UMNO : Big membership - Does it help?

I used to propose unalike opinion over the issue of UMNO membership in my regular UMNO Divisional Committee meetings years ago.

Every Division was asked to register as many Malays as possible to be members of UMNO in order to strengthen the party by the numbers.

The leaders believed that by having massive membership would make the party strong as the numbers alone can make the party walk tall in any election against the opposition with small party members.

I was strongly against the idea of having mammoth and massive membership for the party as it would bring more negative than positive consequences in the end.

As usual, ideas that came from me or anyone like me would be instantaneously brushed off.

BUT I still hold to that idea of smaller party membership, like 1.5 million is reasonable numbers. The big and gigantic membership list is part of the problems the party faces at this instant.

To my simple minded argument, having big membership, the Division has to set up many new branches and that would be stickier as it is hard to manage the idiosyncrasies of members at the branch level.

At that time, UMNO memberships had grown up to almost 3 million nationwide and that formed almost 40% of the Malays in the peninsular Malaysia.

If the party has 40% of the Malay population there is very great tendency that it has to spend too much time on managing the members than building up its reception to the voting public.

The more branches the party have, the more infighting at the branch level where most of the voters are and ultimately it injures the strong party’s support pattern which we used to enjoy long ago.

At the material time, there were already messy fights at the ground level fighting for branch heads.

The losing group would have the propensity to connive with the opposition in the General Election and that would add up the numbers supporting the opposition in the ballot box.

In 1999 General Election, Kuala Pilah had 24,000 UMNO members but BN candidate Dato’ Napsiah Omar secured only 16,000 votes. Out of the 16,000 votes, 10,000 came from the non-Malay votes as the Chinese and Indians were all out in support of BN then.

To summarize the figures Napsiah only managed to secure 6,000 Malay votes and that included Malays who were non-UMNO members and that was the clear voting pattern everywhere in the Peninsula.

The same situation happened in 2008 General Election when more than 80% UMNO members voted for the opposition in many constituencies.

In conclusion there is nothing to shout at if we have millions of members. The 8th March 2008 election was another proof that big size does not necessarily capable to outdo the small-sized party.

In simple analogy, a big size man may not necessarily be a healthy man, but more often than not the man with big size body are taxed with a lot of diseases some terminal in nature.

UMNO should just have a small numbers of memberships as what most important function of the party is to build up respect and reception of the party by the voters.

People want to see that every policy that is set by the party is likened by the public.

Consequentially the people want to see that all policies are implemented appropriately and accurately and the people have the feel of the implementation of those policies with comfort.

Labor Party of Britain has registered members of less than 180,000 but that party is almost completing its third term as the government of Britain. So do the Conservative which is expected to win in the coming General Election has less than 150,000 members.

I think UMNO leaders’ thinking should be bent and curved in with the changing time.

Malaysian voters, like in advance democracies, are speedily looking at the competence of the ruling party to unveil solid and acceptable policies and correct implementation of the policies.

The people are not tolerating anymore corrupt practices which UMNO is perceived to be synonymous to; people look at corruptors as heinous and not worth supporting.

Committing corruption is too big a sin and it is indistinguishable with acts of sodomy, rape, and day light robbery.

It is not an easy task for UMNO to erase that perception as it has been an entrenched and implanted culture to the party and the blame should go to leaders since 2 decades ago for not addressing the issue seriously and sincerely.

The image of the party is dependable on the image of the leadership. The party must be perceived to be led by congregations of clean and respectable personalities with impeccable and unsullied records of quantifiable deeds to the nation.

To leaders with corrupt and criminal image, they must be ready to resign before the party is voted out and shelved aside by the people.

To UMNO the public is telling the party ingenuously, change the image of the party or you will be replaced by another.

Bear in mind, the people have been waiting for the change far too long and they don’t have any reserve for patience anymore.

To the exasperated public, UMNO has always been taking friendliness of the people as weaknesses and they just commit moral and political offenses with no qualms and guilt.

Lastly let us remind UMNO and its leadership forthrightly; a huge membership doesn’t guarantee a win; it may instead be a betrayal.

We should now find means and ways to reincarnate and reawaken the old and trustworthy leadership which we used to cheer with.

We are in burning desire to have another reappearance of leaders who are not in the race with the rakyat in businesses, and like what we see today, it has already become a norm.

Leadership of pre-Mahathir’s can be a good reference and perfect testimony to reach to that goal.

Those kind of good leaders are already hard to find but I am sure there is at least one or two still living and kicking mingling among the confused leaders in the party.

It is natural that good ones are hard to find but we will be in good care if we are successful in putting up successful efforts to find one for the sake of the nation we dearly feel the affection for.

This great nation is inimitable and she needs good, honorable, upright and trustworthy leader who is not in the league of corrupt and undignified sort.

This country needs restructuring and shakeup in all turfs; it is imperative to find someone who have had the experiences in planning and managing intricacies of Malaysian politics and re-engineering of multiracial, ethnics, religions and social fabrics of the country.

Leave the long sufferings of being led by corrupt and unspeakable leaders behind us and let us create another clean and memorable history for the sake of saving this lovely nation.

Everyone knows who are corrupts and who are not. Permit me to quote our popular Malay adage; bangkai gajah masakan boleh ditutup dengan nyiru.

Official Secret Act (OSA) can only protect the corrupt acts by the Law but that act can’t cover that heinous act by peoples’ perception.

Ultimately the rakyat will know every single truth. To those who feel disquieted by my writing in this instant will in the end agree with me; maybe a decade from now…but that’s fine with me.


Thanks……………………………………………..Aspan Alias

MARA : Financially drying up

M.A.R.A as the acronym goes for Majlis Amanah Rakyat is giving awful news to the deserving Malays who are in dire need for assistance to educate their children to tertiary level.

A few told me that their children who have been agreed by MARA to sponsor them for their tertiary education in various universities were told that their sponsorship were put on KIV as the oldest government agency has dried up of their funds.

This information or hearsay is too hard to bear as the country is not anymore competent to finance the needy students to further their educations, the basic responsibility of any reasonable government must accomplish for the growing up children of the nation.

This is an actual history, a real unspeakable one and that reflects the tangible incapacity of the ruling government to function even in disposing its very basic responsibility to her people; that is education.

While we accept that there is a global economic down-spiral, no one can accept that the young sons of the soil being encumbered from studying in universities and colleges just because the government has low cash level.

Why the government of the day is is not giving priority to educational assistance for the deserving people especially for the Bumiputra? MARA is among the only few agencies that provide educational assistance for the needy to lean on.

Providing education is the basic government expenditure. Failing which, it’s like a pair of parents who are not able to feed and provide diapers for their new born baby.

In the decades of late 60’s until end of the 70’s scholarships were provided by many sources. Bank BUMIPUTRA and PETRONAS gave thousands of scholarships right from day one of their operations but that is not happening anymore.

BBMB and PETRONAS were then the real agencies which disbursed scholarships to actualize its real functions to develop the nation and education was acknowledged as the most viable mode and medium to arrive at that goal.

The chief of the 2 agencies were nationalistic enough to allocate large sum of money for the purpose of education and those sent by PETRONAS and BBMB are now serving as heads and important position both in Public Services and Private Sectors.

But all those are history as BBMB itself is no more in existence. The directions have changed since the 80’s where scholarship was replaced by loans that were to be paid in full plus the element of interest plucked to the loan scheme.

At present any student registered in the universities are automatically indebted to more than tens of thousands of ringgit who would promptly receive letters of demand as soon as they are graduated.

MARA is the only place left for thousands of Malay students to seek assistance in going through their financial encumbrances in getting to university campuses.

Now MARA itself is plagued with financial incapacity and this is too much for the majority of the Malays to stomach.

This is contemptible state of affair; what happen with the big talk about bringing the nation to greater height and all the slogans in place? What do all those rhetoric mean if we can’t even spare funds for the education of our children?

Why are we getting further from the basic constitutional rights of scholarships and when can we get the taste of free education like Germany and all the Scandinavian countries?

The 2 and the half months old administration have got this issue to answer instantaneously. This is the issue of the poor majority of the population who voted the government in power.

This is an issue that needs the answer to come from the PM himself, not just from MARA.

This is not the issue of MARA autonomously; it is the issue of government as a whole and in totality. These are issues of dignity of the ruling government and do not to take this issue lightly.

Registrations of new intake of students in all local universities are just around the corner and anguish of poor parents who fail to get their sons sponsored to the universities is very visible.

I am happy to remind my commentators in this blog who used to bash me and alleging me for my critics on the government and alleged me as a thankless creature who forgets the scholarship that the government gave me.

To those commentators in anonymity I can now answer your critics on me without exertion.

While you are right to be thankful for the scholarship you secure for your own studies 40 years ago, you have to bear witness now that your generation is almost denied of their opportunities to get hold of what you had.

It will be too selfish on your part just to mill around your satisfactions of 4 decades ago and you rebuked those persons like me in fighting on for your generation to enjoy what you have enjoyed exceedingly.

The unfortunate lots can be among your own family members and relatives or you neighbors. So it is very unaffectionate on your part to think that a person who thinks aloud for your generation is committing crime and against the government.

Let us agree among ourselves, that education is the basic conscientiousness of any country with government and with constitution. To a nation, scholarship and any educational sponsors is a must; like a must for every one of us to feed our growing children.

I am hopeful that what ever allocation that MARA is due for should be settled with now without further procrastinations.

Our leaders can persist talking about other big economic developments with announcement of economic comings and goings with high and pretentious economic jargons once the basic obligation like student educational assistance through MARA is done.

To PM Najib, please do the needful now. Our sons are in the quench of educational progression to achieve their burning desire to be rounded citizens.

Please unravel the problems with sense of compulsion, and never take it as a favor from your part.

I don’t enjoy writing an article with this tendency, but I am compelled to do so.

Someone has to be upfront in saying it, since no one has the courage to unfasten it in the open.


Thanks………………………………………Aspan Alias

Unity talks : Fact or Fallacy

Is UMNO beginning to realize where its stands now and what the party can expect in the coming General Elections (GE)?

Does UMNO know that the party is drooping and sagging and going for the dressing down by the voting public? Are their leaders having the worries like I do about losing in the coming GE?

If the party is not doing anything to correct its mistakes and misadventures, has it started to prepare itself to be a splinter group sitting on the opposition bench just after the coming GE in all Legislative Assemblies?

UMNO Deputy President, TS Muhyiddin (TSM) has already using religion to entice PAS to work with UMNO for the sake of the Muslim Unity and he emphasizes that to forgive and to forget is what the religion wants us to observe.

Tengku Razaleigh was the first UMNO leader to moot the idea of Unity Government many months back but other UMNO leaders were abrasive and uncompromisingly against the idea.

While what he (TSM) says is very right on his religious rationale, it is only said when UMNO is on the way for almost total rejection. While UMNO was in the height of popularity there was nothing said about unity and PAS was tainted to be a party of appalling and ghastly attributes by UMNO.

This is the issue that Nik Aziz is struggling to forget and accept that it is natural and inbuilt attribute of UMNO, especially the new ONE.

One point for our own introspection; UMNO must ensure there is unity within the party itself. As it is, within the party, there are clear irritable issues that make the party even more fractious than before.

How could we go and talk to another party while we are weak? We should have been talking to PAS long ago when we were strong? BUT we took different stand by hammering and admonishing PAS while were having muscle and strength.

Mahathir is coming with more issues when he is beginning to disagree with Najib over the third bridge issue which Rosmah is believed to have mutually agreed with one another with Singapore’s MM Lee Kuan Yew(LKY) for it to be built.

LKY recent visit trail adds up more irritation to TDM and he visibly was too annoyed when the visit gave Rosmah the high lights and Najib allows this new culture of getting spouses of leaders to be part of decision making for a nation. I agree with Mahathir to the fullest on this.

Mahathir expressed his disappointments in his speech in Ipoh yesterday and his worries about what is in the making in UMNO and BN as a whole.

He clearly disposed his uncertainties over the future of the Malays, even though he was the man who changed the total culture and the political paradigm and pattern of the country that resulted to the present nightmares.

This 3rd bridge issue is likely to escalate. It is not a small issue as the crooked bridge issue was one of the main contributors to Abdullah’s plummet.

Is Najib going to face the bridge issue like Abdullah? If it is, than the bridges in issue are like sirraatulmustakim bridges which both Abdullah and Najib failed to cross.

Compounding to this subject, many people including the nosy Mahathir who are not happy with the muqabalah between PAS and UMNO which is the hot theme of the day.

Mahathir is not pleased that Unity is just between Malays as the other races would protest resulting in split of BN and Malaysian politics will be along deep inter-racial divide. Again, I concur with his opinion on this pertinent issue.

As it is, the non Malays are already on the other side of the boundary of this divide and the overly emphasized issue of PAS/UMNO talk is going to send the non Malays further apart from giving the support to UMNO/BN.

DS Najib seems to wane his leadership day by day and outwardly seen as helpless and vulnerable on numerous issues.

Meanwhile PAS is strengthening; whether the much-talked about Unity Government issue is successful is not important.

The important and relatable point that the party brings home is to warn her partners in Pakatan Rakyat not to take PAS participation in the loose coalition lightly as she has a desperate UMNO to work with.

PAS can now tell DAP especially not to rejoice too much when the party tastes power as the Malays is still and forever the political master in this God blessed nation.

As long as Malays lead politically the ambience of living in this country would be soothing…and this is in actuality the message PAS is trying to deliver to its coalition partners.

PAS is already in the position that UMNO used to enjoy when come to workings in togetherness with the multiracial population of the country.

The people trust PAS much more than UMNO and for UMNO to regain the full trust she used to enjoy would be tough as the credibility of its leadership have been too much in jeopardy at all levels.

PAS has learned immensely from mistakes committed by UMNO. The arrogance that UMNO has been displaying with the borrowed power for the past recent years make the appetite of the people including the young Malay voters to support the party are getting blunted.

While the Malays are in exodus to support PAS the more liberal Malays are joining the non Malays to join PKR which is multi racial party that seems to be more engaging for them.

Pakatan Rakyat at the very moment just need to convince the Malays that they are well protected which the Federal Constitution provides. Anything less would turn Pakatan Rakyat into just a temporary hidey-hole for the disillusioned Malays who are at odds against UMNO.

Lastly there is another point which needs moderation of good and magnanimous leaders that is the economic issue.

Developing the nation’s economy is one thing but the effort for equitable distribution is another. No nation would be in stable political environment without equitable distribution and fair opportunities for the deserving lots.

If the government fails to develop big chunk of middle class among the population the stability of politics would not be assured as this group of the population gives a big and momentous direction for any country which takes democracy as her ruling system.


Thanks…………………………………………………Aspan Alias

Disunited for unity

The currently widespread discussion is about Unity Government, the proposal that PAS and UMNO should work together for the sake of unity especially among the Malays.

Everybody is yet to understand how the workings are going to be as it is still at an embryonic level, and the heat is building up especially within PAS leadership.

Nik Aziz is adamant and insists everyone to listen to his advice that the proposal mooted by Haji Hadi is not going to work and he went to the extent of warning the Deputy President, Nasharuddin Mat Isa to join UMNO if he is still milling on the issue.

The opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in disapproving tone responded that the issue is not just as simple as Hadi is saying it and insisted that all the Pakatan Rakyat’s coalition should decide whether talk should go on.

PAS secretary General, Mustafa Ali says that PAS is not going alone to talk to UMNO and he assures that PR coalition partners will be brought together to address the issue of PAS-UMNO unity talk.

The issue becomes hotly debated after Najib responded with a statement that PAS is sincere in proposing the unity talk and that statement is very unUMNO-like as UMNO has taken PAS as its punching bag by the weakening party.

To many PAS members who are in engagement with me, think that PAS is already a consequential party and they believe they can go on their own with undivided cooperation from its coalition partners in Pakatan Rakyat.

They feel that the warm response from UMNO is because UMNO is fast dilapidating in the ground support and by working together with the party would result in the voting public to be apprehensive to continue supporting PAS.

Some told me that by working with UMNO means PAS is now accepting the ills and the misdeeds that UMNO have committed all the while, the very reason why the rakyat went all out to admonish and put off the ruling party from power.

Many PAS members and the public have already a mind-set that the Malay unity can only happen and achievable outside UMNO as UMNO is in the midst of speedy corrosion and erosion of credibility especially within the top exclusive line up of the party.

To them UMNO is already synonymous to corruption, misusing of power, clannish and cronyism as well.

The once highly regarded UMNO has changed and holds on to the image of debauched, depraved and infidels. UMNO currently is just clinging in to the executive power that they have which can only last by the next General Elections or even earlier.

UMNO realizes this negative public perceptions and any proposal by some PAS leaders to work together would be a life savior for them (UMNO).

The public are having the opinion that UMNO can only stay alive with drastic changes in their leadership right now, as the current line up that the delegates empowered is of rotting varieties.

In actuality UMNO is denied the public support by its own lowly regarded leadership presently who are linked to ill metaphors of negative all round.

None of the top leadership in UMNO can stand upright and say, "I am clean, I am free of crimes and I shall sue you if you link me to any kind of murderous activity or anything like that."

There are terrific leaders in UMNO but they are sidelined by the distorted system in UMNO. The election processes of leadership are marred by money politics and misuse of power over the cheap and lumbering delegates of just over 2000 in all.

No one among top leadership is valiant enough to come up and say, "The government will declassify all agreements with Highway concessionaires for the public scrutiny or the government will set up Royal Commission on the controversial purchase and procurements of the Ministry of Defense" or anything of sort.

So to many PAS members and the thinking public, they are hopeful that the dissimilarities in the opinion among PAS leaders should be immediately resolved as PAS is going to be the real Malay alternative party in the coming General Election.

To those who have no sympathy for UMNO any more would surely set to give the support to PAS and other components of Pakatan Rakyat and any wrong move by PAS may make them abstain from voting any party.

In short if PAS works with UMNO of current line up, the party (PAS) is just giving another long lease for the corrupt and the misbehave leaders in UMNO to enjoy ripping and milking the nation dry.

"If PAS takes the line of compromise with UMNO, it means compromising with the corrupt leaders who take our country to the ditch. There are no more viable leaders in UMNO unless the party comes up with alternative leader with good track records and respected by the people," said a high corporate friend and a PAS strong supporter.

"We were hopeful that Tengku Razaleigh (TR) be propped up by UMNO, but UMNO is UMNO; they don’t want good leaders and continue on electing deceitful leaders to shred this country into pieces," he continued.

To me the compromise of the 2 parties if successful, can be quite meaningful as the 2 parties are Malay parties. If they can work well it is the cooperation between 2 parties representing the Malays which form at least 60 percent of the population.

If the 60 percent population is united than we can move on to work for a compromise with the rest of the 40 percent, which constitute of the non-Malays.

BUT then again, if compromise is reached, are we still going to see the same current leaders to lead us? If it is still the current person or persons taking lead of ruling us, is there any worth of compromising because it is as good as no change.

If there is no change, there is no new direction, and UMNO/BN is swiftly going to predictable arrival point; that is political insolvency.


Thanks…………………………………………………………..Aspan Alias