We need a leader cast from a new mould

Let's go for a lively democracy and leave the kind we are practising now.

There’s no denying that Umno and BN are in a fix. While many Malaysians agree that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has to go, BN’s fate will remain uncertain even if he is eventually forced out. Umno may see some increase in support from the Malays if Muhyiddin Yassin assumes the presidency of the party, but this won’t make a difference to the other BN components in their ability to increase support from the Chinese and other non-Malay communities. Indeed, even with Umno, there is some doubt as to whether the silent majority of Malays will support it.

In the eyes of voters of all races, Umno has fallen to its lowest level and it is perhaps safe to say that none of its current top leaders can assume the presidency without anxiety.

This is not about changing leaders from Tom to Dick to Harry. It’s about changing the entire brand. The country needs a new ambience that can be brought about only by a fresh political environment. We can no longer afford to have a leader cast from the same old mould.

Replacing Najib with someone from the current line of leaders in the Umno Supreme Council will not change anything. They are just spare parts of what was once a fairly credible leadership. That’s why Pak Lah was not the appropriate man to replace Mahathir. And Najib is even worse.

What Umno needs is nothing less than a structural change in its leadership. If we continue with the traditional routine of changing leaders, we’ll be only addressing the pain without curing the disease.

Even if one leader emerges who is credible enough to inspire a resumption of support for Umno from the Malays, he won’t be good enough if he cannot also inspire support for the change that is needed. He would be an even worse option if he does not have what it takes to bring about economic transformation and to address the massive corruption and other evils that flow in the veins of our leaders of today.

We need a leader who is prepared to be a true servant of the people and not an apparatus to be used by diabolical warlords in Umno. We cannot have as a leader one of those who have been responsible for the disease afflicting us.

The intolerable problems we are now facing cannot be resolved through the simple approach of having the Deputy taking over the President’s position and duties. We have had enough of that sort of thing and it’s high time we leave that outdated and irrelevant culture behind. It will only prolong the abominable practice of patronage in our political system.

We claim that we are a democratic nation but we have never seriously shown any appreciation of the morals of democracy. If Najib is ousted, all members of the Cabinet appointed by Najib must resign. When the appointer is gone, the appointees must by necessity also go.

The person who takes over will then have the liberty to reappoint those who have resigned, if he wants to. When Tony Blair resigned to give way to Gordon Brown, all members of the British Cabinet resigned as well. Nevertheless, Brown called most of them by the evening to reappoint them. That is the spirit of democracy at work, as it has been working in the advanced nations across the globe.

If we truly want to be a first class nation, we must be serious in our practice of democracy and stop talking about “our own kind of democracy”, which has proven to be fruitless in our pursuit of advanced-nation status.

Let us go for a lively democracy and leave the kind we are practising now far behind us. To go for this kind of democracy we need a leader who is judicious and highly magnanimous. That leader can come from any side of the political divide, but the practical choice would be a Malay with an incontestable ability to rule this country in a truly democratic and workable fashion.