A look at Malaysia's UMNO, 50 years on

A look at Malaysia's UMNO, 50 years on

By Shamsul A.B.

After shaping Malaysia's political, social and economic life for half a century, the United Malays National Organization appears intent on continuing this dominance well into the 21st century. Shamsul A.B. traces its history.

The United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the political party in Malaysia's post-war history, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. Its birth, in May 1946, reinstalled the traditional royalty-based Malay polity, known as kerajaan. Through the union of the kerajaan, held together by the Federation of Malaya Agreement 1948, a federal framework was put in place. It subsequently became the foundation for the formation of the Federation of Malaya (1957) and later Malaysia (1963).

In 1991, Datuk Dr. Seri Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister and UMNO president, proclaimed his now-famous "Vision 2020", in which he called for the creation of "a united Malaysian nation" by the year 2020. For over five decades UMNO has therefore shaped Malaysia's political, social and economic life. It would appear that UMNO intends to continue this dominance well into the 21st century. It is, however, also a political myth that UMNO is all- powerful, as some analysts have assumed. History has shown that, as a Malay-based party, UMNO has not always enjoyed the total support of the Malays.

UMNO's historical development can be analyzed in Eric Hobsbawm's framework of postwar global history which he outlined in his brilliant book, Age of Extremes (1994). According to Hobsbawm, the postwar world first went through a "Golden Age" (1947-1973) and then experienced the "Crisis Decades" (1974- 1991). UMNO was indeed in its "Golden Age" for the first three decades of its existence. It was responsible for initiating and instituting the Federation of Malaya Agreement 1948. It successfully formed a coalition party, the Alliance, with the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and the Malaysian Indian Congress as its non-Malay partners in 1951. Together they won all but one seat in the 1955 general elections, subsequently negotiating independence from the British in 1957.

UMNO, as the dominant party in the coalition government, was inevitably the major player in the formation of Malaysia in 1963. Also, it successfully steered Malaysia through the Confrontation years (1963-1966) with Indonesia. The traumatic event of May 13, 1969, was indeed the biggest test for UMNO and its partners. They not only survived but emerged stronger when the pro-Malay affirmative action plan, called the New Economic Policy (NEP), was launched in 1971.

From 1971, UMNO's influence was unchallenged and it was able to transform and expand the Alliance into a larger coalition party, called the National Front, which was officially registered in 1974. Even UMNO's famous opponent, Parti Islam, joined the National Front.

From the mid-1970s, as signs of Malaysia's "Golden Age" began to appear on the horizon, UMNO's internal problems came under public scrutiny. On the surface, these problems emerged as serious factional conflicts, particularly at the national leadership level. At a deeper level, problems could be traced to the nascent signs of money politics.

The floodgates opened in the mid-1970s, with the much publicized Harun Idris corruption scandal, which dragged on from 1975 to 1977. Then, in 1978, for the first time in UMNO's history, the incumbent leader (the late Tun Hussein Onn) was challenged. It also saw the emergence of money politics, in which all posts within the party were for sale.

The 1980s ushered in the bruising "battle of giants" between Musa Hitam and Tengku Razaleigh for the position of UMNO deputy president in 1981 and 1984. Concurrently, an UMNO cabinet minister was convicted of the murder of another high-ranking UMNO official and sentenced to life imprisonment. High noon was 1987, when UMNO split into two factions and a battle ensued between Team A and Team B, in which the former, led by Dr. Mahathir and his deputy, Ghafar Baba, emerged victorious with the smallest margin imaginable.

The coup de grace came in February 1988, when the High Court declared UMNO an unlawful society as a result of a legal suit brought against UMNO (Team A) by supporters of Team B. In a matter of months UMNO was reinstalled by Team A under a new name, UMNO Baru, and Team B set up a new party, called Semangat 46 (literally Spirit of 46, referring to the original UMNO founded in 1946).

The early 1990s saw the unseating of UMNO's deputy president, Ghafar Baba, by a group of Young Turks, calling themselves the "Vision Team". They were led by Anwar Ibrahim, the present UMNO deputy president and deputy prime minister. Stories of nepotism, sexual scandals, voodoo-style murder and corruption involving UMNO leaders continued to fill the front pages of newspapers.

Ironically, as UMNO went through its "Crisis Decade", Malaysia entered its "Golden Age", sustaining an unprecedented economic growth rate of more than 8 percent for nearly 10 years and a repositioning of the economy from an agriculture base to an manufacturing base. Malaysia was also able to simultaneously establish itself as a credible middle-order international power and a model to be emulated.

Why was UMNO in turmoil while Malaysia was economically booming? Two possible explanations can be offered.

First, the fruits of material success from the implementation of Malaysia's NEP redefined UMNO's ground rules. Official party positions were perceived as commodities which could be bought and sold.

More importantly, UMNO also reconstituted the composition of its members, with the new Malay middle class and a group of corporate players dominating its realpolitik at the expense of the once powerful school teachers, local bureaucrats and peasants. The dominance of the former, in effect, opened forever the realm of UMNO politics to a larger political constituency. UMNO is no longer a party of the kampong folk. Instead, it is a party for those who are interested in both "the politics of business" and "the business of politics" in Malaysia.

Second, and relatedly, UMNO has increasingly been seen nationally as the "broker of wealth" by predominantly non-Malay Malaysian commercial groups. Most Chinese businesses no longer consider it necessary to go through either the MCA or any other Chinese-dominated party within the National Front to have access to the country's wealth. This, in fact, led the MCA to change its party strategy in the early 1990s, dropping its economic role, and now focusing on educational and cultural matters.

Although UMNO exists as a party for the Malays, it is also the party anyone interested in the country's wealth wants to be associated with. The pool of material resources at UMNO's command has expanded tremendously.

For most of its 50-year existence, UMNO has championed the cause of the rural Malay poor. It has made endless attempts to break "the vicious circle of poverty" experienced by the latter. Ironically, in the last two decades, as more rural Malays have begun to enjoy the fruits of UMNO's hard work, the party itself is now struggling to break "the vicious circle of wealth" which is now beleaguering its existence.

Dr. Shamsul A.B. is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.