Abdullah Ahmad Badawi: The 'quiet man' of Malaysian politics who will be greatly missed

As Malaysians mourn the passing of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the country’s fifth prime minister from 2003-2009 who died last week, it has become clear how much with hindsight many of them miss his time – although he was rather underrated when in office.

Ironically, it was the ways in which he was the polar opposite of Mahathir Mohamad, who had governed often high-handedly for the previous 22 years, that led Mr Badawi to win a stunning landslide victory in 2004, when the Barisan Nasional coalition he headed took nearly 90 per cent of the seats in the country’s Parliament. But after a while his accommodating nature and personal gentleness came to be seen as signs of weakness. Perhaps Malaysians were so used to Dr Mahathir, whose favourite song was said to be My Way – because it was “my way or the high way” – that Mr Badawi’s more collegiate manner led to accusations that his administration lacked direction.

After the previous decade, however, when Malaysia made global headlines over the 1MDB financial scandal – and Barisan’s defeat in the 2018 general election (the first time it ever lost power) shook up the political kaleidoscope so much that the country had five prime ministers in as many years – it is no wonder if the quieter style of “Pak Lah”, as he was affectionately known, seems extremely appealing by comparison.

And after the hurly-burly of the Mahathir years, when Mr Badawi’s predecessor was known internationally for his caustic anti-colonial interventions, it really was very quiet. It’s not that Pak Lah’s years in office were without incident, but as the head of the Asia Programme at the Chatham House think tank in London said to me around 2007: “If the phone ever goes about Malaysia, I’ll put the caller over to you. But I have to tell you that since Mahathir stood down, the phone has never rung about Malaysia.”

At home, it didn’t aid Mr Badawi’s image that he suffered from sleep apnoea. He couldn’t help it if he dozed off at public events, but it inevitably led to jokes.

Mr Badawi could be non-confrontational to the point that it exasperated his friends and supporters, who sometimes felt let down by his refusal to fight their corner, and he was endlessly undermined by Dr Mahathir. Once it became clear that Mr Badawi was not going to take his predecessor’s “advice” as orders – particularly when he decided not to proceed with megaprojects such as the notorious “crooked bridge” between southern Malaysia and Singapore – Dr Mahathir did everything he could to force his handpicked successor out of office. After the 2008 general election, when Barisan retained power federally, but lost an unprecedented five out of 13 states, the clock was ticking for Mr Badawi. In April the following year, he stepped down and handed over to his deputy, Najib Razak.

This loss was, however, in a way a sign of Mr Badawi’s achievements.

This is because the hugely increased support for the opposition – then headed by Malaysia’s current Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim – was enabled by the considerable expansion of the political space that Mr Badawi had allowed. There was no equivalent under him of the 1987 Operation Lalang mass arrests under the draconian Internal Security Act. On the contrary, fear about open political discussion largely dissipated. People complained that the main newspapers still parroted the government line, but the internet became a boisterous Wild West of opposition-supporting outlets, with one blogger, Raja Petra Kamarudin, becoming a national name with his constant stream of explosive exposes.

Mr Badawi initiated reforms to institutions that most observers feel had been “hollowed out” under Dr Mahathir. He set up the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and, most importantly of all, he tried to restore integrity and independence to the judiciary. He even expressed regret to the judges who had been affected by a constitutional crisis in 1988 that led to the removal of the then Lord President of the Supreme Court, a man with a spotless reputation.

Without going into the full details, the previously good name of the judiciary was subsequently tainted, and Mr Badawi himself said: “I feel it was a time of crisis from which the nation never fully recovered.” His attempts to make up for this were so significant that when I introduced a friend to Zaid Ibrahim, the law minister who had urged Mr Badawi to make this gesture in 2008, the first thing my friend did was to thank Mr Zaid for his role. And that was 14 years later.

A pious man and a scholar of religion, Mr Badawi also introduced the concept of “Islam Hadhari” (Civilisational Islam), which was intended to emphasise development consistent with the tenets of Islam. Most Malaysian leaders come up with their own policy framework with a snappy name, which are often derided as being mere marketing campaigns. That would not be fair in this case. I have two books on my shelves about Islam Hadhari. It was a genuine effort by Mr Badawi to think freshly about how to draw, as he put it, on “the glorious heritage of the Islamic civilisation in all its aspects” to allow a multiracial and multireligious society to prosper.

Whether he succeeded or not may be another matter. But when Malaysians think of their former prime minister now, they will think of Pak Lah with a kindly smile on his face, a soft word on his lips, and they will remember a man who never betrayed an iota of bitterness or rancour, whatever vicissitudes he faced. That is extremely rare in the bear pit of Malaysian politics. He may have been the “quiet man” in government, but Mr Badawi’s qualities are being fully appreciated now – even if they weren’t at the time.