Lessons for Lanka: Malaysia’s election story

Dr Kamal Wickremasinghe

The election victory in Malaysia by the ruling Barisan Nasional by winning 135 parliamentary seats out of the 222 seat Parliament, and nearly 50 per cent of the popular vote marks another loss for the global regime change model being tried out by the American neocons in collaboration with local collaborators. The pin-up boy of the neocons and the global bogus human rights enterprise, Anwar Ibrahim has lost, marking the end of his campaign to capture power in Malaysia.

The Malaysian election with a record participation rate of 90 per cent of the country’s 13 million registered voters, despite voting is not being compulsory, shows the determination of the local population to defeat the global neocon forces that continue to attempt to undermine domestic political and social fabric in the developing world through the financing and exploitation of domestically based anti-national forces.

The leadership of the opposition coalition that contested the election as well as the election campaign tactics used by the “opposition” in Malaysia proved that the attempted strategy was that of the neocon-CIA conceived “colour revolution” model that has become ineffectual following the early deceptions in former Soviet Republics Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and Kyrgyzstan (2005).

The Malaysian election outcome that comes less than a month after the Venezuelan election is another example that shows, like with all other frauds aimed at deceiving the public in the developing world, the people have woken up to the colour revolution fraud.

The history of deception with the promise of Colour Revolutions

The so-called “colour revolutions” was the evil brain child, born at the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, of the bogus democracy and human rights promotion industry promoted by the neocon think tanks in Washington DC.

The neocons were not happy just with the conversion of the Marx and Engels Museum in Moscow to the Noblemen’s Club, or the replacement of the statue of Lenin in Tashkent with that of the fourteenth century Central Asian imperialist Timur; They wanted better and higher rewards for the success of long-term undermining of the Soviets.

The new fraud was based on achieving the old aim of regime change and installation of puppet governments, but with the deployment of US ‘soft power’ rather than overt military invasion that was preserved for countries in the Middle East that are crucially important for the “security” of Israel (eg, Iraq and Libya).

The neocons found the ‘bulldozer revolution' used in former Yugoslavia to force Slobodan Milo53?evi63? from power was too involving, and formed a body of evidence that could be used in the future for laying war crimes charges against the US and its NATO “allies”. So they developed a new tool and ideology for subjugating the world populations.

The Colour Revolution model consists of several salient features: firstly, it is founded around an openly pro-Western local agent renowned for naïve fascination with the bogus neocon ideals of democracy and human rights promotion, or simply corrupt, promoted to demagogue status. The targeted core support is the equally naïve, or corrupt, young Western oriented university students or graduates.

The chosen local leaders are used by the US embassies in the relevant country to vehemently reinforce the often baseless, standard, rallying cry of the need to transform their countries that have become “dens of corruption” into modern states respecting the “rule of law”. These movements maintain non-violent and non-partisan pretensions, and they attempted to cover their inability to make progress through the democratic election process by invariably accusing national governments of resorting to electoral fraud.

The standard repertoire of “collective action” aimed at mobilising the general population include demonstrations, parades, distribution of protest material, petitions, boycotts, media propaganda, strikes, public theatre, and even concerts. The neocon sponsored leaders use the common neocon devised language of globalisation to level charges at the duly elected national governments backed by the people of the country,with corruption, lack of transparency, increasing the grip on power, and stamping down on dissent against being some of their favourite chants.

The form and extent of US support depend on the specific characteristics of the country and its geopolitical position. Advice, logistic cooperation and economic assistance is provided through local organizations worked on specific projects with funds appropriated by the Congress to the Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a bipartisan NGO founded by Ronald Reagan in 1982.

The neocon approach to regime change is basically a bipartisan policy with International institutions of Republican and Democratic parties facilitating relationships with opposition groups and assisting them in establishing common political fronts against governments.

The International Republican Institute (IRI) takes over the function of collective action training and the National Democratic Institute and the George Soros’ Open Society are in charge of training electoral “observers” and preparation of exit polls specifically to “demonstrate” grounds for allegations of electoral fraud.

Freedom House, headed by James Woosley, a former director of the CIA works as a “rating agency” that target the countries where uprisings could take place, and of financing courses to social activists with conservative backgrounds. A man named Gene Sharp, the director of the CIA-linked Albert Einstein Institution, has written a handbook titled “From Dictatorship to Democracy”, translated into more than 60 languages.

The Colour Revolution fraud was effective for less than a decade

Colour Revolutions were used by the neocons as proxies for fulfilling the geostrategic goals by undermining Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) in their almost undisguised attempt to control the Post-Soviet Space and energy corridors in Eurasia before Russia could start to recover influence in its vicinity. In all three countries, power was transferred to parties who lost the elections, but held candle light protests over “electoral fraud”.

People soon woke up to the fact that Colour Revolutions were simply determining forces for the substitution of elites that failed to produce social change or actual social revolution. Essentially they were coups d’ètat performed by domestic collaborators with the support of foreign secret services and diplomats. The new rulers simply shifted foreign policy of their countries towards US interests without producing any benefits to the people.

In Georgia, the failure of the “Rose” Revolution of 2003 described by the White House as “one of the most powerful movements in the modern history that has inspired others to seek freedom”, staged by Mikheil Saakashvili, the epitome of an American puppet, is an example where elite corruption continued apace under the new crowd.

Finally in 2007, Georgia faced a series of anti-government demonstration sparked by accusations of murders and corruption levelled against Saakashvili and his allies by one of his erstwhile associates, leading to police brutality against the protesters and declaration of state of emergency. Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) was spectacularly defeated in the 2012 parliamentary elections.

In Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, the man painted as the villain of the “Orange” Revolution in 2004 returned to office as Prime Minister in 2006. In Kyrgyzstan, “Tulip” Revolution leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev who quickly established himself as a political strongman fled the country after violent protests in 2010.

These cases show, in addition to the failure of neocon conspiracy, that liberal democracy does not offer solutions to political problems in the developing world and US interest are always incompatible with local interests of emancipation and strengthening of democratic governments of the people, by the people and for the people. Notwithstanding such facts, dollar hungry local collaborators in various countries still go behind neocon agents, expecting mutual benefits.

The Malaysian election can be seen as the latest in a series of such subversive attempts struck down by the majority population of a developing country.

The Malaysian attempt was modelled on the Colour Revolution fraud

The neocon ‘coup’ attempt in Malaysia started back in the late 1990s. The neocons had clearly identified the then Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim as the sort of ambitious political player with rubbery policies they could exploit to achieve their aims in this relatively rich, predominantly Muslim country; Looking at Anwar Ibrahim’s history in politics, they made the right choice, albeit an unsuccessful one in the final analysis.

Anwar entered public life in the early 1970s, as the president of a “Muslim” students’ organisation, and a “Muslim” Youth Movement and the National Union of Malaysian “Muslim” Students. His unavowed aspiration to become a “Muslim” leader was clearly on display. He displayed his continued commitment to pro-Malay policies in this multi-ethnic country when he renamed the national language from Bahasa Malaysia to Bahasa Melayu during his tenure as Education Minister (1986-91), earning criticism from non-Malays as a move that made the national language the property of Malays, and not all Malaysians.

His popularity was such that in 1993 Anwar was appointed deputy prime minister by his party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), making it clear that the Malay political establishment was grooming him to succeed Dr Mahathir Mohamed as prime minister; Anwar frequently referred in public to his “son-father” relationship with Mahathir.

However, Anwar’s true personality surfaced during the 1997 “Asian Financial Crisis”: Anwar, as Finance Minister, supported the International Monetary Fund (IMF) plan for recovery involving an austerity package and a free-market approach to the crisis, created in the first place by free-market currency speculators like George Soros, whom Dr Mahathir was determined to teach a lesson to. For his troubles, the Newsweek magazine named Anwar the “Asian of the Year” in 1998.

Anwar was arrested soon after, in 1999, and was subsequently charged with corruption, for allegedly interfering with Police investigations into allegations against him that he sodomised one of his male aides, receiving six years’ imprisonment. During his jail term and upon release Anwar began to display an apparent transformation of his political personality, with a strong commitment to the non-Muslim Chinese and Indian minorities in Malaysia as well as to “human rights” and democracy.

Anwar’s history as a leading politician in Malaysia suggests that he is motivated more by political ambition rather than a genuine commitment to democratic values: his personal integrity first came under a cloud when he was arrested in 1974, for organising student protests against an alleged death of a family from starvation in a rural village – a totally fabricated allegation against the government. He was imprisoned under the Internal Security Act. When he became Deputy Prime Minister for Dr Mahathir Mohammed in 1993, he was accused of making large cash payments to win support, with eye witness reports from journalists.

Anwar seems to be "in a bind" politically in relation to his historical pro-Muslim stance and the reincarnation under neocon sponsorship as a secular, cosmopolitan, sophisticated modern politician. And he seems to have handled the difficulty pretty badly!

Ostensibly in an attempt to turn the Muslims against the government, he accused that the Malaysian government falling prey to a US conspiracy launched through APCO, a public relations firm retained by the Malaysian government which he says is a front for the Israeli government.

Anwar claimed in Parliament that the changes in Malaysian foreign policy could only be explained if American "Jews" were manipulating Malaysia. Following a letter to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations by the Jewish organisation B'nai B'rith International, calling Anwar a "purveyor of anti-Jewish hatred" and asking the US government to suspend all contact with him, a concerned Anwar told the Wall Street Journal, "I think our policy should be clear--protect the security (of Israel) but you must be as firm in protecting the legitimate interests of the Palestinians."

His former mentor, the former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad commented that he was not surprised by Anwar's comments, and pointed out "You can't be friendly with the Jews and be against them".

Anwar followed the neocon prescribed campaign and post-election routines

The election campaign as well as the post-election response of Anwar Ibrahim-led coalition clearly displayed all key features of US neocon think-tank devised regime change routine.

His strategy was based on a "civil society movement" that had sprung up to demand electoral reforms through street protests.

Anwar's alliance campaigned for support from ethnic Chinese and Indian voters on a platform of an end to race-based policies favouring the majority Malays. Both these strategies were contrary to Anwar's past record in Malaysian politics.

Having campaigned on the need for an enlightened, non-discriminatory, non-corrupt multi-ethnic government that could do no wrong, just two days prior to the election, an "independent" pollster named the Merdeka Centre issued the results of an "opinion poll" showing reduced support for Prime Minister Najib Razak among all racial groups. It was clearly an emulation of the non-scientific polling in Western countries where the "polls" have become efforts to create "tails that wag the dog". Such attempts failed, striking a severe blow to Anwar, clearly marking the end of his ambition to become Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Anwar kept hopes high until the last stages of the election by telling reporters after voting in his home state of Penang that there was "clearly, undeniably, a major groundswell and a major shift among the population across ethnic lines."

He tweeted during the counting that his coalition had "won" the election, refusing later to explain his actions, saying that any official results should come from the Election Commission.

Next came the election fraud card - prior to the election, Anwar said that he will respect the outcome and leave politics if the opposition failed to win.

Closer to the election however, he raised the spectre of a disputed result by alleging that tens of thousands of "dubious" voters may have been flown in to key states to boost the government's chances, accusing the government of flying people on chartered flights from the remote eastern Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak to mainland areas.

A government spokesman denied the accusation and explained that party transport of people from remote regions to polling stations was legal practice in Malaysia.

Immediately after the final result became apparent, Anwar announced that his Pakatan Rakyat coalition will not accept the results of the polls until the Election Commission explains the alleged instances of fraudulent electorate process.

He appealed to supporters to remain calm, but to "voice their protests loudly".

Lessons for Sri Lanka

Even a cursory look at the political scene in Sri Lanka clearly shows the attempts being made by interested parties to deploy the same model in Sri Lanka.

All the baseless talk about government trying to "tighten the grip on power", "cracking down on dissent" and lack of transparency together with liberal financing of NGOs is standard fare for neocon conspiracies. Sri Lanka needs to be on guard.

"It is best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems."