The Mahathir-Razaleigh feud of the 1980s, which led to the destruction of the old UMNO in 1988 -- the UMNO of today is not that UMNO, but a splinter group -- had a wider focus than a clash of personalities.  The electoral stunt yesterday when each apologised to the other in Kota Bharu yesterday for those happenings misses the point.  The clash, even if it was never spelt as starkly, had its root in how UMNO would develop.  The two men represented opposite ends of the UMNO divide.

When the New Economic Policy was formulated, Dr Mahathir was for a plan that would create a few billionaires, the policy he initiated when he bacame prime minister in 1981;  Tengku Razaleigh sides with Tun Abdul Razak and Tun Dr Ismail for a scheme that would develop entrepreneurs by
the thousands out of which may emerge a few billionaires.  The Prime Minister wanted to scrub out what he considered antequated culture mores and custom, while Tengku Razaleigh believes that Malaysia's development cannot take place by ignoring them.  Eventually, Tengku Razaleigh is
proven right, and this rapprochement, if any thing, is a reflection of that.  The Prime Minister has proven his policies to be wrong;  the Malay ground rebels in consequence;  and he patches up only to regain some of his lost authority.  It does not assuage the Malay anger.

In any discussion of the feud, the 1987 UMNO elections in which Dr Mahathir defeated Tengku Razaleigh must loom large.  In that election, Tengku Razaleigh won, until an engineered blackout changed the results. (Tengku Razaleigh once had on his staff two men who were bit players in
that drama.)  I have raised this with Tengku Razaleigh several times in the years since.  He would not elaborate, though he did discuss, and eschewed calls to protest by saying that only losers protest.  The division in UMNO this caused destroyed it, with the two rivals forming their own political parties, UMNO Baru and Semangat '46.  That divide remains beneath the surface, that with the dismissal, beating and jailing of the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the party was split, clearly and definably, three ways;  with a new opposition political party, Parti Keadilan Negara, adding to its problems.  The Tengku's faction remained on the sidelines even if the Tengku himself was back in the UMNO fold.  With the Anwar faction still
uncontrollable, Dr Mahathir had to bring Tengku Razaleigh's faction back irrevocably by this public display in Kota Bharu last night.  The front page photograph in the New Straits Times this morning (July 23) of the Prime Minister meeting the Sultan of Kelantan also overcome the Kelantan
perception that the Sultan kept him waiting the last time he wanted to see him.

The Tengku is appointed Kelantan UMNO liaison chief, his first official appointment since Semangat '46 disbanded and joined UMNO in 1996.  The rush to make that legal has to do with problems UMNO faces in the wake of the myriad of political and cultural problems after He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost was dismissed, beaten up and jailed. Methinks the Prime Minister left it too late to bring the rapprochement about.  I know of at least one of Tengku Razaleigh's lieutenants whom the Prime Minister had talked to concerning a cabinet appointment, seven times if I am not wrong, with even the portfolio discussion.  Nothing came of that.  The Prime Minister's refusal to accept Dato' Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as his successor -- in the recent CNBC interview, he was at
best vague about it -- is to make Tengku Razaleigh as his successor. But that is fraught with difficulties.  The UMNO Supreme Council, toothless as it is most of the time, unaccustomedly rebels.  Dato' Abdullah himself is no pushover.  But this rapprochement also is to convince the people of Kelantan that it must cut loose from PAS because of the development (and unpayable debt) that would come with an UMNO chief minister.  But this enthusiasm UMNO protrudes in Kelantan does not exist even in the Tengku's entourage.  With Keadilan moving out of Kelantan, it would be another straight fight, and in straight fights in the Malay states, UMNO is on the defensive.  With or without Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my