Blame Umno for its own paralysis

The Umno era under former president Dr Mahathir Mohamad has failed to produce an 'elastic' leadership that is capable of adapting.

COMMENT

Umno has become an organisation feudal in nature where its leadership depends on coming from the “right loins”.

The leadership in Umno is therefore no different from the method of ascribing extraordinary abilities to being conceived from a “buloh betong”, materialising from a cow’s vomit or suddenly beamed from across the terrestrial highs to Bukit Si Guntang Mahameru.

From thereon, the majority of Umno suckers pledged eternal loyalty to the blue blood.

This is the earliest symptoms of the inability of Umno to manage success.

Over the years, Umno attracted aggressive and independent-minded individuals and a vibrant ward of supporters.

It personalised political inclinations as success unavoidably does; its continuity and longevity depended ultimately on the ability to manage all that diversity.

However, the current crop of leadership spawned unfortunately during the Dr Mahathir Mohamad era failed to do this.

Umno has failed to produce “elastic” leadership that is capable of adapting.

Instead, it has led to the emergence of a leadership hell-bent on preserving freakish control and one opposed to internal transformation.

Some of them (leaders) are there because of they have the right “bins”.

Unable to adapt

You are “bin somebody”, therefore you are leadership material.

This is a fundamental defect of Umno’s leadership, which incidentally I will continue to criticise despite attempts by Umno diehards to vilify me.

The biggest problem with Umno now is, it just doesn’t know how to manage success.

It can’t because it doesn’t have the right leadership with the right values and the right institutions to manage the overall success that Umno has generated for the country.

It is still a party held back by old tools of its trade and unable to deal with new realities.

The developments made possible by Umno – the rise in educational level, increased expectations, infusion of new values, new experiences – are all never appreciated to the full by Umno.

As a result, it’s a party that has refused to adapt.

Najib Tun Razak as the current Umno president is now desperately trying to force Umno to adapt.

But, like I said once before, the people chiefly responsible for that paralysis within Umno are the leaders themselves.

The excerpt is from the writer’s blog sakmongkolak47. The writer is an FMT columnist.