Reality is closing in fast on Sanusi. Mahathir has called a snap election for Nov. 29 that promises to be stranger than fiction. The prime minister is almost sure to win, not least because his administration has jailed his main rival and former chief deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, on charges of abusing his power to cover up acts of sodomy. Anwar has decided not to try to run from prison, but his demure wife, Wan Azizah Ismail, confirmed last week that she will stand in his stead. Opposition forces are rallying behind her in a motley Alternative Front that includes Malays tired of Mahathir’s heavy hand. A multiracial coalition of professionals and reformers is also demanding an end to cronyism and the widening gap between rich and poor. With only nine days to the campaign, the opposition is already claiming that its challenge has shaken the government’s credibility for the first time. “Mahathir’s legacy will not be restored by electoral victory,” says Jomo K. S., a respected political scientist who is an adviser to the opposition. “There’s no turning back; history moves on, and we’ll have a different Malaysia.”
The signs are there already. In Kedah, where Mahathir’s candidates used to sail into office, the election is up for grabs. With the rise of an educated middle class, demands for justice and more democratic government resonate even far from Kuala Lumpur. Over the din of presses churning in his small printing shop in Alor Setar, Yap Shui Fah, a promoter of Chinese education, talks about phasing out Mahathir’s system of reserving educational opportunities for the Malay majority. Yap is the sole Chinese representative in this predominantly Malay city of the new multiracial party, Keadilan. Founded by Azizah, Keadilan means “justice,” a reference not only to justice for her husband but also to creating a more transparent government and eliminating racial divisions in society. Realizing he had a small chance of winning in Kedah as a Chinese candidate, his party withdrew Yap last week from the election. “I would never have won,” Yap admits, “but the idea of justice won’t go away so easily.”
Mahathir knows that. The 74-year-old prime minister is often lampooned by his critics as an isolated old dictator. But he did not survive the Asian financial crisis to become the continent’s longest-serving ruler by being deaf to the public mood. Mahathir carefully timed his decision to call elections: the economy is growing at a remarkable 5 percent, and Mahathir is campaigning relentlessly on the idea that he represents stability. Government television has broadcast scenes from Indonesia’s turmoil with warnings that Malaysia could face the same fate; the pro-government press has reported that the opposition is planning riots if it loses the election. Mahathir is also raising old fears that the leading Muslim opposition party, called PAS, would turn Malaysia into a medieval Islamic state, and that UMNO’s fall could revive racial tensions that erupted in anti-Chinese riots in 1969. Mahathir has courted the Chinese vote and scared many women into voting for his party. Young, modern women worry that the rise of fundamentalist Islam would threaten their rights.
In response to calls for better government, Mahathir is also cleaning house of old UMNO party stalwarts in favor of “new faces.” In Kedah, Sanusi fears he may be the next to go, the victim of what he calls unfair opposition allegations of corruption. Handbills scattered around the local office of PAS accuse him of misusing his power to enrich cronies. They mention a proposed project to build an $8 billion airport on land reclaimed from the sea, adding that Kedah already has an underutilized airport. “The evil that men do,” he says, in Shakespearean reference to his accusers, “lives after them.” At least, he adds a moment later, that’s how the opposition coalition sees it.
Even if Mahathir doesn’t get rid of him, Sanusi is running scared. More than 20,000 people, many from the ranks of his own party, UMNO, have joined PAS, which is part of Azizah’s opposition coalition, in Kedah this year. Opposition politicians insist that Malays are turning to PAS not because of religious fervor but because they seek political change. “People are mad about the existing government’s abuses,” says Che Had Dhali, a local PAS official. On a recent day, Sanusi appeared on a radio talk show, spent hours talking to community leaders and met with local journalists. Among other things, the reporters have asked him about Anwar’s fate. “Voters are so excitable these days,” he says, seemingly baffled by their new demands. “They expect you to give answers to all the issues raised by the opposition.”
The old Malaysia, torn by parochial racial and religious differences, still looms large. Neither Mahathir’s camp nor the opposition is ready to stop using divisive issues to win votes. The opposition, for example, recently circulated a tape of a speech in which Mahathir criticized Islamic holy men as “hypocrites” for wading into politics. And most Malays are not willing to reject the affirmative-action system that has brought them benefits. Malaysians, quite rightly, credit Mahathir with building the country. But the Anwar case–in particular, his beating by the police chief–has sparked new demands for justice. A new, wired world of teenagers, intellectuals and professionals is no longer obsessed with nation building and the colonial past. They gloat over images splashed across the Internet of an aging emperor isolated by an army of sycophants. They are highly educated, hip to the world outside Malaysia and cynical about Mahathir’s ways. One day soon, Malaysia may be theirs.
