an attempt to restore the political fortunes of the popular former chief minister of Selangor, Harun Idris, forced out by Razak for corruption.

Syed Jaafar Albar, who succeeded Harun as head of UMNO Youth, spearheaded the campaign to root out alleged communist sympathizers in senior government positions. He was joined by Tunku Abdul Rahman, who took revenge on the Razak staffers who had pushed him out in 1969 and ensured he received little coverage in the media in retirement. He found a vehicle in the form of a weekly column he began writing in the Star, owned by a friend's company that the Tunku chaired, which was later acquired by the Malaysian Chinese Association. "In my articles I started to pinpoint these fellows as enemies of the country, and that got the security people working on them," he said.[47] Among those he named were Abdul Samad Ismail, managing editor of the New Straits Times and a major literary figure, and two deputy ministers who had served on Razak's staff, Abdullah Ahmad and Abdullah Majid.

As home affairs minister in charge of internal security, Ghazali Shafie was only too willing to oblige. In addition to his towering ambition, he had no love for Abdullah Ahmad, who had helped engineer his failure in the vice presidential party stakes in 1975. Ghazali's weapon was the police Special Branch, a political-intelligence unit that kept tabs on enemies of UMNO and the government as religiously as it tracked enemies of the state, its formal mandate. Ghazali went one step further, deploying the Special Branch against his enemies within UMNO under the guise of a threat to national security.

In June 1976, just five weeks after being honoured by the prime minister with Malaysia's highest literary award, Samad Ismail was arrested as a suspected member of the outlawed Communist Party. He was detained without trial following the arrest of two journalists working for a Malay language paper in Singapore, who said they were part of a communist scheme directed by Samad. After Samad confessed on TV — as political detainees were required to do if they hoped ever to be released — that he had worked for years to subvert the government on the orders of communist agents abroad, Ghazali returned to the forefront of politics. He was the star of UMNO's General Assembly that year, receiving a standing ovation as he assured fellow delegates that the battle against communism was being fought and won.[48]

Amid calls for Samad's communist network to be dismantled, Abdullah Ahmad came under pressure. He was effectively sidelined by Hussein, who made him deputy minister for science, technology and environment. Summoned by the prime minister, Abdullah was informed that the Special Branch had identified him as a communist "agent of influence" behind the facade of a playboy. Hussein offered Abdullah an ambassadorial post if he agreed to go abroad and give up politics, but later withdrew the offer. He said that while he did not believe Abdullah was a communist, he would have to be detained temporarily.[49]

In November 1976, Abdullah Ahmad, 36, and Abdullah Majid, 50, deputy minister for labour and manpower, who had worked as Razak's press secretary, were arrested, along with four others. Intimidated by Special Branch officers, the "two Dollahs", as they were known, duly appeared on TV and confessed to communist activity while they held office. As the witch hunt accelerated and widened, Deputy Prime Minister Mahathir and Musa Hitam, minister for primary industries — the ultimate targets — began to feel the heat. The arrest of the two deputy ministers "in itself was attacking us, indirectly," Musa said later.[50]

Ghazali was able to jail so many people with no real evidence because he had an unwitting accomplice in Prime Minister Hussein Onn. Upright, honest and ill-suited to the rough and tumble of Malay politics, Hussein did not effectively control the UMNO he unexpectedly inherited. Ghazali was one of two cabinet members Hussein relied heavily on for advice, the other being Finance Minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. Naively, Hussein accepted Ghazali's reports at face value, as if unaware that the Special Branch used coercion where necessary to extract confessions from political detainees. Some of the detainees, such as Samad Ismail and Abdullah Majid, were easy prey because of their past involvement with the Communist Party during the anti-colonial struggle in Singapore. Had Hussein been alert to prevailing political currents, however, he might have noticed the weaknesses and inconsistencies in the cases against the accused. For a start, Abdullah Majid's confession that part of his work involved writing an article in 1974 praising China's progress sat oddly with the charge that he maintained close contact with Beijing's communist rival, the