This piece started out differently, but ended up as is. I wanted to focus on what the rest of us should be doing as the Umno crisis continues to unfold, but that will have to wait for the next post – coming soon!
Rocky did a good roundup of Abdullah in the press: fighting back, lashing out, hitting back, speaking out.
On top of that, Abdullah’s ultimate explanation of Umno’s losses = internal saboteurs, against whom action will be taken.
It looks like battle lines are drawn, and knives are being sharpened; “Witch hunt” or “Purge” may not be inappropriate terms.
As Abdullah signals war within Umno, let’s have a quick look at where the battle lines might be drawn.
Are there ideological differences? I would posit very minor ones. Ku Li may be a little more “Malay” than Abdullah or Najib at this point, but that has not formed the major lines of division.
The tack that Ku Li, and to an extent the Mahathirist gang, seem to be taking is this: “Abdullah’s leadership is weak, allows rampant corruption, and will ultimately result in the demise of the party – and with that, the position of the Malays forever. I will offer strong, clean leadership that will restore Umno’s glory.”
To be fair, I think Ku Li and Mahathir are indeed idealogues. They care passionately and genuinely about Umno, and about Malay supremacy. Where integrity is concerned, Ku Li probably qualifies to some extent, whereas Mahathir’s self-delusion and warped Machiavellian double standards on this front is clearly more suspect.
Let’s see which parts of their message are likely to resonate with the Umno masses, and which parts won’t.
Under Mahathir, Umno leaders learnt how to make up their own ethics, and define integrity in whichever way was most expedient and likely to enrich themselves. Just how well and how thoroughly they learnt this lesson cannot be understated: in essence, all of Umno operates with this mindset. Thus, when dealing with a party built on a toleration of corruption in various guises, appealing to questions of integrity will likely have more impact with the general public than with voting Umno members.
On the question of strength, restoring glory and safe-guarding the Malay position, the anti-Abdullah camp is on more solid ground. There is likely to be a growing mass of Umno members who have seen strong evidence to suggest that under Abdullah, BN will lose control of power – possibly forever.
What does Abdullah have in his arsenal to fight back? Incumbency, and the patronage that goes with it, of course.
The strength of this should not be underestimated. Probably under Mahathir’s watch more than anyone else’s, Umno devolved into a party that is founded through and through on patronage: how much you can dish out, and to whom. Even Malay-centric ideology takes a back seat in comparison.
It thus remains to be seen whether voting Umno members can be bought off at the risk of Umno losing its dominance in the future, or whether there will be a critical mass who will ignore the lessons of history and risk yet another open revolt against a sitting Umno president. The last two times that happened, the results were pretty gruesome (not least for the rest of us outside Umno).
If Umno really does head towards another major split and a resultant weakening, it is important that the rest of us be ready to do our part in transforming this demise into something good for Malaysia. I’ll get to that in my next post!
Umno has to accept that the chinese and indians had rejected them en masse. They may lose the malays too soon. It must also learn that the party cannot win everything. So forget the non-Malays and become an Islamic party. By doing so they will pull the carpet from under Pas. At least they could survive in the Malay heartland.
Of course the present leadership would have to be changed. None qualify as a leader of an Islamic party.
If an emergency is not declared, I don’t see any of the current leaders being able to reform UMNO and the BN into a non-racist political force.
In fact I expect the BN to lose in the next elections if the EC acts fairly. The basic problem is “Don’t throw stones in glass houses”.
Maybe all the leaders of BN with some integrity left should form a new party instead of trying to revive or reform the old BN component party.
I hear a lot of talk about “the next election” and how BN will be wiped out at GE13. That’s assuming that “business-as-usual” will prevail against other massive shocks looming just below the horizon – not the least of which is the anticipated global financial meltdown precipitated by decades of criminal mismanagement by international “banksters” affiliated to the Federal Reserve. In effect, the overnight shift in Malaysia’s political topography is mirrored by equally dramatic shifts in the geopolitical arena amidst a great many unknowns and variables. It will not be smooth sailing ahead – and that’s why, now more than ever, we are in urgent need of master navigators and seasoned helmsmen who not only understand the sea changes in local affairs, but also have the intelligence and imagination to understand global trends. By now it’s pretty obvious there isn’t a single Umno politician who qualifies.
All they understand is jostling for power within the party hierarchy.
Meanwhile, the canny ones have begun smuggling their ill-gotten gains out of the country, foreseeing the inevitable ascendancy of Anwar Ibrahim and fearing the wheels of karma or justice. In my opinion Malaysia cannot afford to wait another 4 or 5 years to see the BN banished from the reins of power. By then the nation will be destitute – the public coffers looted the same way Terengganu’s oil royalties have been siphoned off by Patrick Lim and his high-powered patrons. For this reason alone, I would like to see BN dealt a final death blow before the end of 2008.
Say! How about reviving Semangat 46!
Afterall, this Umno (Mahathir’s Umno baru) isn’t quite kosher.
nat: heheh, on a purely random note, that thought occured to me some hours ago :) might not be a bad idea, except if it’s still operating on a purely Malay agenda, then it won’t be doing the country much good. now, a multiracial Semangat 46? that’d be a bit more interesting :) more on this to come :)
Ku Li has a few redeeming features, to be sure. In the first place, he has always come across as far more genteel and gracious than Mahathir, and peple who know him personally say he’s quite a charming and affable man-of-the-world. Once Pakatan Rakyat has gained control of the Federal government and is in a position to set about its agenda of Reformasi without hindrance from the last of the BN hyenas, it really matters not how many political parties begin to sprout, each representing its own unique ideology. But if I were Ku Li, I’d drop the 1946 reference in favor of something even more momentous and significant: how about Semangat 838? :-)
[...] I have been looking at the possibility of Umno’s demise (see Part 1 and Part 2). Again, I think that on the whole, this would be a positive thing, but if we do not [...]