A morning in Sekinchan with Dr M

QUESTION TIME | It was a curious invitation for a colloquium on 1Malaysia Development Bhd or 1MDB, of all places in Sekinchan last Saturday. I was asked to be on one panel which would discuss money laundering and whether it was a failure of global financial institutions. A curious topic considering that 1MDB was our own failure much more than that of global financial institutions, but I accepted nevertheless, curiosity getting the better of me.

I knew it was going to be political with Sekinchan right smack in Sungai Besar, one of the two by-election venues, the other being Kuala Kangsar. When I saw the programme, it was very clear that it was indeed going to be very political - the keynote address was to be given by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. And the closing address would be by DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang.

Mahathir has taken up the cudgels in a focused, single-minded vendetta that demands the rejection of prime minister Najib Abdul Razak as prime minister in the wake of the 1MDB scandal, braving repeated questioning by police, risking accusations of sedition, facing up to cries of betrayal from Umno bigwigs and campaigning actively in the by-elections against BN.

So when we wound our way up by car via Meru and along the coastal towns to Sekinchan last Saturday, we knew it would be an interesting day even if not much more light on 1MDB was shed to the folks at Sekinchan that day. It would be an opportunity to watch Mahathir in action in person and to see how lucid and persuasive his campaigning would be.

Selangor, going over to opposition control in 2008, has not stopped its development one jot in the eight years since. This is pretty obvious as one passes the various towns on the route and how much they continue to grow - Kapar, Jeram, Assam Jawa, Kuala Selangor, the rice bowl of Tanjong Karang, and then Sekinchan.

Sekinchan town is much more than the fishing village of old. Yes, seafood restaurants abound and you can’t walk for long before encountering one. On the outskirts are padi fields, in many places golden with grain ripe for harvest. They also grow some pretty tasty mangoes, green or pale yellow outside but gold inside, that we bought later.

Lately, agrotourism has become big business here with homestays and other attractions. Why, there are even blocks of multi-storeyed serviced apartments. We were told you could rent a three-bedroom unit for RM1,100 a night over the weekend and spend your time exploring the area and then eating in one of their many seafood restaurants. In short, the town is booming.

Mahathir’s long-awaited address was supposed to start at 10am but by the time he spoke it was closer to 11am. Shrewdly, he had earlier visited Amanah’s Sungai Besar candidate’s father, who was bedridden and reportedly a former Umno strongman. Kit Siang went out of the hall, by now full, to meet him and they walked in together.

Mahathir progressed slowly up the aisle, not because he could not move faster - quite the contrary he looked the picture of health and fitness -  but because he had to frequently pause to shake a hand or two and the large number of press photographers in front of him who gave him little room to move forward. There was no doubt that he was the draw and the highlight. But will he perform?

Sekinchan is a very Chinese area and the reason that the 1MDB colloquium was being held in the centre of town was quite obvious. This is to make sure that Chinese voters come out in sufficient numbers on polling day - this Saturday - and vote for the Amanah candidate.

Amanah is a new Islamic party, a breakaway from PAS, effectively formed from the old Workers’ Party only on Sept 16 last year. Most people do not even know its symbol. It is the opposition coalition, Pakatan Harapan’s, new Islamic party member after PAS exited.

For DAP, an uphill battle it faces is to get the Chinese votes to Amanah, lots of it. If it can, Amanah stands a better chance of winning in a by-election where BN is generally thought to have a much better chance. Voters can be influenced by 1MDB and that RM2.6 billion (revised to RM4.2 billion) donation to Najib’s personal account with strong evidence the money came from 1MDB. But there was hudud too and the fast-tracking of the so-called hudud bill by Umno which would have upset Chinese voters.

Master politician

Without much fanfare but accompanied by many photographers, Mahathir was ushered to the podium with other dignitaries. Azhar Abdul Shukur, the candidate for Sungai Besar, was introduced and he signed the Citizen’s Declaration which called for Najib to step down as prime minister over the 1MDB scandal.

Then it took a few minutes to get people, mainly the press, to leave the podium. Mahathir was led to the rostrum and he started. He referred to a piece of paper at first - was he going to read from a prepared text? But no, that was a list of those he had to mention at the start of his address. He looked up after that and continued, looking directly at the crowd, never having to refer to anything else again. He focused on the two issues of the day - 1MDB and hudud.

His messaging was direct and as simple as can be. He was there not to support the opposition or anyone else, but he supported the Amanah candidate because he just signed the Citizen’s Declaration calling for Najib’s removal. Applause.

If Umno lost two seats - Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar - the opposition is not going to rule the country but let this be a referendum on Najib, he said. Send a message to him that the people no longer supported him, that they want him to step down as their prime minister.

Send a message to him that they are against all the anti-democratic moves he has made and restore democracy in the country and the right of people to express their opinion. And that a leader who was incompetent and corrupt can be removed by due process and by the people.

1MDB, he reminded, was Najib’s responsibility. It could not have happened without him. It was done with no thought of the people and it was done to ensure that Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, lived comfortably and in luxury. That RM2.6 billion was not a donation - he knows the Arabs, they won’t even donate a sen for a cause. Applause.

Then he turned to hudud. Don’t vote for PAS, he said, they don’t know how to rule. They are only interested in catching women who wear revealing clothes. Laughter. Hudud is just because Islam is just, but PAS’ hudud is not just.

If two men stole, and one went to jail for two months and the other’s hand was chopped off, is that justice, he asked rhetorically. Hudud can be imposed when Muslims form 100 percent of the population. In Malaysia only 60 percent of the population is Muslim, hudud cannot be imposed he said. Applause.

Before you knew it was over, and there was a press conference on stage. Soon after he went down the stairs, not to his chair, but down the aisle and out of the hall, and the hall was soon just half full. The main event was over. Mahathir had said his piece. The next day, he will deliver the keynote address at another 1MDB colloquium in Kuala Kangsar.

A superlative performance by a master politician who knew well the messages he wanted to get out and who did it simply - he was the best and most engaging speaker by far that day. He made you forget, if only for a moment, that he too was responsible for all this, that he too before Najib used draconian laws in place to put people in jail for expressing their views, including Kit Siang who sat next to him before Mahathir went up to speak. He too clung to power against all odds and subsequently made it very difficult to remove an incumbent Umno leader, which includes Najib now.

Most people have not forgotten but some at least forgave him, this 91-year-old man, a prime minister for 22 years who survived against all odds, fighting off Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah/Musa Hitam in 1987, a court case in 1988 which made Umno illegal, his chosen successor Anwar Ibrahim who was sacked in 1998, and imposing capital controls against the advice of key people in and out of government and defying the International Monetary Fund to fight the Asian financial crisis.

Some neither forgot nor forgave Mahathir for the state the country is in but gave him credit for his stamina and yes, his spunk and courage, to put his weight behind the opposition, head held high, posture erect, walking well on his own steam - whether he supported them otherwise or not - for the removal of Najib as prime minister. That is his one, unwavering aim in all of this.

If indeed Amanah wins in Sungai Besar or Kuala Kangsar or both, it will be in no small measure due to Mahathir and the fact that the problem that Najib has become has made such disparate people as Mahathir and Kit Siang unite and come together for a common “cause” despite an opposition divided by PAS’ absence from the coalition. 

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Former editor P GUNASEGARAM, now a consultant, trainer and writer, highly recommends Sekinchan mangoes. Contact: t.p.guna@gmail.com. -Mkini