The Kool-Aid KJ is drinking is his own

Former Umno Youth Chief and challenger for the president Khairy Jamaluddin was reported to have said that BN lost the 14th general election because “Umno became delusional and was drunk on Kool-Aid detached from reality.”

Khairy also said “he regretted keeping the truth that the grassroots had rejected BN away from party leader Najib Abdul Razak.”

The above statements from smack of hypocrisy and arrogance, as Khairy was one of the key members of Najib’s inner circle, who was not only busy filling the cups of Kool-Aid for more senior members of the administration but also drinking it himself.

However, this is not the first time that Khairy supposedly kept bad news from his bosses which lead to the defeat of BN.

If we recall about 10 years ago, Dr Mahathir Mohamad had taken aim at then-prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi by alleging that Khairy was allegedly running the Prime Minister’s Office through his infamous ‘4th Floor Boys’.

Does Khairy also regret not informing his father in-law when BN later lost their two-thirds majority? Somehow, I doubt it.

Does Khairy also regret not informing then-Umno Youth chief Hishammuddin Hussein that the act of raising the keris had greatly hurt the feelings of the non-Malays? I don’t think so, because Khairy was on the same stage, cementing his Umno credentials.

I really wonder what was on Khairy’s mind when he launched the boutique named Tencwhich stood for ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ back in 2008.

Khairy would have known that this would insinuate that Abdullah was the vain and foolish emperor being misled by his courtiers in the fable. But Khairy did not seem to care as he was probably too high on Kool-Aid and did not expect BN to fare badly in the 2008 general election.

Fast forward to SEA Games in 2017. To boost his popularity and credentials with the youths, Khairy decides to take part himself.

He didn’t take part in an event with an objective qualification mark, such as track and field, swimming or cycling. With those events, meet the qualifying mark and no one will dispute your credentials.

The next best alternative would be for Khairy to prove that his ‘alpha male’ cred and take part in contact sports such as boxing, judo or taekwondo. Win a few international tournaments and no one would dispute that he had qualified based on merit and not his status as the youth and sports minister.

But Khairy decided to join the polo team where the selection criteria is very subjective at best. Even after Johor crown prince Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim criticised Khairy’s participation, it still did not deter him.

Khairy’s latest statements on June 25 that BN lost because of top leadership scandals, and that some voters told him that “we don’t have a problem with you KJ, you have done well, but we just cannot support Umno anymore because of the scandals and the leadership” reeks of someone who is still high on Kool-Aid and has not accepted the responsibility of collective leadership.

When a senior member of the leadership keeps quiet about wrongdoings or scandals, it speaks volumes of the quality of such members.

In the words of the late Adenan Satem when commenting on the issue of the weak enforcement on illegal timber merchants in Sarawak: “Either they are stupid, cowardly or corrupt”. However, now we know that there is a fourth option: being high Kool-Aid. -Mkini