It's an encounter that has gone into the folklore of our diplomatic service.
An Australian envoy meeting a senior Malaysian official heard a familiar
complaint about critical coverage of his country's politics in the
Australian media.
He snapped back: ''The media in Australia are not owned or controlled by
the government,'' the envoy said. ''Here they all are, and throughout
my time here, I've never seen a favourable report about Australia.''
Umno sent NST to 'work on' Xenophon
Senator Nick Xenophon, who went up last month to join an international
team looking at Malaysia's electoral system, has just had a personal
lesson in just how slanted and hostile its media can be. After the team
published a highly critical report, the New Straits Times newspaper,
owned ultimately by the ruling United Malays National Organisation or
UMNO, went to work on him.
It took a passage from one of his old parliamentary speeches on a
favourite topic - ''Scientology is not a religious organisation. It is a
criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious
beliefs'' - and substituted the world ''Islam'' for ''Scientology''
throughout. It's hard to think of a cheaper reporting trick in a
strongly Muslim country.
Malaysia no longer what it seems
Malaysia is a country of great wealth and many competencies, but despite
decades of high growth still falls behind its potential because it
hasn't yet shaken itself free of its poisonous beginnings. Riven by
massive fraud, waste and economic distortion, it is a country of
religious zeal, yet as noted by Bridget Welsh, a political scientist at
the Singapore Management University, its political life is dirty.
''Murder, sodomy, secret trysts, sex videos and conspiracy are all
commonplace, and corruption scandals occur regularly,'' she wrote on the
East Asia Forum website recently. ''Both sides wallow in this political
gutter, each trying to darken the reputation of the other, and not
fully appreciating how much the system as a whole has been damaged.''
Najib came with a lot of baggage
Australia and Australians have often been a convenient diversion from
this domestic mudslinging, with sniping reaching low points in the 22
years of Mahathir Mohamad's prime ministership.
It's getting testy again as Malaysia's current Prime Minister, Najib
Razak, heads towards a critical national election trying on one hand to
preserve the ethnic dominance endowed in UMNO and on the other to reform
the discredited underpinnings of that power.
Najib took the prime ministership after the UMNO-led ruling coalition
suffered a big setback in the last elections, in March 2009, losing the
two-thirds majority in Parliament that allowed it to make constitutional
amendments and control five of the 13 states to a three-party
opposition alliance put together by UMNO's alienated former deputy prime
minister Anwar Ibrahim.
Najib came with a lot of baggage - notably a kickback scandal on French
submarines purchased while he was defence minister, about which two
examining magistrates in Paris would like to interview him - but he's
tried to wield a new broom.
Reforms that don't work
A new economic policy is aimed at watering down preferences for ethnic
Malays. Stakes have been sold off in bloated public sector enterprises
to try to make them more efficient. Last month, the government repealed
the colonial-era Internal Security Act, which allowed indefinite
detention without trial, and it changed the public assembly law.
But the reforms haven't resulted in much perceptible change. The UMNO
membership is resisting a loss of Malay perks, entrenched cultures
remain in public enterprises like the national airline, and a
replacement security law has been widely condemned by local and
international human rights groups as wide open to similar abuse as the
old one.
One result has been that Najib's personal approval has been running at a
high 69 per cent in the opinion polls, while the UMNO coalition's
support has been a lacklustre 46 per cent or so, suggesting the public
give Najib marks for trying but don't think his efforts will work. About
a third of those favouring Najib say they will still vote for Anwar's
opposition.
What could be, won't be with Najib at the helm
Najib's support also has flicked sharply downwards when familiar
instruments of repression are wielded. A movement for electoral reform
called Bersih (meaning ''Clean'') led by a doughty woman barrister,
Ambiga Sreenavasan, has had its demonstrations declared illegal and then
met with massive police force. The latest was in Kuala Lumpur last
Saturday, attended by tens of thousands. Xenophon and other observers
shared in a dousing with tear gas and water cannon.
Bersih's concerns are echoed by the foreign observer group. The
electoral system gives wide scope for gerrymandering, with electorate
sizes ranging from 7000 to 100,000 voters. Suspiciously, numbers of new
voters, over 30 per cent of the previous total, are being registered in
opposition-held electorates. Party monitors have just been barred from
scrutinising the eligibility of intending voters at polling stations.
Armed force and police personnel have their votes scrutinised by senior
officers, and the 240,000 public servants assigned to election duties
are required to make postal votes. But strangely, the hundreds of
thousands of Malaysians working overseas or employed away from their
home towns are not allowed to make absentee votes. A snap poll - a
campaign is usually only about 10 days - means a lot of the country's
best and brightest won't have time to return to their place of registry.
Bersih's experience with the Malaysian traditional media - owned either
by the ruling parties in the case of the newspapers and commercial
television, or by politically-directed state broadcasters - illustrates
the problem of unequal access to campaign coverage. Before its recent
mass demonstrations, media stories have linked it variously to
Christian, Jewish and communist conspiracies, and even Islamic
extremists.
The internet has given outlets for opposition voices and analysis that
reach urban, well educated voters. But rural people get only the slanted
pro-government media, at best anodyne, at worse mendacious.
Xenophon's experience suggests the settings won't change for the
election Najib seems about to call. It's a pity, given what Malaysia
could be.
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