The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is right to insist the Opposition should not have made an election issue of the tragic death last November of the four-year-old son of the Perlis mentri besar, Dato' Seri Shahidan Kassim. The boy fell to his death from an open bedroom window of the 31st floor of a condominium in Kuala Lumpur on 10 November 2001. An opposition speaker in the runup to the byelection on 19 January 2002 for the Indera Kayangan state assembly seat in Perlis offered his condolences for what he said was God's reminder to the mentri besar and compared it with the family's grief with that of the the jailed former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Dato' Seri Abdullah said it was inconsiderate and cruel to turn a tragedy into an election issue. Dato' Seri Shahidan, visibly upset, told reporters the opposition was hell bent to provoke him and "test (his) patience". He can hold his temper but "I do not know if my supporters who sympathise with me would be able to control their temper upon hearing such things." And warned the opposition not to "play with fire". In other words, Dato' Seri Abdullah's words or regret is cancelled by Dato' Seri Shahidan's intemperate remarks of defiance and combat. And brought it, however you look at it, as an election issue.

It would not have if Dato' Seri Shahidan took it for what it was: an exuberant pre-hustings speech which highlighted the strange coincidences, or Divine Intervention, that befell those behind the downfall of Dato' Seri Anwar and those colleagues and proteges who spurned and attacked him when he fell. To a deeply religious rural Malay community as Perlis is, it had much significance. Indera Kayangan has an equal divide of Malays and Chinese, with a smattering of Indians and Thais. The Malay vote is crucial, and uncomfortable coincidences could sway votes, or harden anti-UMNO feelings, in a byelection in which the National Front has the edge. Some think the MCA candidate would be returned with a larger majority.

It is that which makes Dato' Seri Abdullah nervous and Dato' Seri Shahidan angry and jumpy. In the three years since Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim was sacked, detained, criminally assaulted by the Inspector-General of Police, convicted and jailed, every Muslim Ramadan fast is in the wake of an unfortunate and regrettable death amongst the conspirators and former cronies. On the first anniversary, the wife of Mr Azizan Abu Bakar, who accused the former deputy prime minister of sodomising him, died in a road accident. On the second, the wife of the deputy minister of education, Dato' Aziz Shamsuddin, died in a freak road accident. On the third, the son of Dato' Seri Shahidan Kassim, for whom Dato' Seri Anwar bent backwards to lavish him with contracts and projects, died. The Anwar camp has not forgiven him for what they term his treachery. What was said in the speech is not new: it is spread by word-of-mouth in meetings and gatherings of Parti Keadilan Negara, the political party whose Godfather is Dato' Seri Anwar.

When Dato' Seri Abdullah expressed his displeasure, he would not put the blame where it should. If the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, had not humiliated Dato' Seri Anwar after sacking him, this personal tragedy would have remained where it should be. What Dr Mahathir did then is as inconsiderate and cruel as what the Keadilan speaker did. The National Front hopes the grisly political past is kept hidden in this battle for votes. Both candidates, after all, are Chinese. But it cannot. The Malay community is too fractured and diffused, after September 1998, to let bygones be bygones. UMNO cannot set the agenda to unite the two factions so long as Dato' Seri Anwar is in jail. Which is why UMNO is unstable over rumours of Dato' Seri Anwar's rehabilitation. How or why is the grist of rumours. But one thing is clear: further humiliation of him is dangerous for UMNO's health.

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