Lesson for Najib the Naked Emperor: COWBOYS NOT IN SABAH BUT IN UMNO!

When Prime Minister Najib Razak spoke in Kimanis during his recent one-day trip to Sabah to stem a slew of defections to the Opposition, he urged UMNO and BN members to be loyal to their parties and refrain from fighting for positions for the sake of the country's development. He also cited the Prophet Muhammad, whom he said had wisely set guidelines on how to choose a leader.

Now this is sound advice indeed. Pity though it came from the 'wrong' person. The sniggers that went down the line at Najib telling the rank and file to behave themselves while they consider him to be the worst hypocrite after Mahathir Mohamad are telling indeed. But caught up in a whirl of public relations and imagery, as long as the audience dutifully clapped, Najib found it easy to believe in his own propaganda.

If he and BN were making strides, why is there a queue waiting to exit the moment the 13th general election date is announced? Why does he need to call on UMNO-BN members to be loyal?

Should he not ask of himself and BN, have they been loyal to the people? Did he not just stabbed the Sabahans in the back by unveiling a watered-down Royal Commission of Inquiry into their pet peeve - the illegal immigrants who are threatening to usurp the rights and place of the locals thanks to the treasonous and diabolical citizenship-for-votes scam put in place by former premier Mahathir Mohamad!

Summoning the courage to cut ties with the diseased UMNO-BN

Already, the braver leaders like Sabah's Wilfrid Bumburing, Lajim Ukin and Maijol Mahap have cut ties with the BN, pledging to unite to fight the BN and bring change to their impoverished land.

These guys are the trailblazers and will go down in history. They have finally got up and going because there is now a viable and stable Opposition for them to consider moving to, whereas before there was none - only UMNO's heavy-handed political hegemony.

What the Sabah trio is doing is praiseworthy indeed. As they have each said in their respective resignation speeches, UMNO-BN has failed in its stewardship of the nation. Adsolute power corrupts absolutely and the biggest victims are the ordinary folk, like the Sabahans and the Sarawakians.

Cannot UMNO-BN change for the better? Why not stay within the system and fight? Well, that is what Gerkana's KohTsu Koon promised after 2008 general election. Till now, there has not been a squeak of out this party that is worth listening too. Gerakan faces potential and total annihilation at GE-13. Against such evidence, it is no wonder that BN leaders are preparing to leave.

The fact is that in every branch and division, UMNO members are being lured with money, gifts, and other goodies including empty promises to support some specific leaders. These leaders think nothing of spending spend hundreds of thousands of ringgit to secure top posts.When leaders are elected on such corrupt basis, how can Malaysians and Sabahans hope to have a Cabinet that is dedicated and have the qualifications to chart new directions for the country.

Would the UMNO leaders spend the huge sums for the sake of their party’s struggle or the BN's? Of course not. Then what are they spending on? Sad to say, the answer is - themselves. In their search for power and even more wealth, UMNO-BN leaders are ready to splurge to ensure they can keep tapping the national coffers year after year and decade after decade. It is purely business, no offence!

UMNO S.O.P and culture

UMNO leaders are using their party to scout for deals and the money spent on buying votes and favor is to them a form of investment in view of the huge profits to come once the contracts are secured. Once someone has been appointed to a powerful post, he or she will use the opportunity to make sure that every initiative, program, event, function, project, contract for the immediate future and those in the pipeline will benefit him or her indirectly or indirectly. This is the UMNO standard operating procedure.

So for those who wondered how it has become a norm for every top UMNO-BN politician to own mansions, expensive cars, support several wives and mistresses or even toy boys - well, now you know!

The famous words of disgraced Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat Jalil that “who in UMNO has no problems?” is a sharp reminder to the people of how much leeway they have given to the BN over the decades. Shahrizat's comments are a testimony to the various wrongdoings of UMNO, the party that has controlled BN for 5 decades. Are the rakyat (citizens) ready now to reclaim their rights and discipline their leaders before all their wealth is siphoned out of the country?

Only the people can do this task. Nobody, not the police or the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission or the Agung can protect the people. They have to protect themselves for it has become the norm for UMNO to fight for positions using the most unscrupulous means. This is the culture now engrained in UMNO, a self-created problem that threatens the party's own survival.

So how on earth did Najib dare to summon the nerve to be holier than thou when he urged UMNO-BN leaders to refrain from squabbling for positions when he himself has done nothing to curb the problem, and is in fact leading a 'subterranean' charge to block the rise of his own deputy Muhyiddin Yassin?

Winnable list triggered worst-ever infighting

What Najib has said is most repulsive as he is the one struggling and squandering the most amount of money to stay in power. He is the one who inveigled a mandate from the UMNO supreme council to be given the right to have the final say on who will contest in the 13th general election at both UMNO and BN levels.

The excuse he gave was to avoid infighting but the fact is, Najib's 'winnable list' has triggered the worst-ever infighting in both UMNO and BN. This is manifested in the way Najib has been forced to keeping the general election. He is looking for the perfect storm but it keeps eluding him because no one in UMNO-BN is happy with his 'winnable list'. This is why he cannot unite them or get BN to close ranks to beat off the Pakatan Rakyat's strengthening challenge. Indeed, the 'winnable list' has come to haunt Najib. It was not only undemocratic but also authoritarian.

Najib too had used his position as the Defence Minister to enrich his close friend and confidante, Razak Baginda, with a controversial and allegedly illegal RM570 million side-deal in the Scorpenes-Altantuya scandal. Recently, as Finance Minister, Najib enriched his crony Tan Kay Hock, a golf buddy and the head of George Kent Bhd, by breaking all open-tender standards and rules just to ensure George Kent won the billion-ringgit Ampang-LRT extension project.

So who is Najib to say it is not alright for top UMNO-BN leaders to practice corruption, nepotism and cronyism? How is it that he can but they cannot! That is the whisper gushing down the internal grapevine at Najib's Kimanis comments. which many members in private describe as the "greatest hypocrisy".

Double standards are the norm in UMNO, which is a feudalistic party in nature. Feudalism ensures that only UMNO leaders from certain families get chosen to be groomed as party president and Malaysia’s Prime Minister. Hence, the often used term 'elitist' to describe Malaysia's largest political party with some 3 million members.

The elite group of top UMNO leaders are even more powerful than the Malay Sultans. We have witnessed how the Sultans were stripped of their immunity by Mahathir, who schemed and manipulated his way to a 22-year reign. We have seen how UMNO members were let off after calling Sultan Mizan of Terengganu a “natang” which is “binatang” or animal in Malay. The Perak power struggle that ended with BN forcibly wresting the state from Pakatan Rakyat rule was a result of UMNO manipulating the Sultan.

A sliver of class or sheer arrogance!

It is therefore no wonder that the top UMNO leaders treat the Malays like peasants - forever at the mercy of the landlords. They see the non-Malay Bumiputera in an even more lowly-light. To the UMNO elite, the Kadazans, Dusuns, Bajaus, Suluks, Ibans,Muruts, Dayaks , Bidayuh are like backward aborigines still going around dressed in loin cloths.

The UMNO elite think nothing of rounding up party gangsters to insult the other races. To them, the Indians are pariahs and drunks, the Chinese cunning and untrustworthy.Everyone except for themselves are disposable - like toilet paper!

So it was that this feudal UMNO lord in the form of Najib Razak went to Sabah to give his lecture on Saturday. At 58 and pampered since his childhood, Najib thought he was bring a sliver of class to the cowboys in Sabah.

But sad to say, they thought of him as being little better than a crook, an outright criminal, despite the massive state machinery used to roll out the red carpet for him and his equally controversial wife, Rosmah Mansor. To Malaysians, it is just another incident of another unthinking and insensitive UMNO leader behaving like an ancient feudal lord, like an emperor in modern Malaysia.

Najib thought they were cowboys while they saw him as the Naked Emperor

Najib had decided  to go himself to stop Maijol after the dismal failure of his deputy Muhyiddin Yassin to stop Wilfrid and Lajim from leaving BN. Najib, with his Emperor metality, went to pacify and prevent an uprising amongst the Sabahans, bringing with him the gift of a long-awaited Royal Commission of Inquiry into the state's illegal immigrants issue. But he too failed, betrayed by his own insincerity and pride.

Najib underestimated the Sabahans. He thought they were brainless cowboys who would be turned and swayed if the remaining Sabah leaders like Joseph Pairin, Bernard Dompok, VK Liew and not to mention Shafie Apdal and Musa Aman were to chime in unison that the RCI was the greatest gift from Putrajaya.

But Sabahans knew the RCI was 'too little' and 'too late'. What can the RCI, especially one as toothless as the 8-point plan laid out by Najib, do to alleviate their suffering?

Pundits say there is the GE-13 to put an end to this nonsense. Not just Sabahans but Malaysians all over the nation can stop this sort ruthlessness, piracy and arrogance from the UMNO-BN by voting them out - "who do they think they are!"

Indeed, Malaysia may soon have its own version of the “Arab Spring”. When that happens, let's see if any of the politicians and their gangs - from whichever side of the divide - will ever dare to take the people for granted again, creaming the best for themselves and leaving the crumbs to the Rakyat!

Malaysia Chronicle