Thursday, July 07, 2005
THE KHAIRY CHRONICLES
Out of the wormhole
Before we delve into the heavy stuff, let us start with the basics. Where
did this guy KJ come from?
Today, Khairy Jamaluddin has become the most powerful man in the country.
Unlike most politicians whose origins can be easily traced and whose
records
are in the realm of public knowledge, Khairy is like a "dewa kayangan"
(fairy godfather) who appeared from nowhere into the mainstream of
Malaysian politics. Many began to wonder whether he was planted by
certain sinister forces, such as the CIA or maybe the Singapore
intelligence services. After all, no one can attain power so easily and
so quickly unless they had some help, could they?
Certainly this is what Yahaya Ismail tried to hint at in his book. Dr.
Mahathir was so worried about this that, at the end of his premiership,
he commissioned the Special Branch to prepare a file on Khairy, which was
also copied to Najib (another report was also prepared on Khairy's bosom
buddy, NST Group Managing Editor Kalimullah Masheerul Hassan - but that
is
another story for another time). But for all its promise to be "Mesra,
Cepat dan Betul", the officers in charge of the report did not want to
risk rousing
the anger of Khairy's father-in-law and Prime Minister-designate Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi. After all, at that time, he was only a few months away from
power. So the report reported that there was nothing to report.
Though it is not unusual for members of the administration to be recruited
as foreign spies (remember Mahathir's former secretary, Siddiq Ghouse, who
turned out to be a mole for the KGB), the truth about Khairy and his
relationship to foreign intelligence services will not be publicly known
for
the simple fact that he is already too close to the seat of power. Unlike
Siddiq Ghouse, Khairy is a member of the Badawi family and you cannot
really say a member of the Prime Minister's family is a spy, can you? But
people still wonder: could he have gone so far without some "extra" help?
The truth is that Khairy did get "extra" help, though probably not from
foreign agents. The time was quite ripe for the appearance of an
eloquent,
well qualified UMNO leader such as Khairy because twenty two years of
Mahathir rule had made UMNO a party of dead zombies. There was simply no
one else, as few had the courage to say anything remotely critical of the
current (i.e. Mahathir's) system. In the party of the yes-men and the
corrupt, the slightly more intelligent fellow who can speak well is king.
So Khairy became the biggest worm in the giant wormhole that is UMNO.
Let's start from the beginning. Khairy Jamaluddin was born 29 years ago to
career diplomat Datuk Jamaluddin Abu Bakar (now deceased). Datuk
Jamaluddin came from a little kampung in Rembau and is politically
connected enough to be a relation of several Negeri Sembilan politicians.
One of Datuk Jamaluddin's nephews is Datuk Shahziman Abu Mansor, currently
a deputy minister in Abdullah Badawi's administration and MP for Tampin.
The late Datuk Jamaluddin served in various diplomatic overseas posts but
died during one of his postings there. It was this nomadic lifestyle which
resulted in Khairy receiving an overseas education, including in Singapore
and the United Kingdom. Suffice to say, Khairy never went to a local
school and, for a very long time in his life, could hardly speak a word
of his native language, being ill at ease with Malay and unable to
converse with his own relatives.
While he spent most of his time overseas, Datuk Jamaluddin did have one
important posting locally. This was at the Ministry of Youth and Sports,
during the time the late Tan Sri Samad Idris was Minister. It so happens
that at that time the Director of Youth and later Deputy Secretary-General
of the Ministry was a certain Abdullah Badawi. Fellow civil servants, the
two shared some common interests including being part of the so-called
"Malay ultra" group and when Abdullah left the civil service in 1974 to
become MP for Kepala Batas (a seat previously held by his father, former
PAS Youth Chief Ahmad Badawi Sheikh Abdullah Fahim), Jamaluddin kept in
touch.
When Jamaluddin died, Abdullah and his wife, Endon Mahmood Ambak,
continued to keep in touch with Jamaluddin's widow, a lady from Kedah.
Frankly speaking, Datuk Jamaluddin's reputation as a civil servant was
lackluster. He was seen as aloof, pompous and arrogant. Often despised by
his subordinates, he was a stickler for form rather than substance. A
former
subordinate of Datuk Jamaluddin once remarked that he valued a person more
for "his ability to do a proper knot in his tie rather than the quality of
his reports".
As a student Khairy was a fast learner, though a bit of a rebel. He was
critical of government policies. In spite of his later pronouncements of
admiration for Mahathir, he was not a Mahathir worshipper. Indeed, he was
opposed to many of Mahathir's actions - though only on the sly and never
publicly.
As a student at Oxford, expressing his doubts about Mahathir to fellow
Malaysians overseas, he came to the attention of a certain Omar Ong.
Omar Ong, as can be seen from his rather peculiar name, is an ethnic
Chinese. He is the son of Mustapha Ong, former Private Secretary to
longtime Minister of Information Mohamad Rahmat and for some time in the
diplomatic service in New York and Brazil. Currently living in New
Zealand, Mustapha Ong became infamous during the Anwar Ibrahim trials
when it was revealed he had tried to bribe a New York ethnic-Arab taxi
driver called Jamal Amro to "confess" that he had procured boys and women
for Anwar. Jamal Amro refused and instead made police reports accusing
Mustapha Ong of trying to bribe him. Of course Mustapha Ong was shielded
by Mahathir, even though his over-enthusiasm in trying to "fix" Anwar
caused some embarrassment to the government, especially amongst the
diplomatic community overseas.
Anyway, Omar Ong was a bit of a social climber and very ambitious. He
tried to hitch his star to rising politicians as a means of fast-tracking
his
own ascent to power. He knocked on the door of Deputy Prime Minister Anwar
Ibrahim through the good graces of some of his political secretaries.
This was partially successful, as Anwar was persuaded to receive Omar Ong
and his group in a private audience. Several more meetings followed and
Omar Ong was hopeful that Anwar would be his ticket to heaven. In spite of
that, there was still some opposition from Anwaristas such as Suhaimi
Ibrahim, Fuad Hassan and Zahid Hamidi, who really wanted to keep Anwar
all to themselves.
But a chance meeting with Daim Zainuddin made Omar Ong soon realise that
something was brewing in the very highest circles and Anwar was going to
be hit by a runaway bus, so to speak. Quickly, while thanking his lucky
stars, Omar Ong dropped "the Anwar project" like a hot potato and tried to
go for Najib Tun Razak instead. This was around three months before Anwar
was sacked by Mahathir.
Najib, however, was a hard nut to crack. Omar Ong realised that Najib was
surrounded by long time loyalists from his earlier days in government who
screen newcomers to his circle with a parent's protective eye. So it was
decided that the next best thing would be Hishamuddin Hussein.
Hishamuddin Hussein was then just a junior UMNO politician. But he had a
very big name behind him. There was no doubt that, after Hussein Onn died,
Dr Mahathir felt that he owed a debt of gratitude to the former third
Prime Minister and his family. Dr Mahathir began to put Hishamuddin on the
fast track of politics, even over and above Hishamuddin's superiors in the
UMNO Youth movement such as Nazri Aziz and Zahid Hamidi. Hishamuddin got
promoted several times within a year.
These fast promotions took its toll on Hisham. He was never a bright
student or a sharp intellectual. Neither was he a good speaker nor a
great orator.
He had an unfriendly face and almost permanent crooked smile which
reminded a fellow Minister of "the dead pope - after he had died". Omar
Ong set about helping Hishamuddin and his fellow student from Oxford,
Khairy, came along as well. Soon, Hishamuddin began to rely more on
Khairy than on Omar Ong.
To pay his debt, Hishamuddin introduced Omar Ong and his group to people
close to Dr Mahathir such as his Political Secretary, Datuk Johari
Baharom, and ISIS Director-General, Dr Noordin Sopiee.
A coincidence at the time was that Abdullah Badawi's daughter had joined
ISIS as a research assistant. And it was Noordin who introduced the two.
Abdullah Badawi was then a Vice-President of UMNO and next inline should,
for example, Anwar Ibrahim's helicopter fall suddenly from the air.
Anwar's helicopter did fall (though he was not on it at that time) but
Anwar
himself was booted out in September 1998. Like most other Malaysians,
Khairy did not believe some of the more bizarre accusations hurled against
Anwar by Mahathir. But it was the best of times, and the worst of times.
There was opportunity and both Khairy and Omar took it.
A myth developed after Anwar's fall from grace that Khairy had always been
sympathetic to Anwar's "Reformasi" struggle. Rumours grew that a student
who had publicly asked Mahathir to resign in a gathering in London was
really
Khairy. Another story was that Khairy was the then boyfriend of Anwar's
daughter, Nurul Izzah, but they broke up when Anwar's wife, Dr Wan Azizah,
refused to make Khairy her political secretary but instead appointed
another young man by the name of Nik Affendi Jaafar (now Senior Public
Relations Manager of the EPF).
It seems all these rumours were created later by some hallucinating Anwar
supporters who wanted so much for the young and powerful Khairy to be on
their side, at least on the sly. But, in reality, Khairy saw a vacuum
created by Anwar's sudden "fall from paradise" (as Anwar himself
described it) and he took the chance to catapult himself to the highest
reaches of political power in the country.
At this time, Khairy tried to get close to the man in trouble at that
time, Dr Mahathir. Khairy used Noordin Sopiee to try and get a job in the
Prime Minister's office. In this he was backed by Hishamuddin. But when
Mahathir
rebuffed the offer, seeing through Khairy's ambitious moves, Khairy went
for the next best person. No, not Abdullah - he went to Najib again.
Najib was then seen as the most likely candidate to succeed Anwar as
Deputy Prime Minister. In fact, Asiaweek went so far as to say that Najib
was the man to watch when it came to that post. But Najib was careful not
to
include new people who may arouse the jealousy of his already tightly knit
inner circle. Indeed, he had no reason to take on Khairy as he had strong
confidence that Mahathir would choose him and no one else. This was a
decision Najib was to regret bitterly.
What Najib dreamed of was not to be. Mahathir thought he could better
control the country by having Abdullah as his deputy. To Mahathir,
Abdullah was a non-entity due to his onetime support for the Team B
faction in UMNO
(or more correctly to Tan Sri Musa Hitam). These types of people make
better puppets.
When Abdullah's name was announced, Najib and his wife Rosmah wept outside
the meeting room, desolate and disbelieving. At this stage, as the new
Deputy Prime Minister, Abdullah began to pack new people to fill in posts
of which he had many to fill. For example, as Deputy Prime Minister,
Abdullah would have two political secretaries instead of one, and eight
Special Officers instead of two. One of these Special Officer positions
went to
Khairy.
How did he clinch it? It was a scratch-your-back-scratch-my-back
situation.
Abdullah had asked Noordin Sopiee in his capacity as the Prime Minister's
brain to suggest a few names of bright chaps who could fill posts in his
office. Two names came out - Khairy's and another ISIS researcher (now
also ensconced in government). But the ISIS researcher failed the security
check (his mother was a Reformasi supporter). And Abdullah's lovesick
daughter Nori warmly and enthusiastically endorsed the first name.
So far, so good. The climb of Khairy Jamaluddin had begun. And he quickly
paid his dues by ensuring that the person who put him on track to these
successes got his rewards as well. Omar Ong was swiftly installed in
Najib's office as Special Officer in order to ensure that all went
smoothly in the deep, dark wormhole that is UMNO politics.
----------------------------------------------------------------
This e-mail has been sent via JARING webmail at http://www.jaring.my
No comments:
Post a Comment