No-one shaking Mahathir's tree after Daim's exit

No-one shaking Mahathir's tree after Daim's exit

By Simon Cameron-Moore

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): There is a Malay proverb A fruit when
it is ripe will fall by itself.

No one at the United Malays National Organization (UMNO)
annual assembly, which ended on Saturday, shook Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad's tree.

The 75-year-old prime minister's UMNO party won less than half
the Malay vote in the 1999 election, as the Islamic opposition
capitalized on public distaste over the humiliation of Mahathir's
jailed rival, Anwar Ibrahim.

And there is recurrent speculation how long Mahathir, who has
run the country for 20 years, can carry on.

But if UMNO needed change the fall guy appears to have been
Mahathir's long-time confidant, Daim Zainuddin, who resigned on
June 1 without explanation.

On sale at the UMNO headquarters during the three-day party
conference was an unofficial biography of the man who until three
weeks ago had been regarded as Malaysia's economic Tsar.

Its title Diam, Diam, Daim translates as Hush, Hush, Daim.

"We Malays are very good at killing dead bodies," one former
cabinet member told Reuters, laughing at the speed with which the
book had appeared.

Its cover depicted the diminutive ex-minister behind bars, an
image redolent of his predecessor at the Finance Ministry, Anwar,
who is serving 15 years for sex and graft crimes he says were
cooked up to forestall a challenge to Mahathir.

Both the prime minister and his deputy, Abdullah Badawi, this
week repeated denials that there were any plans to investigate
Daim, after a swirl of speculation over the past few weeks.

Mahathir said Daim quit of his own volition and he had no
fight with the man who served his as economic adviser and finance
minister twice.

But there was no lamenting the departure of Daim, whose last
year in office was clouded, despite the economy's bounce back, by
some controversial bail-outs for politically-connected tycoons
Halim Saad and Tajudin Ramli, popularly known as "Daim's Boys".

During his trials, Anwar, whose sacking and humiliation
remains the greatest source of division among Malays, accused
Daim of being a prime mover in a conspiracy to frame him -- a
charge the authorities have rejected.

Malays make up 55 percent of Malaysia's 23 million people.

UMNO Secretary General, and Information Minister Khalil
Yaakob, in his opening address to the assembly gave a one-line
thank you to the absent Daim for his services to UMNO. There was
barely another mention of the ex-minister for next three days.

"He was never an important part of the party, he was an
important part of the government. Now that he's gone, hopefully
the prime minister can change, not direction, but strategy," a
member of UMNO's Supreme Council commented.

"I think we will see some drastic changes and action from him
(Mahathir) to correct the situation in the party," said Siti
Zaharah Sulaiman, a one-time Anwar ally who is now National Unity
and Social Development Minister.

If the Daim's exit caused consternation among the party
faithful, Mahathir gave them more think about -- notably the
inroads made by the Islamic opposition.

"The PM has been very clever by switching the party's
attention to the next election from petty things," the ex-cabinet
minister said.

The themes were vintage Mahathir, but the tone of his message
were harsh even by the feisty premier's standards.

The Malays are lazy, they haven't seized or appreciated the
chances given to them. The Islamic opposition misuses religion
and teaches children to hate UMNO. Anwar's Reformasi activists
are rabble-rousing scum. The foreign media misreports, and the
West hates Malaysia for standing up for the developing world and
puts it in the same bracket as Islamic terrorist states.

Most UMNO delegates nodded in agreement. They think the "Old
Man", as he's called, is still right after 20 years in power.

But there were grumbles that Mahathir had nothing new to say
to convince fence-sitting Malays to support UMNO again.

"He keeps on repeating the same old stories," said one
delegate, a Kuala Lumpur businessman. "I think the problem is
he's just been around too long. All around him he has 'yes men'
who will say what the media s expected to report."

The nearest anyone came to challenging Mahathir openly was
when Bahirah Tajul Aris slipped through security at the
assembly's opening ceremony to hand him a petition calling for
her husband's release.

Ezam Mohd Nor has been locked up without trial for up to two
years, along with five other Anwar supporters, accused of
planning violent street protests to bring down the government.

Mahathir nodded, smiled and pocketed the petition.