Today was the second time i was able to see and hear Tun Dr. Mahathir speak in person. Although he's 84 this year, his mind is still so sharp and his physical appearance is tip top. Though i disagree with many of his policies and deeds when he was the Prime Minister, he still demands my respect for his knowledge, his ability to answer questions from various sections of the floor with aplomb and most important of all he still retains his trademark sense of humour.
I was in attendance of the Perdana Discourse Series in which Mahathir was the keynote speaker on the topic : The Role Of The Executive, Legislative, Judiciary and Constitutional Monarchy In The Governing Of Malaysia. This is the 9th Discourse in the series.
The Perdana Discourse Series is a semi structured communication platform where a prominent presenter will speak to selected clusters of audience on a predetermined topic addressing its definition and tracing issues like policies, strategies and possible models used during the tenure of the past prime ministers, in addition to achievements accomplished throughout each of the four premierships. Discussions and issues arising from the discourse will be duly documented and mapped to form a tentative draft model of systematic connectivity incorporating strong elements vis-a-vis the issues addressed.
Getting to Putrajaya from PJ takes only around less than 20 mins now with the new Maju Expressway. The toll costs Rm 2.50 which is quite reasonable. Finding the Perdana Leadership Foundation building was kinda hard because it was our first time going there. Eventually we managed to find our way there. It was located far away from any other buildings in an idyllic location just by the lake with a beautiful backdrop of the Putrajaya main boulevard.
I will upload some pictures of this event sometime later. Now i don't really have the means and time to do it. Please do check back later.
Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
P3 of Ruling the Rulers : Mahathir Vs the Malay Rulers
By Huzir Sulaiman
BY October 1983, Malaysians were becoming aware that a constitutional crisis was in full swing. The Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 had been passed by both houses of Parliament, but the King, under pressure from his fellow rulers, was refusing to give his Royal Assent to it.
The bill would remove the need for the King to assent to legislation, and would similarly do away with the need for Sultans to assent to State laws. It would also take away the King's power to declare an Emergency and give it to the Prime Minister.
The Rulers publicly rejected these amendments after a meeting in Selangor on Nov 20, 1983. When the public became aware that a storm was brewing, Dr Mahathir’s administration initiated a propaganda war to put pressure on the Rulers.
There took place a “series of illegal public rallies held by Umno in Alor Star, Bagan Datoh, Seremban, Batu Pahat, Malacca, for the Prime Minister with reports of officially inflated crowd figures?.” as Lim Kit Siang would later describe them in the Dewan Rakyat.
These rallies, staged in order to generate sympathy for the Government’s cause, were illegal in the sense that police permits were neither sought nor granted.
Whether or not the crowd figures were inflated by the Umno-aligned media – it is true that they generally reported these events in positive terms – it is clear that the 1983 rallies were exciting evenings, with republican sentiments on everyone’s minds, if not exactly on their lips. One of the most arresting images in Rais Yatim’s Faces in the Corridor of Power is a photograph of two youths at one such rally. They are wearing T-shirts bearing Dr Mahathir’s picture and the words “DAULAT RAKYAT”.
Although the Prime Minister denied wanting to abolish the monarchy, at these rallies “the historical moment of unfolding Malay nationalism was relived as a continuing battle of Malay popular sovereignty against royal hegemony,” as Khoo Boo Teik writes in Paradoxes of Mahathirism.
At a rally in Alor Star on Nov 26, Dr Mahathir declared that “It was the rakyat who had protested against the Malayan Union after the Second World War; it was the rakyat who wanted a democratic system that would enable them to choose their own leaders. It was always the people who had fought for their destiny.”
At the largest rally, in Batu Pahat, Dr Mahathir told the crowds, in a thinly veiled dig at hereditary rulers, “We weren’t born Ministers ? We’re up here because we were chosen by all of you.”
The propaganda war continued, with tales of royal extravagance and impropriety emerging. The Government leaked the fact that they were compiling dossiers on the Sultans. RTM announced they were preparing a year-long TV series on the Rulers and the Constitution.
Yet pro-royal rallies took place too – especially in Kelantan and Terengganu, where Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah was rumoured to be responsible for them – and they drew large crowds, although they went unreported by the media.
Upping the ante, the Umno Youth executive council called for the Government to gazette the Constitution (Amendment) Bill without waiting for the King's assent, effectively daring the Rulers to challenge it in court. Dr Mahathir did not immediately adopt this strategy, but held this “nuclear option” in reserve while behind-the-scenes negotiations continued with the Rulers.
Public opinion was divided over the issue. Rural Malays tended to support the Rulers; urban Malays, while not uncritical of Mahathir’s strategies and motives, were more ready to accept egalitarian ideas.
As for the Chinese community, R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy note in Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir that “One might have expected that, since the rulers and the Agung were symbols of ‘Malayness’ the Chinese would feel little loyalty to them. Paradoxically, they were quite pro-royalty, because they did not really trust Malay politicians. Indeed, they viewed the Agung and the rulers as protectors of their vital interests.”
There seemed to be no way out of the impasse except by compromise – which is what happened. The Rulers agreed to the Constitutional (Amendment) Bill 1983 on the condition that many of its provisions were modified or repealed immediately with the introduction of the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1984.
The new bill, passed in January 1984, meant that the King could now only delay a piece of non-money legislation for a month. It then had to be sent back to Parliament with his objections. If the King still opposed it in the form in which Parliament then passed it, he could only delay it for another month before it was gazetted as law.
The King could therefore only delay legislation for up to two months before it became the law of the land.
But this principle was no longer extended to the State level: Sultans still needed to assent to State bills before they became law, which was an important symbolic victory. Most importantly for those who feared Dr Mahathir’s supposed plan to concentrate power in his own hands, the bill removed the proposed ability of the Prime Minister to declare an Emergency by himself, and restored it to the King.
Nonetheless, Dr Mahathir saw himself as having won, declaring at a victory rally in Malacca that the feudal system had ended. He had brought his theatrical, confrontational, unapologetically antagonistic style to a high-stakes arena and had, by some accounts at least, triumphed over the Malay Rulers.
He quickly moved to consolidate his gains. Stories had been circulating that the head of the army, Jen Tan Sri Mohd Zain Hashim, was opposed to Mahathir’s approach and believed the armed force’s loyalty lay with the Rulers. Mohd Zain took early retirement. This was followed by a reorganisation of the army and some 500 other early retirements and dismissals.
When the independent-minded Sultan of Johor took over as Yang di-Pertuan Agong in 1984, some feared (and some hoped) that royal activism would reassert itself.
As Roger Kershaw writes in Monarchy In South-East Asia: Faces of Tradition in Transition, “From the beginning, the Agong had made no secret of his contempt for Mahathir on the grounds of his mixed blood, calling him, to his face, ‘Mamak’ (a derogatory nickname for those of Indian Muslim ancestry). [?] But Dr Mahathir had proved more than a match for this difficult sovereign. Having got the measure of the King’s essential vanity and exhibitionism, he prudently pandered to it, even to the extent of placing a more convenient Royal Malaysian Airforce helicopter at his permanent disposal?.”
Through this and other measures, Dr Mahathir maintained good relations with the new King, enlisting him in his 1987 move against the judiciary, the effects of which are still felt today.
The Prime Minister’s campaign continued. He silenced the Rulers over the issue of the 1987 ISA detentions; staged a hostile debate on the monarchy in the 1990 Umno general assembly after the loss of Kelantan to PAS; removed the Rulers’ immunity to prosecution following the constitutional crisis of 1992-93; stripped away their flights, outriders, and special hospital wards; and in 1994, with little opposition, finally removed the need to obtain the Rulers’ assent for State laws.
Looking back, we can see how the bars of the yellow silk cage began to go up in 1983, closing in year after year.
Should we find it surprising, then, that after 25 years the tigers within should want to break free? Can we not understand that the Rulers might want to regain what has been lost?
And here is the hardest question of all: without giving up our democratic ideals, in a cynical and disloyal age, can we find a way to let our Rulers rule?
BY October 1983, Malaysians were becoming aware that a constitutional crisis was in full swing. The Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 had been passed by both houses of Parliament, but the King, under pressure from his fellow rulers, was refusing to give his Royal Assent to it.
The bill would remove the need for the King to assent to legislation, and would similarly do away with the need for Sultans to assent to State laws. It would also take away the King's power to declare an Emergency and give it to the Prime Minister.
The Rulers publicly rejected these amendments after a meeting in Selangor on Nov 20, 1983. When the public became aware that a storm was brewing, Dr Mahathir’s administration initiated a propaganda war to put pressure on the Rulers.
There took place a “series of illegal public rallies held by Umno in Alor Star, Bagan Datoh, Seremban, Batu Pahat, Malacca, for the Prime Minister with reports of officially inflated crowd figures?.” as Lim Kit Siang would later describe them in the Dewan Rakyat.
These rallies, staged in order to generate sympathy for the Government’s cause, were illegal in the sense that police permits were neither sought nor granted.
Whether or not the crowd figures were inflated by the Umno-aligned media – it is true that they generally reported these events in positive terms – it is clear that the 1983 rallies were exciting evenings, with republican sentiments on everyone’s minds, if not exactly on their lips. One of the most arresting images in Rais Yatim’s Faces in the Corridor of Power is a photograph of two youths at one such rally. They are wearing T-shirts bearing Dr Mahathir’s picture and the words “DAULAT RAKYAT”.
Although the Prime Minister denied wanting to abolish the monarchy, at these rallies “the historical moment of unfolding Malay nationalism was relived as a continuing battle of Malay popular sovereignty against royal hegemony,” as Khoo Boo Teik writes in Paradoxes of Mahathirism.
At a rally in Alor Star on Nov 26, Dr Mahathir declared that “It was the rakyat who had protested against the Malayan Union after the Second World War; it was the rakyat who wanted a democratic system that would enable them to choose their own leaders. It was always the people who had fought for their destiny.”
At the largest rally, in Batu Pahat, Dr Mahathir told the crowds, in a thinly veiled dig at hereditary rulers, “We weren’t born Ministers ? We’re up here because we were chosen by all of you.”
The propaganda war continued, with tales of royal extravagance and impropriety emerging. The Government leaked the fact that they were compiling dossiers on the Sultans. RTM announced they were preparing a year-long TV series on the Rulers and the Constitution.
Yet pro-royal rallies took place too – especially in Kelantan and Terengganu, where Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah was rumoured to be responsible for them – and they drew large crowds, although they went unreported by the media.
Upping the ante, the Umno Youth executive council called for the Government to gazette the Constitution (Amendment) Bill without waiting for the King's assent, effectively daring the Rulers to challenge it in court. Dr Mahathir did not immediately adopt this strategy, but held this “nuclear option” in reserve while behind-the-scenes negotiations continued with the Rulers.
Public opinion was divided over the issue. Rural Malays tended to support the Rulers; urban Malays, while not uncritical of Mahathir’s strategies and motives, were more ready to accept egalitarian ideas.
As for the Chinese community, R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy note in Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir that “One might have expected that, since the rulers and the Agung were symbols of ‘Malayness’ the Chinese would feel little loyalty to them. Paradoxically, they were quite pro-royalty, because they did not really trust Malay politicians. Indeed, they viewed the Agung and the rulers as protectors of their vital interests.”
There seemed to be no way out of the impasse except by compromise – which is what happened. The Rulers agreed to the Constitutional (Amendment) Bill 1983 on the condition that many of its provisions were modified or repealed immediately with the introduction of the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1984.
The new bill, passed in January 1984, meant that the King could now only delay a piece of non-money legislation for a month. It then had to be sent back to Parliament with his objections. If the King still opposed it in the form in which Parliament then passed it, he could only delay it for another month before it was gazetted as law.
The King could therefore only delay legislation for up to two months before it became the law of the land.
But this principle was no longer extended to the State level: Sultans still needed to assent to State bills before they became law, which was an important symbolic victory. Most importantly for those who feared Dr Mahathir’s supposed plan to concentrate power in his own hands, the bill removed the proposed ability of the Prime Minister to declare an Emergency by himself, and restored it to the King.
Nonetheless, Dr Mahathir saw himself as having won, declaring at a victory rally in Malacca that the feudal system had ended. He had brought his theatrical, confrontational, unapologetically antagonistic style to a high-stakes arena and had, by some accounts at least, triumphed over the Malay Rulers.
He quickly moved to consolidate his gains. Stories had been circulating that the head of the army, Jen Tan Sri Mohd Zain Hashim, was opposed to Mahathir’s approach and believed the armed force’s loyalty lay with the Rulers. Mohd Zain took early retirement. This was followed by a reorganisation of the army and some 500 other early retirements and dismissals.
When the independent-minded Sultan of Johor took over as Yang di-Pertuan Agong in 1984, some feared (and some hoped) that royal activism would reassert itself.
As Roger Kershaw writes in Monarchy In South-East Asia: Faces of Tradition in Transition, “From the beginning, the Agong had made no secret of his contempt for Mahathir on the grounds of his mixed blood, calling him, to his face, ‘Mamak’ (a derogatory nickname for those of Indian Muslim ancestry). [?] But Dr Mahathir had proved more than a match for this difficult sovereign. Having got the measure of the King’s essential vanity and exhibitionism, he prudently pandered to it, even to the extent of placing a more convenient Royal Malaysian Airforce helicopter at his permanent disposal?.”
Through this and other measures, Dr Mahathir maintained good relations with the new King, enlisting him in his 1987 move against the judiciary, the effects of which are still felt today.
The Prime Minister’s campaign continued. He silenced the Rulers over the issue of the 1987 ISA detentions; staged a hostile debate on the monarchy in the 1990 Umno general assembly after the loss of Kelantan to PAS; removed the Rulers’ immunity to prosecution following the constitutional crisis of 1992-93; stripped away their flights, outriders, and special hospital wards; and in 1994, with little opposition, finally removed the need to obtain the Rulers’ assent for State laws.
Looking back, we can see how the bars of the yellow silk cage began to go up in 1983, closing in year after year.
Should we find it surprising, then, that after 25 years the tigers within should want to break free? Can we not understand that the Rulers might want to regain what has been lost?
And here is the hardest question of all: without giving up our democratic ideals, in a cynical and disloyal age, can we find a way to let our Rulers rule?
Sunday, April 20, 2008
P2 of Ruling the Rulers : The Mahathir Years
By: Huzir Sulaiman
THE 1960s, although a tumultuous decade for many other reasons, was relatively quiet in terms of intervention by the Malay Rulers in matters of administration and politics.
The relationship between the Sultans and the Alliance Government was still benefiting from the effort both parties had been obliged to make to find common ground in the run-up to their negotiations with the British in 1956.
(Eventually, the Rulers had been persuaded to drop their opposition to the granting of citizenship to non-Malays born in Malaya, a provision insisted on by the British, championed, naturally, by the MIC and MCA, and accepted by Umno only with a certain amount of trauma.)
But the honeymoon period of the new constitutional monarchy couldn’t last forever.
By 1981, when Dr Mahathir Mohamad succeeded Hussein Onn as Prime Minister of Malaysia, the country was in the giddy throes of a surge in royal activism.
The period from 1977 to 1983 saw several Sultans make their presence felt in the political arena to a far greater degree than had been previously seen.
The close of Hussein Onn’s premiership saw conflicts between several Sultans and Mentris Besar erupt into the open.
In 1977, the Sultan of Kelantan attempted to intervene in a crisis caused by the deteriorating relations between PAS and Umno (then in a short-lived alliance).
The Sultan attempted to postpone the dissolution of the State Assembly following a vote of no confidence in the Mentri Besar, in order that a replacement MB could be found from PAS without elections being called.
Unrest followed, which was ample pretext for the Federal Government to declare a State of Emergency in Kelantan. In the subsequent State elections, Umno came to power, a situation that the Sultan had been trying to avoid.
Things were heating up elsewhere, too. In 1977 the Sultan of Perak ostracised his Mentri Besar to the point that he was forced to resign. In 1978, the Sultan of Pahang rejected the Umno nominee for MB and, in 1981, the Sultan of Johor forced his MB to resign after 14 years in office.
We cannot know with any certainty what the new Prime Minister’s attitudes were towards the Malay Rulers when he assumed office in 1981 in the midst of this burgeoning atmosphere of royal assertiveness.
However, in Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad, Khoo Boo Teik argues that “Mahathir was not necessarily an out and out ‘anti-royalist’. He found heroes in strong modernising sovereigns such as Peter the Great and the Meiji Emperor but his attitude towards the Malay royalty was less admiring.”
Khoo notes that “Mahathir’s disdain for the Malay rulers had ? been expressed in oblique criticism before.
“C.H.E. Det (Mahathir’s pen name in the late 1940s) had cast the 1949 conflict between the Malay royalty and the nascent Umno leadership as a conflict between ‘rulers and rakyats’. Then, C.H.E. Det stood with those who thought that the rulers had either to yield to the wishes of Umno and its supporters or to forfeit the loyalty of the Malays.”
What is almost certain is that Dr Mahathir would have been aware that the independent-minded Sultans of Perak and Johor were the two most likely candidates to become the next Agong in 1984.
Indeed, their Highnesses were shortly to demonstrate their autonomy in ways that led to a measure of public distress.
In 1982, the Sultan of Perak, in his capacity as Head of Religion in his State, looked at the two permissible methods used to calculate the timing of Hari Raya Puasa, and chose the one different from that used in the rest of the country.
That year the fasting month ended a day earlier in Perak, disrupting travel plans and inadvertently making it a rather stressful holiday for the Malay community.
The following year, both the Sultans of Perak and Johor used the alternate method, and their two States celebrated Hari Raya a day earlier than the rest of Malaysia.
Some commentators have suggested that the distress of the “variant Hari Raya” prompted Dr Mahathir’s subsequent desire to concentrate administrative power in the Federal Government.
But R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, in Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir, citing interviews with Umno ministers, suggest that what became known as the 1983 constitutional crisis “was precipitated by reports, received by Mahathir, that the Sultan of Johor stated at a gathering that when he was elected Agong he would unilaterally declare a state of emergency, and with the aid of the army, throw out all the politicians.
“Compounding this were stories that the Sultan was close to certain key military men, and that the army chief, General Tan Sri Mohd Zain Hashim, had criticised Mahathir’s approach and had questioned where the army’s loyalty rested.”
Whatever the case may be, on Aug 1, the Government brought the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 before both houses of Parliament, and it was quickly passed.
The bill put forward 22 amendments to the Federal Constitution, including three very significant changes to the position of the Malay Rulers.
First, it removed the need for the Agong to give his Royal Assent to a piece of legislation before it could be gazetted as law. Instead, it stipulated that if the Agong did not give his Assent within 15 days, he was deemed to have done so, and the law could come into effect.
Second, it introduced parallel provisions removing the need for a Sultan to give his Assent to State laws.
Third, it transferred the power to declare an Emergency from the Agong (who was, in any case, supposed to act on the advice of Cabinet in this regard) directly to the Prime Minister, who was not obliged to act on anyone’s advice.
The Prime Minister’s Department had ordered a press blackout on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 and, so, while the fact of the bill’s passing was mentioned, its significance was downplayed, and the debate – including an impassioned speech in opposition to it by DAP’s Lim Kit Siang – did not appear in local media.
For the following two months, nothing appeared. But a right royal storm was brewing.
Immediately, the liberal intelligentsia opposed the provision that allowed the Prime Minister to unilaterally declare an Emergency.
On Aug 2, 1983, Aliran issued a statement condemning the Bill, claiming the proposed amendment “opens the way to political abuse. For the Prime Minister is, in the ultimate analysis, a political personality very much involved in the conflicts and compromises of party politics. There is no constitutional mechanism for ensuring that he will not use his emergency powers against his political foes from any quarter.
“It is simply not possible to prevent an ambitious Prime Minister in the future from emerging as a ‘supremo’ after the proclamation of an emergency.”
But, under the strict press blackout, it was not reported.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the public, the Agong, under pressure from his fellow Rulers, refused to give his Assent to the Bill.
The Rulers maintained that the Bill contravened Article 38(4) of the Constitution, which stated that “No law directly affecting the privileges, position, honours or dignities of the Rulers shall be passed without the consent of the Conference of Rulers.”
The Rulers had also come to understand the full legal implications of removing the need for Royal Assent to legislation. It meant that if Parliament voted to abolish the monarchy, the Rulers would be powerless to stop them.
Tensions continued to build behind the scenes. It was only in October, when Senu Abdul Rahman circulated a letter condemning the amendments, followed by Tunku Abdul Rahman defying the gag order by writing about them in the pages of this newspaper, that Malaysians woke up to the crisis.
There were also disagreements within Umno; as Gordon P. Means notes in Malaysian Politics: the Second Generation, “? many in the ruling coalition were distressed by the contents of the amendments and the confrontational style of Dr Mahathir towards the Malay Rulers.”
Some establishment figures believed the Prime Minister had far-reaching aims. In a 1988 interview transcribed in K. Das & The Tunku Tapes, Tunku Abdul Rahman and the veteran journalist discuss the constitutional crisis.
If one can look past the bitchy, surat layang (poison pen letter) tone of their stories about Dr Mahathir’s children, one can get a snapshot of the groundswell of suspicion.
Tunku: “You see, the Malays have a cause for adat, resam and so on ? tradition. I have a respect for it but he has none. He dislikes it. You see, his whole aim is to upset the constitution and turn this country into a republic. His son was in London talking quite openly amongst the students that his father is going to be the first President of Malaya.”
Das: “I head his daughter was also talking about it here ? Apparently she was caught talking about it at a party not knowing that behind her was one of the Tengkus from Negri Sembilan who overheard it. She said that as soon as the constitution amendment is signed, it is finished, we can become a republic.”
Against this background of suspicion, the 1983 constitutional crisis spilled out into the open, and the conflict grew even more intense.
In the next instalment of Ruling the Rulers, Wide Angle will look at the propaganda war and the resolution of the crisis. And, the other crises that lay in wait for Dr Mahathir and the Malay Rulers.
THE 1960s, although a tumultuous decade for many other reasons, was relatively quiet in terms of intervention by the Malay Rulers in matters of administration and politics.
The relationship between the Sultans and the Alliance Government was still benefiting from the effort both parties had been obliged to make to find common ground in the run-up to their negotiations with the British in 1956.
(Eventually, the Rulers had been persuaded to drop their opposition to the granting of citizenship to non-Malays born in Malaya, a provision insisted on by the British, championed, naturally, by the MIC and MCA, and accepted by Umno only with a certain amount of trauma.)
But the honeymoon period of the new constitutional monarchy couldn’t last forever.
By 1981, when Dr Mahathir Mohamad succeeded Hussein Onn as Prime Minister of Malaysia, the country was in the giddy throes of a surge in royal activism.
The period from 1977 to 1983 saw several Sultans make their presence felt in the political arena to a far greater degree than had been previously seen.
The close of Hussein Onn’s premiership saw conflicts between several Sultans and Mentris Besar erupt into the open.
In 1977, the Sultan of Kelantan attempted to intervene in a crisis caused by the deteriorating relations between PAS and Umno (then in a short-lived alliance).
The Sultan attempted to postpone the dissolution of the State Assembly following a vote of no confidence in the Mentri Besar, in order that a replacement MB could be found from PAS without elections being called.
Unrest followed, which was ample pretext for the Federal Government to declare a State of Emergency in Kelantan. In the subsequent State elections, Umno came to power, a situation that the Sultan had been trying to avoid.
Things were heating up elsewhere, too. In 1977 the Sultan of Perak ostracised his Mentri Besar to the point that he was forced to resign. In 1978, the Sultan of Pahang rejected the Umno nominee for MB and, in 1981, the Sultan of Johor forced his MB to resign after 14 years in office.
We cannot know with any certainty what the new Prime Minister’s attitudes were towards the Malay Rulers when he assumed office in 1981 in the midst of this burgeoning atmosphere of royal assertiveness.
However, in Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad, Khoo Boo Teik argues that “Mahathir was not necessarily an out and out ‘anti-royalist’. He found heroes in strong modernising sovereigns such as Peter the Great and the Meiji Emperor but his attitude towards the Malay royalty was less admiring.”
Khoo notes that “Mahathir’s disdain for the Malay rulers had ? been expressed in oblique criticism before.
“C.H.E. Det (Mahathir’s pen name in the late 1940s) had cast the 1949 conflict between the Malay royalty and the nascent Umno leadership as a conflict between ‘rulers and rakyats’. Then, C.H.E. Det stood with those who thought that the rulers had either to yield to the wishes of Umno and its supporters or to forfeit the loyalty of the Malays.”
What is almost certain is that Dr Mahathir would have been aware that the independent-minded Sultans of Perak and Johor were the two most likely candidates to become the next Agong in 1984.
Indeed, their Highnesses were shortly to demonstrate their autonomy in ways that led to a measure of public distress.
In 1982, the Sultan of Perak, in his capacity as Head of Religion in his State, looked at the two permissible methods used to calculate the timing of Hari Raya Puasa, and chose the one different from that used in the rest of the country.
That year the fasting month ended a day earlier in Perak, disrupting travel plans and inadvertently making it a rather stressful holiday for the Malay community.
The following year, both the Sultans of Perak and Johor used the alternate method, and their two States celebrated Hari Raya a day earlier than the rest of Malaysia.
Some commentators have suggested that the distress of the “variant Hari Raya” prompted Dr Mahathir’s subsequent desire to concentrate administrative power in the Federal Government.
But R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, in Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir, citing interviews with Umno ministers, suggest that what became known as the 1983 constitutional crisis “was precipitated by reports, received by Mahathir, that the Sultan of Johor stated at a gathering that when he was elected Agong he would unilaterally declare a state of emergency, and with the aid of the army, throw out all the politicians.
“Compounding this were stories that the Sultan was close to certain key military men, and that the army chief, General Tan Sri Mohd Zain Hashim, had criticised Mahathir’s approach and had questioned where the army’s loyalty rested.”
Whatever the case may be, on Aug 1, the Government brought the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 before both houses of Parliament, and it was quickly passed.
The bill put forward 22 amendments to the Federal Constitution, including three very significant changes to the position of the Malay Rulers.
First, it removed the need for the Agong to give his Royal Assent to a piece of legislation before it could be gazetted as law. Instead, it stipulated that if the Agong did not give his Assent within 15 days, he was deemed to have done so, and the law could come into effect.
Second, it introduced parallel provisions removing the need for a Sultan to give his Assent to State laws.
Third, it transferred the power to declare an Emergency from the Agong (who was, in any case, supposed to act on the advice of Cabinet in this regard) directly to the Prime Minister, who was not obliged to act on anyone’s advice.
The Prime Minister’s Department had ordered a press blackout on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 and, so, while the fact of the bill’s passing was mentioned, its significance was downplayed, and the debate – including an impassioned speech in opposition to it by DAP’s Lim Kit Siang – did not appear in local media.
For the following two months, nothing appeared. But a right royal storm was brewing.
Immediately, the liberal intelligentsia opposed the provision that allowed the Prime Minister to unilaterally declare an Emergency.
On Aug 2, 1983, Aliran issued a statement condemning the Bill, claiming the proposed amendment “opens the way to political abuse. For the Prime Minister is, in the ultimate analysis, a political personality very much involved in the conflicts and compromises of party politics. There is no constitutional mechanism for ensuring that he will not use his emergency powers against his political foes from any quarter.
“It is simply not possible to prevent an ambitious Prime Minister in the future from emerging as a ‘supremo’ after the proclamation of an emergency.”
But, under the strict press blackout, it was not reported.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the public, the Agong, under pressure from his fellow Rulers, refused to give his Assent to the Bill.
The Rulers maintained that the Bill contravened Article 38(4) of the Constitution, which stated that “No law directly affecting the privileges, position, honours or dignities of the Rulers shall be passed without the consent of the Conference of Rulers.”
The Rulers had also come to understand the full legal implications of removing the need for Royal Assent to legislation. It meant that if Parliament voted to abolish the monarchy, the Rulers would be powerless to stop them.
Tensions continued to build behind the scenes. It was only in October, when Senu Abdul Rahman circulated a letter condemning the amendments, followed by Tunku Abdul Rahman defying the gag order by writing about them in the pages of this newspaper, that Malaysians woke up to the crisis.
There were also disagreements within Umno; as Gordon P. Means notes in Malaysian Politics: the Second Generation, “? many in the ruling coalition were distressed by the contents of the amendments and the confrontational style of Dr Mahathir towards the Malay Rulers.”
Some establishment figures believed the Prime Minister had far-reaching aims. In a 1988 interview transcribed in K. Das & The Tunku Tapes, Tunku Abdul Rahman and the veteran journalist discuss the constitutional crisis.
If one can look past the bitchy, surat layang (poison pen letter) tone of their stories about Dr Mahathir’s children, one can get a snapshot of the groundswell of suspicion.
Tunku: “You see, the Malays have a cause for adat, resam and so on ? tradition. I have a respect for it but he has none. He dislikes it. You see, his whole aim is to upset the constitution and turn this country into a republic. His son was in London talking quite openly amongst the students that his father is going to be the first President of Malaya.”
Das: “I head his daughter was also talking about it here ? Apparently she was caught talking about it at a party not knowing that behind her was one of the Tengkus from Negri Sembilan who overheard it. She said that as soon as the constitution amendment is signed, it is finished, we can become a republic.”
Against this background of suspicion, the 1983 constitutional crisis spilled out into the open, and the conflict grew even more intense.
In the next instalment of Ruling the Rulers, Wide Angle will look at the propaganda war and the resolution of the crisis. And, the other crises that lay in wait for Dr Mahathir and the Malay Rulers.
Ruling the Rulers
By: Huzir Sulaiman
IN 1779, the Dutch Governor of Malacca commissioned a study of Malay court ceremonies. The scribes took as their source a learned mosque official named Abdulmuhit who knew of the traditional ways of the Malacca Sultanate two centuries past. The resulting manuscript, the Adat Raja-Raja Melayu, mentions the ritualised insolence of the Prime Minister towards the Sultan.
According to the commentary of Prof Panuti Hudjiman of the University of Indonesia, when the Sultan summons the Bendahara, or royal Prime Minister, to attend a betrothal ceremony, “the Bendahara has a peculiar way of responding to this royal summons. When the messenger approaches him for the first time, he replies, ‘Datanglah kita mengadap’ (We will come).
“Instead of going straight away to the palace, the Bendahara takes a bath. Again a messenger is sent, only to be told by the Bendahara to return to the palace, as the Bendahara is coming. The Bendahara lets people wait for him: he gets dressed, and waits for a third summons before he obeys.?
“This is to show his position in relation to the king: the Bendahara is chief advisor to the king and is regarded as the power behind the throne. The use of the pluralis majestatis “kita” (the royal “we”) must be an assertion of superiority or arrogance.”
This is not just an isolated case being reported; the Bendahara repeats this ritualised show of arrogance when a new Sultan is crowned and the Bendahara is called back to serve, refusing to approach until the third summons.
We can see from the Adat Raja-Raja Melayu that the tensions between the Malay ruler and his powerful ministers were already encoded in the culture of Malay kingship at the time of its early flowering in the Malacca Sultanate – and I would argue that we are seeing echoes of it today in the recent standoff between Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong, who is also Sultan of Terengganu, and the Prime Minister.
It’s tempting to interpret the degree of interest shown by Their Highnesses the Sultans in the recent selection of Mentris Besar as a sudden flowering of royal activism, to be viewed with either glee or concern, depending on your attitude towards the Federal Government.
Seen from a historical perspective, however, this supposedly new royal intervention in the political arena is just the latest recurrence of the natural and understandable desire of the Malay ruler to actually do a bit of ruling once in a while – a desire that in the last 100 years has been continually constrained by the demands of British imperialists and Malay nationalists alike.
We should not be surprised that the Malay Rulers are making noise now; rather, we should be shocked that they have been quiet for so long. Much as they once had to deal with a ritually rude Bendahara, Their Highnesses have been obliged to accept as graciously as possible the interference of others.
In the colonial period, in the years before World War II, the Unfederated Malay States of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu, and Johor had British Advisors who in the course of their “advising” attempted with varying degrees of success to govern indirectly.
From 1896, the Federated Malay States of Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, and Pahang had British Residents imposed on them by treaty, and who governed quite directly, making proclamations and decrees that began with the famously offensive formula “The British Resident is pleased to?”.
The Japanese Occupation of Malaya saw some Sultans deposed by the new invaders, and others intimidated into cooperation. After the Japanese surrender, the British Military Administration presented itself to the Malay Rulers as the sole authority capable of recognising them as legitimate. If the Rulers were deemed to have collaborated with the Japanese or, more crucially, if they were not prepared to sign a new set of treaties turning over all their authority to Britain, they would be removed.
Brigadier H.C. Willan’s report on the Sultans on Oct 7, 1945, is a chilling example of the cynical exercise of power:
“In my view it would be wise to approach the Sultan of Johore first with regard to the negotiations for the new treaties. I think in his present state of mind he will sign. He is a realist and is fully aware that he is dependent on H.M.G.’s support ?
“(The Sultan of Selangor) is a pleasant person with not a very strong character and at present is so overjoyed at the return of the British and re-recognition of himself as Sultan, that in my view, he will sign the new treaty ?’’
“In my view the Yam Tuan of Negri Sembilan should be approached next. In his present state of mind he is somewhat depressed and appears to me to be perplexed as to how his State can recover itself and would welcome directions rather than advice?.”
In the end, on pain of being deposed in favour of someone more accommodating, all nine Malay Rulers signed the MacMichael treaties, giving up virtually all their sovereign powers, except those relating to religion and Malay culture.
This first step towards Britain’s planned Malayan Union angered the burgeoning Malay nationalist movement, but scholars have pointed out that it was not so much the curtailment of the Malay Rulers’ powers that affronted Datuk Onn Jaafar and his comrades, as it was the British proposal that citizenship be granted to non-Malays born in Malaya.
It was the perceived threat to the powers of the Malay community, as opposed to the Malay Rulers, that truly galvanised the nationalists. (Indeed, Onn was arguably ambivalent about the Sultans, having in his younger days written newspaper articles critical of the Sultan of Johor.)
On March 30, 1946, the Malay Rulers were gathered in Kuala Lumpur to attend the installation of Sir Edward Gent, the new Governor. As Harry Miller tells it in his biography of Tunku Abdul Rahman, “That afternoon Onn personally conveyed to the Rulers a message from the United Malays National Organisation that it was the ‘desire of their people’ that they should not attend the Governor’s installation, and, indeed, they should ‘desist from taking part in any function connected with the Union.’
“The message went further: If the Rulers insisted on meeting the Governor they would be disowned by the people, who were determined to boycott the Malayan Union.”
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the hotel where the Sultans were staying, shouting “Daulat Tuanku!” and “Hidup Melayu!”
As Miller puts it, “The Rulers walked down to the great crowded porch to receive the obeisance of the demonstrators. This was also a touching scene, although the more unyielding of the leaders in the U.M.N.O. said later, ‘We brought them down those stairs to teach them a lesson. They were lucky we did not destroy them completely for having signed the MacMichael treaties. As it was, we told them we would support them.’”
Caught between the “rock” of the British colonial authorities and the “hard place” of the angry Malay nationalists, the Malay Rulers complained to London that they were coerced into signing the MacMichael treaties, boycotted the Governor’s installation, and maintained a distance from him in public (while maintaining warm and cordial relations in private) until the British realised that the groundswell of opposition to the Malayan Union was too strong, and backed down.
The Federation of Malaya, the compromise constitutional scheme reached in 1948, saw Britain appointing Advisors who were truly advisory, with the states’ executive powers passing to the Mentris Besar.
Nonetheless, it appears clear that the Malay Rulers still feared that they would be emasculated by Umno, and Onn could not entirely reassure them.
As Sir Malcolm MacDonald wrote to Sir Henry Gurney on Dec 15, 1949, “In my talk with him on December 12th, Dato’ Onn told me of his recent talk with the Mentris Besar ? They asked him whether he proposed that the Rulers should be ousted in the near future. He replied emphatically in the negative. He said that probably in due course at least many of the Rulers would be abolished, because the Malays themselves would wish this. But that would not happen for a long time and depended on Malay public opinion.” (Emphasis mine.)
For Malaysians of my generation, who have grown up conditioned by the Sedition Act to not entertain the slightest republican thought, it is shocking to hear the founder of Umno coolly tell the Sultans’ ministers that he supposed Malays would one day wish for the abolition of their Rulers.
Six decades later, that day is still unthinkable.
But from the pre-Merdeka negotiations of the Alliance through to the events of the 1981-2003 era – when the metaphorical Bendahara was not so much ignoring the Sultan’s summons as trying to do the summoning – the Malay Rulers have had to stoically endure many more attempts to curtail their powers. I will examine this in my next column.
IN 1779, the Dutch Governor of Malacca commissioned a study of Malay court ceremonies. The scribes took as their source a learned mosque official named Abdulmuhit who knew of the traditional ways of the Malacca Sultanate two centuries past. The resulting manuscript, the Adat Raja-Raja Melayu, mentions the ritualised insolence of the Prime Minister towards the Sultan.
According to the commentary of Prof Panuti Hudjiman of the University of Indonesia, when the Sultan summons the Bendahara, or royal Prime Minister, to attend a betrothal ceremony, “the Bendahara has a peculiar way of responding to this royal summons. When the messenger approaches him for the first time, he replies, ‘Datanglah kita mengadap’ (We will come).
“Instead of going straight away to the palace, the Bendahara takes a bath. Again a messenger is sent, only to be told by the Bendahara to return to the palace, as the Bendahara is coming. The Bendahara lets people wait for him: he gets dressed, and waits for a third summons before he obeys.?
“This is to show his position in relation to the king: the Bendahara is chief advisor to the king and is regarded as the power behind the throne. The use of the pluralis majestatis “kita” (the royal “we”) must be an assertion of superiority or arrogance.”
This is not just an isolated case being reported; the Bendahara repeats this ritualised show of arrogance when a new Sultan is crowned and the Bendahara is called back to serve, refusing to approach until the third summons.
We can see from the Adat Raja-Raja Melayu that the tensions between the Malay ruler and his powerful ministers were already encoded in the culture of Malay kingship at the time of its early flowering in the Malacca Sultanate – and I would argue that we are seeing echoes of it today in the recent standoff between Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong, who is also Sultan of Terengganu, and the Prime Minister.
It’s tempting to interpret the degree of interest shown by Their Highnesses the Sultans in the recent selection of Mentris Besar as a sudden flowering of royal activism, to be viewed with either glee or concern, depending on your attitude towards the Federal Government.
Seen from a historical perspective, however, this supposedly new royal intervention in the political arena is just the latest recurrence of the natural and understandable desire of the Malay ruler to actually do a bit of ruling once in a while – a desire that in the last 100 years has been continually constrained by the demands of British imperialists and Malay nationalists alike.
We should not be surprised that the Malay Rulers are making noise now; rather, we should be shocked that they have been quiet for so long. Much as they once had to deal with a ritually rude Bendahara, Their Highnesses have been obliged to accept as graciously as possible the interference of others.
In the colonial period, in the years before World War II, the Unfederated Malay States of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu, and Johor had British Advisors who in the course of their “advising” attempted with varying degrees of success to govern indirectly.
From 1896, the Federated Malay States of Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, and Pahang had British Residents imposed on them by treaty, and who governed quite directly, making proclamations and decrees that began with the famously offensive formula “The British Resident is pleased to?”.
The Japanese Occupation of Malaya saw some Sultans deposed by the new invaders, and others intimidated into cooperation. After the Japanese surrender, the British Military Administration presented itself to the Malay Rulers as the sole authority capable of recognising them as legitimate. If the Rulers were deemed to have collaborated with the Japanese or, more crucially, if they were not prepared to sign a new set of treaties turning over all their authority to Britain, they would be removed.
Brigadier H.C. Willan’s report on the Sultans on Oct 7, 1945, is a chilling example of the cynical exercise of power:
“In my view it would be wise to approach the Sultan of Johore first with regard to the negotiations for the new treaties. I think in his present state of mind he will sign. He is a realist and is fully aware that he is dependent on H.M.G.’s support ?
“(The Sultan of Selangor) is a pleasant person with not a very strong character and at present is so overjoyed at the return of the British and re-recognition of himself as Sultan, that in my view, he will sign the new treaty ?’’
“In my view the Yam Tuan of Negri Sembilan should be approached next. In his present state of mind he is somewhat depressed and appears to me to be perplexed as to how his State can recover itself and would welcome directions rather than advice?.”
In the end, on pain of being deposed in favour of someone more accommodating, all nine Malay Rulers signed the MacMichael treaties, giving up virtually all their sovereign powers, except those relating to religion and Malay culture.
This first step towards Britain’s planned Malayan Union angered the burgeoning Malay nationalist movement, but scholars have pointed out that it was not so much the curtailment of the Malay Rulers’ powers that affronted Datuk Onn Jaafar and his comrades, as it was the British proposal that citizenship be granted to non-Malays born in Malaya.
It was the perceived threat to the powers of the Malay community, as opposed to the Malay Rulers, that truly galvanised the nationalists. (Indeed, Onn was arguably ambivalent about the Sultans, having in his younger days written newspaper articles critical of the Sultan of Johor.)
On March 30, 1946, the Malay Rulers were gathered in Kuala Lumpur to attend the installation of Sir Edward Gent, the new Governor. As Harry Miller tells it in his biography of Tunku Abdul Rahman, “That afternoon Onn personally conveyed to the Rulers a message from the United Malays National Organisation that it was the ‘desire of their people’ that they should not attend the Governor’s installation, and, indeed, they should ‘desist from taking part in any function connected with the Union.’
“The message went further: If the Rulers insisted on meeting the Governor they would be disowned by the people, who were determined to boycott the Malayan Union.”
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the hotel where the Sultans were staying, shouting “Daulat Tuanku!” and “Hidup Melayu!”
As Miller puts it, “The Rulers walked down to the great crowded porch to receive the obeisance of the demonstrators. This was also a touching scene, although the more unyielding of the leaders in the U.M.N.O. said later, ‘We brought them down those stairs to teach them a lesson. They were lucky we did not destroy them completely for having signed the MacMichael treaties. As it was, we told them we would support them.’”
Caught between the “rock” of the British colonial authorities and the “hard place” of the angry Malay nationalists, the Malay Rulers complained to London that they were coerced into signing the MacMichael treaties, boycotted the Governor’s installation, and maintained a distance from him in public (while maintaining warm and cordial relations in private) until the British realised that the groundswell of opposition to the Malayan Union was too strong, and backed down.
The Federation of Malaya, the compromise constitutional scheme reached in 1948, saw Britain appointing Advisors who were truly advisory, with the states’ executive powers passing to the Mentris Besar.
Nonetheless, it appears clear that the Malay Rulers still feared that they would be emasculated by Umno, and Onn could not entirely reassure them.
As Sir Malcolm MacDonald wrote to Sir Henry Gurney on Dec 15, 1949, “In my talk with him on December 12th, Dato’ Onn told me of his recent talk with the Mentris Besar ? They asked him whether he proposed that the Rulers should be ousted in the near future. He replied emphatically in the negative. He said that probably in due course at least many of the Rulers would be abolished, because the Malays themselves would wish this. But that would not happen for a long time and depended on Malay public opinion.” (Emphasis mine.)
For Malaysians of my generation, who have grown up conditioned by the Sedition Act to not entertain the slightest republican thought, it is shocking to hear the founder of Umno coolly tell the Sultans’ ministers that he supposed Malays would one day wish for the abolition of their Rulers.
Six decades later, that day is still unthinkable.
But from the pre-Merdeka negotiations of the Alliance through to the events of the 1981-2003 era – when the metaphorical Bendahara was not so much ignoring the Sultan’s summons as trying to do the summoning – the Malay Rulers have had to stoically endure many more attempts to curtail their powers. I will examine this in my next column.
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