10 March 2015

Umno has leaders, but no leadership

Greed, anger and foolishness must be killed off in order for the nation to start afresh.

Muhyiddin Yassin’s absence from the assembly of 154 Umno division heads on Sunday has generated speculation that he is now in an atypical relationship with his boss, particularly over the issue of 1MDB. The Deputy President was among the 37 absent division heads, many of whom are from Johor and Sabah. But one other notable absentee was Kedah Menteri Besar Mukhriz Mahathir, a son of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, Najib’s sturdiest critic.
Muhyiddin has been uncomfortable with his boss for some time now, and gossip has been heard here and there that he has strong opinions over a lot of issues affecting the running of the government and party. He must have felt that Sunday’s meeting presented an opportunity to tell Najib, by his absence, that he did not like the manner in which the Prime Minister runs the government.
Concerning the 1MDB issue, Muhyiddin has called for a “serious investigation” by the Public Accounts Committee. He has defied the statement by Najib and the Cabinet that there was nothing wrong with 1MDB with a call for a “forensic audit” of the company, going back to 2009.
Muhyiddin knows the impact of his absence from Sunday’s assembly. He is by no means a novice in politics. He knows that his absence is of consequence to the ailing Umno leadership. Thus it’s not incorrect to say that his absence was intentional and purposeful.
Najib too is not that naïve. He certainly knows that something is brewing and that Muhyiddin will lead an insurrection if he can command enough support from among the 146,000-odd voting members in the next Umno elections. That was the reason why he left without facing the media and instead asked Ismail Sabri Yaacob to take his place at a brief press conference. Obviously, he could not find a better member of the Supreme Council to do that.
Ismail Sabri told the press not to read too much into Muhyiddin’s absence, saying the Deputy President had important engagements set earlier.
Anyhow, whatever the consequence of Muhyiddin’s absence, it is not going to change anything in Umno. Even if Muhyiddin were to succeed in toppling Najib in the coming party elections, Umno will remain feeble or even get weaker. Umno has been so neglected by previous leaders that there is a huge vacuum of leadership in the party.
What is needed in Umno is not a change of leaders, but a change in leadership. There is a difference between the two. Mahathir changed leaders one after another, but he didn’t address the absence of leadership. That is the reason that after his administration, Umno was saddled with leaders without leadership. There can be a change of leaders every other year, but replacing one who has no leadership qualities with another who is similarly handicapped will plunge the country into perpetual disorder.
As it is, Umno is already at its weakest point and every concerned member, if he is honest with himself, can see that the party is at risk of losing in the next general elections. A further split in the top leadership will only cause a deeper fracture and ultimately send Malaysia’s oldest political organisation into oblivion.
The only available choice for leaders and members of the party is to get together to find someone who can lead and get everyone together to start the nation afresh and bring about a new political ambience that we are sorely in need of.
The current leaders must be courageous enough to own up to their weaknesses and let others take the mantle to restart the nation. Obviously, this means some degree of sacrifice from everyone.
What are the sacrifices they need to offer? They must place Greed, Anger and Foolishness on the altar. These are the poisonous impulses that want us to succumb to their evil in order to obliterate us.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Saudara AA

As I have always said - the only gem out there is one and only Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. Give the man a clean sheet, and watch the nation fly!

Anonymous said...

TMY aka kecemasan abang dia sakit sebab tu dia tak hadir....

RD. said...

Dari satu segi, saya setuju dengan Anon 11:22.

Tengku Razaleigh seorang bujang. Oleh yang demikian, rakyat tak perlu risau berlaku Nepotism atau cronyism melampau seperti apa yang terjadi dalam PKR dan DAP. Apabila tiada pasangan hidup, lebih banyak tumpuan dapat diberi kepada Rakyat. Tiada Queen-control. Tiada keperluan untuk mengutamakan anak-bini atau keluarga sebelah pasangan hidup, dalam urusan memberi kontrak/project kerajaan.

Mengenai pendapat Tuan Aspan;

"but he didn’t address the absence of leadership. That is the reason that after his administration, Umno was saddled with leaders without leadership."

Sebenarnya Dr. telah 'groom' bakal pengantinya sejak 1983 lagi. Jika tidak kerana tabiat ketagih l*bang J*ubur lelaki muda oleh tokoh itu, sudah tentu kita sudah ada penganti Dr.M yang paling sesuai dan mempunyai 'leadership quality' dan pengaruh yang kuat. Malah tokoh ini amat dikagumi oleh lebih dari separuh rakyat Malaysia dan mereka dambakan beliau menjadi Perdana Menteri.

Anonymous said...

Agreed to comment, cz UMNO as a party has departed from its responsibility to LEAD and TRAIN Good MALAYS that can lead the race. On the contrary, slogans like ketuanan and loyalty has been fully exploited to develop cronies and blind loyalty!!!! Tengku Razali has my vote and he must come in NOW, cz "Rome is burning but the emperor and his scrounges are busy partying!!!Time is critical, and unfortunately UMNO does NOT has it !!!!

Anonymous said...


yes best candidate is tengku rezaligh but is umno willing to do it............

Anonymous said...

"As I have always said - the only gem out there is one and only Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. Give the man a clean sheet, and watch the nation fly!"

Fully agree.

Adenan Satem as DPM. (The Umno guys won't like it, but we don't like them, either.)

Who will give the Tengku a friendly nudge?

kampong lad said...

yg ada kualiti dah dihangnadimkan.

walla said...

The only reason TRH hasn't signaled his wish to come on-board is because he realized long ago he will need the continued support of the Umno honchos after he does so and they are not going to give him that support if they do not continue to get the goodies that are the sole objective of their political activity which is the very reason why this stupid country has come to this terminal stage.

Muhyiddin and Mukhriz are also made from the same power-corrupted hypocritical mould hand-fashioned by Mahathir.

It's a systemic malady that has lead to national folly soon financial disaster, not just 1MDB but also your EPF money, your grandchildren's future, and all that generations past had worked for.

And some educated people in other blogs still split hairs over the semantics of economics when they persist to say our economy is doing swimmingly well when all at the ground are being pressure-boiled beyond KFC levels. The official data have been cooked for thirty years, don't they know? Or is their mangkuk beras more important than their integrity?

We are in one of the nuttiest countries on this planet, Aspan Alias.

Beam me over to the Norwegian woods, Mr Spock. Oops, he's dead too. See what i mean?

Anonymous said...

Hi there. i need help on this topic. Berikan contoh-contoh semasa kenapa terdapat perbezaan antara BN dan PR dalam permuafakatan politik.

Anonymous said...

Insyaallah ..Tengku Razaleigh will save us all from absolute ruins ..