Zahid, Tok Mat need to reinvent Umno

 

On July 13, Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi removed the party’s elections director, the controversial Umno Supreme Council member Tajuddin Abdul Rahman, and replaced him with Mohamad Hasan.

Zahid should have acted earlier, but it is now up to him and Mohamad to clean up Umno and reinvent the party into a multiracial entity to give it a fighting chance in GE15.

However, Umno leaders are like headless chickens. Some, including Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Hishammuddin Hussein, have accepted higher positions in the Perikatan Nasional government.

While the politicking goes on in Putrajaya, or in some Umno leader’s house, the rakyat is suffering. With Covid-19 infections still raging, people are scared. Many have been made jobless and homeless, many are starving and, worse, the number of deaths has risen. The vaccine programme is laboriously slow. Medical frontliners have been gagged from telling the nation how they are short of resources and energy.

Umno supporters must be feeling very disillusioned. The party wants to dominate the government, but Muhyiddin Yassin won’t allow it. Some Umno ministers won’t resign. Is it because they want to hang on to power – and the perks that come with their posts?

In their heyday, many Umno members failed to see, or preferred not to see, that their leader, and other members of the Umno elite then, were responsible for several scandals and alleged financial wrongdoing. Some abused their power, they milked their positions for all they were worth.

Now the country is in turmoil, but all the rakyat see are politicians vying to be in power, and leaving the nation to suffer. The NGOs are left to dish out aid.

Are the current leaders in Umno keen to improve the party’s image? Is the party finished? It is not, but it will never be as powerful as it once was.

The leaders have failed to mend their ways, and change the system, after the top was embroiled in successive scandals. They should stop being divisive and stop driving wedges among the people. Umno politicians have thrived on divisions based on racial rhetoric and religious extremism, but this must end. Will Zahid and Mohamad recognise this need?

Sadly, many of Umno’s leaders confuse their massive egos with leadership. The rakyat is wiser and not afraid of saying what needs to be said. These leaders are still playing on the insecurities of the Malays and Muslims. A few months ago, Zahid had said that if Umno wins GE15, the party will strengthen the shariah laws. The nation is tired of such talk.

When will the leaders understand that implementing more shariah laws is not the answer to our failing economy, our failure to clean up corruption, the environment or our moral decay?

Look at the damage done by a PAS menteri besar, whose actions led to bitter rivalry between two communities. Look at the confusion among some cake shops when they were told that “Merry Christmas” could not be iced on their cakes.

The “dinosaurs” in Umno must be kicked out and the party made to fit in with the 21st century. The grassroots may have to force the top to change, if the leaders themselves will not listen, or refuse to do so.

The party must dispense with the rituals, kow-towing and idolatry of certain individuals present in Umno, PAS and Bersatu/PN. The revitalised party should be equal, in every sense of the word.

Will any Umno leader be bold enough to start a new narrative and abandon the affirmative action policies and the Ketuanan Melayu “cancer” that have robbed many Malays of their dignity?

Whichever party rules, there must be a strong multiracial opposition to curb the power and excesses of the party in Putrajaya. Is there anyone in Umno who can lead the charge? - FMT 

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.