i am out 44

UMNO, the political party, is not UMNO, the nationalist movement.

UMNO, or the UMNO Baru today, is not the nationalist political organisation that brought this country independence. UMNO that brought this country independence died in 1987, by court order, and in its place rose UMNO Baru. That UMNO Baru is formed is orchestrated by leaders of the old UMNO who led UMNO Baru. They were still in power, and they ordered the registrar of societies to declare Tengku Abdul Rahman's request for UMNO to be re-registered. He had filed the application several days earlier, but it was Tun Mahathir's UMNO Baru that was registered. As it happened, the founder of UMNO, Dato' Onn bin Jaffar, and the first UMNO president of Malaysia, and his son, the fourth president and third Malaysian prime minister, went to their graves without joining UMNO Baru. The flag of UMNO Baru is of different dimensions than of UMNO, but at first sight, they seem similar. In the Johore Bahru byelection, when UMNO Baru warlord, Dato' Shahrir Samad, stood as an independent but with strong support of the old UMNO adherents, the present Prime Minister, Pak Lah, told me at that time that when the two processions met at the crossroads before the nomination station in Johore Bahru, tears came to his eyes, for he saw two UMNO processsions where the two parties had met. It goes without saying that it was the independent who won. It is UMNO the political party that rules, and Dato' Shahir joined the party afterwards, and remains in Parliament as UMNO Baru MP. The question asked by diplomats and even UMNO bigwigs and members is whether Pak Lah would be challenged. I think he would, Dato' Shahrir Samad being the last minute candidate if the other warlords decide not to. Pak Lah is UMNO Baru president held hostage by UMNO warlords, which is why he has not sacked from his cabinet the two warlords - Dato' Isa Samad, found guilty of money politics; and Datin (or rather as she would prefer to be called, Dato') Rafidah, who was guilty of giving her son-in-law a monthly wage of about Rm 1.5 million by giving him sufficient APs. (It is said, and not in jest, that she should be known as Rafidah AP Aziz). But both will not resign from the cabinet and neither will they be sacked. They hold enormous power in their areas of strength, Isa in the Linggi area and possibly Malacca; and Datin Rafidah, in the Kuala Kangsar area that she is MP of. Fearing that either or both would go to those opposed to Pak Lah in UMNO is why they both remain in the cabinet.
UMNO Baru, or UMNO the political party, remained strong while Tun Mahathir remained its head and the country's prime minister. But even he was careful not to cross swords with the warlords. The two times he did - the Johore Bahru byelection, which emerged Dato' Shahrir as a stronger figure than he was then and could well challenge Pak Lah in 2007; and dismissing Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim as a sodomist but refusing to attend court on his trial. Dato' Seri Anwar went on a rampage that proved his crowd pulling status, and he has ruled out rejoining UMNO. Pak Lah would like him in, provided he would agree to become deputy prime minister. I have not spoken to Dato' Seri Anwar on this, but his returning to UMNO would spell danger to the UMNO Baru deputy president and Malaysian deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak. As I see it, Dato' Seri Anwar would come back into UMNO on a free pardon, which he would not apply for. This would enable him to challenge Dato' Seri Najib for the deputy presidency of UMNO Baru and be the next deputy prime minister. But in this scenario, Pak Lah has not considered that Dato' Seri Anwar may prove more dangerous than Dato' Seri Najib in the cabinet. The other version I had heard is that he would join PAS as its president. Either way, it would be a defeat for former UMNO president and Malaysian Prime Minister, who probably had heard of the moves to slander Dato' Seri Anwar once more. Whatever Dato' Seri Anwar might do about a legal action, Tun Mahathir had lost. Tun Mahathir would be remembered in history books for having sacked Dato' Seri Anwar, and not for which he should be. He fights a rear guard battle, at 79, to prevent this happening, but he is not leader of all he surveys now. But he represents a major political force against Pak Lah, and all those who does not like him automatically gravitate towards the ex-Prime Minister.
Tun Mahathir has lost power and esteem in today's Malaysia, Even the senior officials do not respect him. They did not think it important that he be consulted, as adviser to Proton, that the Proton CEO, Tengku Mahaleel, had been sacked. He returned to Proton, in a huff, the cars that Proton had given him. But he had lost ground. He suffers the same fate as Mrs Indira Gandhi, who turned Congress Party the nationalist movement her father was its leader into the political party that now rules India. By so doing, she landed in jail, and was instrumental in the Congress Party the political party being in the opposition. The Congress Party in power today is as head of a coalition. The Prime Minister is in the Upper House from Assam although he is a Sikh. Mr Junichiro Koizumi, the same position with his LDP warlords, took a chance and went to the polls, and won handsomely. He could do it because he was more popular than the party, and he threatened the warlords, with their untold electioneering campaign funds, that he would oust them from his cabinet if they did not support him. That he succeeded has reduced the power of the warlords. The Western media has made privatisation of the Post Office as the cause of the election. But he quits as leader of the LDP in 2006, that is next year. He wanted to reform the LDP, not to privatise the post office. The Japanese bureaucracy is slow moving, and the privatisation of the post office cannot be completed in a year's time. UMNO Baru is not the LDP, but Pak Lah has shot down his Barisan Nasional partners, promising those who failed in party positions the jobs they held when they were in the government in the pre-election of the party.
People in UMNO Baru fought for independence, but the party, founded in 1987, did not. The first, second and fourth UMNO presidents did not join UMNO Baru and died not as UMNO Baru but as Malaysians, The president of UMNO Baru youth executive, who son is the eldest son of the forth minister, agreed with a resolution passed a year ago, that those who left UMNO are traitors. Is he telling all Malaysians tophat his grandfather, Dato' Onn Jaffar, who founded UMNO in 1946 but left in 1951, and his father, Dato' Hussein Onn, are traitors to the Malay cause? UMNO Bahru youth executive had no right to pass such a resolution, since they are not involved in the early struggles of UMNO. On second thoughts, the UMNO youth executive resolution had as much effect on Malaysian or UMNO Baru history as pissing in the wind has on a man. It just showed how out of touch UMNO Youth is on events in Malaysia. It is an early warning signal of a stroke in UMNO Baru, which will land it eventually in the opposition benches of Parliament. The UMNO Baru supreme council or its president should have vetoed the UMNO Baru youth resolution. But it did not. It was a serious resolution that made UMNO Baru itself a fool.

M.G.G. Pillaipillai@streamyx.com

As the late Tunku said politics is a dirty business. If one can't stomach it, one shouldnt hop on the wagon. Politics to me is a lie, deception, greed and cronism for one so desires to sit on the throne. The truth will become untruth. Even history too can be changed to suit its taste eg Japan. Likewise Merdeka! is only meant for West Malaysia because we got our independence on 31 August 1957. Apparently now it is included Sabah and Sarawak. Actually Malaysia Day should be celebrated on 16/9/05. Malaysia was formed on 16 Sept 1963. So now we can see how politics shifted the truth to untruth...many people just flow with the wind.