Time To Leave Umno Behind

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The political drama around the royal pardon issue regarding our ex-prime minister Najib Razak continues to play out. It has a bewildering array of actors, and even more clowns. Perhaps it’s a circus rather than a drama.
I’m however content to just be writing a snarky review of said drama (or perhaps circus) from the comforts of my chair. It’s safer that way.
The pardon decision clearly made nobody happy. But such is Malaysian politics where there’s a philosophy, popularised by our ex-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, that when everybody is unhappy, then perhaps you’ve made the right decision.
The one clear outcome though is Najib wasn’t pardoned. He remains convicted of corruption. He now has to deal with a tough dilemma – does he pay his large, albeit much reduced, fine or serve an additional year of prison if he doesn’t.
Decisions, decisions. Interestingly, perhaps out of desperation or his counsel having a sense of humour, he’d claimed in court he wasn’t involved in the details of what was happening around him, merely signing whatever was put in front of him.
Therefore, any wrongdoings must be blamed on his advisors or staff.
So basically, he was claiming being clueless and incompetent as his defence. Given that he didn’t prevail with this defence, or receive a pardon or even given a 50% discount for it, I guess he remains clueless and incompetent still.
But do remember this point should Najib ever get around to offering himself as prime minister again. We need to know what kind of Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) he has been put through arising out of this issue. If you are from the private sector you’d know what I’m talking about.
So much for Najib. What about our current prime minister Anwar Ibrahim? I’d say his stock certainly went down a few points because of this. But he’s still in power, and as always in politics, as long as you live to fight another day, then it’s all good.
I’m more puzzled by the noise from Umno though, the party that Najib led for many years. Umno was for decades the most powerful political party in Malaysia. Every major Malay politician, with the possible exception of those from PAS, has been on Umno’s register at one point or another.
I was a member too, albeit just an ordinary one. I blame my late father for enrolling me as a member, and presumably paying my dues too. Had he still been around, I’m sure he’d begrudge Umno the money he paid on my behalf, and would’ve had a few choice words to say to them too.
But my father has passed on, whereas Umno, the “bangkai bernyawa” – living corpse – is still around, and still making loud noises. I’d like to think the noise is Umno in its final death throes, but I’ve been mistaken on this one before.
I’ve written about corruption, and how it’s been normalised in our society. Whilst we’re all rather hypocritical about corruption, the core blame for it must surely fall on the political leaders of our country over the period when corruption “blossomed”.
Those leaders would be Umno. Over time, Umno became unashamedly the vehicle for crooks and charlatans, all happily scaring the Malays about being subjugated by the non-Malays, whilst they themselves buried their snouts in the trough of public money.
We ended up having three types of leaders – those who tolerated corruption even whilst not being corrupt themselves; those who used corruption as a tool for power whilst not being corrupt themselves; and of course, the majority – those who’re corrupt through and through.
After a while it became impossible to tell the three types apart. It’s easier, and more convenient, to just assume all politicians are corrupt.
In due course corruption at high levels became a licence for many others to be corrupt too, from petty enforcers asking for coffee money to business cronies (or their own children and relatives) working on Guinness-Book-of-Record amounts.
Anyway, back to Umno. The party over the last decade has driven the majority of Malays away – to the multiracial parties, Malay-nationalist parties, and especially to Islamist parties such as PAS, which is a Malay-ultra-nationalist party in spite of its religious claims.
What’s left are remnants from Umno’s past glories, many of whom were Najib’s own cronies from when he was in power. Many are themselves tainted with corruption, even if they might not be facing any criminal charges or a pardons board at the moment.
Occasionally you’d hear voices saying Umno needs to reform. But as it stands, Umno is incapable of reform. The people running it are clinging to power as if their life, or perhaps freedom, depends on it. And they could very well be right.
Should we care about the fate of Umno? Not particularly. All the good it had done in the earlier years has long been overwhelmed by the bad it did when arrogance and hubris – the inevitable result of being too long in power and lacking in humility and shame – took over.
Umno’s “brand” is almost beyond saving. Instead of using Najib’s enforced absence to start afresh, Umno chose to try to save him. Clearly strategic thinking (and humility…and shame…) isn’t a strong point for any of its current leaders.
They’re where they’re now – in the toilets of Malaysian politics – because they deserve to be there. It’s not nice for us to live beside such toilets – or perhaps living corpses (I need to get my stinky references consistent) but we’re used to it by now, and we’ll survive it.
Let’s just move on. - FMT
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.

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