Nota:

Apa yang menarik, mengapa Abu Hasan tak lepaskan jawatan ADUN? Takut ada pilihanraya kecil ke? ... bau2 tentera Teluk Kemang belum hilang lagi, inikan pula Selangor - bau2 korup tentu sukar hilang kerana buktinya hidup dan bernyawa bukan macam bukti ala fantasi khayalan Khalid Jafri yg tidak berpijak di alam nyata.

--ooOoo--

[sangkancil] [MGG] Surviving In Politics After Getting Caught With Pants Down

The Prime Minister, in Langkawi, insists the Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san Omar, resigned for personal, not political, reasons, the matter is closed (NSunT, 13 Aug 00, p1). His family says that since he has resigned, there should be no more talk about what precipitated it. A political leader's resignation, for whatever reason, is a matter of public debate. When a cabinet minister or mentri besar is in the centre of a storm, as Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san is, the more so. He had had to resign becayse his personal problem impinged on his political persona so serious that even UMNO members rebelled and wanted him out. The case cannot be closed, as the Prime Minister wants everyone to, for he is a public official, and his private or personal reasons must be such that it relates only to his family. It is not. The Speaker disallowed a question in the recent Selangor state a#sembly session about what the prime minister calls the mentri besar's personal problem. An article appeared in an Indonesian newspaper of a sex scandal involving him. Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san himself refuses to come clean with this personal problem. His resignation had to do with his unusual living arrangements which is un-Islamic. He is a decent man, but in politics, decency alone is not enough. His unusual living arrangements was not a secret. When it became public knowledge, he got caught.

The mentri besar resigned for health reasons and wanted to spend more time with his family. At least that is what he told the world. But if this was his intention, why did he stand for elections last November? The engineered high drama, with even the mainstream newspapers attacking him, did suggest that he remained mentri besar so long as he had the Prime Minister's impramateur, he stayed on. It did not mean he was the natural choice of Selangor UMNO. The Prime Minister, himself under great pressure from the ground after the nine year jail sentence on his nemesis, He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost, had to let him go. He was furious and angry that it had come at this juncture. But it did when the opposition and those within UMNO who did not like the Prime Minister, the mentri besar or both joined hands to force the mentri besar out. This is how politics work. But the National Front was caught flatfooted, and rushed hither and thither trying to come out of this scandal with a straight face. The UMNO Vice President, Tan Sri Mohamed Taib, played a large role in ousting his predecessor.

In other words, Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san is forced out politically for an unacceptable personal life. He would not have had to, if the Prime Minister had not wanted to destroy his former protege and deputy prime minister politically by having him tried from an unacceptable alleged (and still unproven) private life. As it is, the prime minister comes out of both situation with egg on his face. Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san's matter becomes an albattross around the Prime Minister's neck. He cannot wish it away. The "surat layang" (anonymous letters) about Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san and the Java Pos article is bad enough for the Anti-Corruption Agency to have begun investigations. So, why is the Prime Minister pushing this under the proverbial carpet? Because it embarra#ses him? Or to protect his supporters, one of whom is the mentri besar? Or does the world around him crash after the Anwar judgement, and he does not one more problem on his plate?

The Prime Minister is caught in a quandry. He cannot afford a bye-election. After the Teluk Kemang parliamentary byelection, when 80 per centn of the postal votes, about 70 per cent of the Malays, and 1,000 more Chinese voted for the opposition, the National Front would not want to put that to the test. So, the man who wants to spend more time with his family because of health problems must remain a state a#sembly man. There is no clear choice of successor. The state UMNO has named a football team than a successor. The choice is stark. Whoever comes need not be popular but must not have unusual living arrangements, beats his wife in front of his mistress. The aim now is to ensure the rocking political boat does not capsize. So, it is in the Prime Minister's interest that the Abu Ha#san affair disappears into the woodwork. Could it, when this is yet another in the litany of political missteps which have supporters running away as rats off a sinking ship?

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