Kedah Umno does not want Mukhriz

Dr Mahathir is ignoring the signals from Umno warlords that his time to bulldoze and get what he wants is over.

COMMENT

The most noticeable deficiency in Umno now is the absence of voluntariness. Everyone must be paid to get work done.

Paying people to do work is introducing the mercenary culture into Umno and this stands in direct opposite to Malay culture of mutual self-help and voluntariness.

Umno is no longer compatible with Malays. Its championing a culture that has destroyed the building blocks of Malay culture.

And this culture was started by Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 1988. Mahathir has single-handedly destroyed Malay culture. He is not Malay in the first place.

We stupid Malays adopted him as our own and allowed ourselves to be mesmerized by his politics of development.

That development which took place over 22 years was borne on the shoulders of cronies and selected individuals who have become excessively rich with their own private jets, helicopters and immeasurable wealth while the rest of the Malays on whose backs these people rode, remained left behind as faceless digits.

Why do I continue talking about Umno? Because the knuckle-heads have ignored our previous explanation.

We must kick out Umno because the values it upholds are inimical and poisonous to Malay culture

Umno’s poisonous culture is building a low trust society which blocks further progress.

Genuine ability not important
Just look at Umno’s process of choosing leadership.

It adopts the ascriptive leadership norm – one chooses a leader on account of who he is in contrast to what he can do.

A case in point is Mukhriz Mahathir. He is touted as the next Kedah MB for no other reason other than him being son of Mahathir – Mukhriz anak lelaki Mahathir.

Who is Mukhriz other than being the son of Mahathir? Does being Mahathr’s son mean that he has inherited the leadership qualities of Mahathir?

What has Mahathir done in terms of achievements? Dishing out IPO (initial public offering) shares to selected individuals?

Ordinary Malays now cannot become leaders of Malaysia if they don’t have surnames like Abdul Razak, Mahathir or Hussein Onn.

It used to be if you are not from Oxford, you don’t have a future.

Now, if you are not a “bin Mahathir”, “bin Najib”, “bin Tun Razak” or “bin Hussein Onn”, you all don’t have a future.

Mahathir went over to Kedah recently and gathered Umno leaders in the state to ask them to give Mukhriz a state seat.

Not all Umno leaders went to meet the ex-party president, which led Mahathir the ever acerbic fellow to say – “it’s all right, I was not keen to meet them either.”

Don’t be complacent
He ignores the signals from Umno warlords, that his time to bulldoze and get what he wants is over.  And that the party had opposed to idea of allowing Mukhriz to become the next MB from the beginning.

We Malays must now adopt new values – the achievement norms.

We measure and value leaders on account of what they can achieve.

And what they can achieve will depend on their abilities, educational levels, experience, dedication, single-mindedness in purpose.

As such we have a simple proposition. Can we bank our future on an organisation like Umno?

We owe it to the next generation who are now struggling to cope up with the increasing cost of living, who can’t find jobs because the country is mismanaged economically, or managed by sub-standard leaders.

We owe it to those who can’t afford a decent house because a house near where they work now cost RM700,000 per unit.

This coming election is for us to lose, NOT for Umno to win. We lose if we let our guards down and be complacent.

The writer is a former Umno state assemblyman but joined DAP earlier this year. He is a FMT columnist.