Which will it be: Najib or Umno?

Dissatisfied Umno members believe Najib Tun Razak and Rosmah Mansor are the party's "main liabilities" that threaten the future of Umno.

COMMENT

The recent 66th Umno general assembly sent out clear signs of increasing dissatisfaction among delegates with Najib Tun Razak’s leadership and that a decision must be made before the 13th general election.

Since Najib took over from Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as PM in early 2009, the former’s leadership has been directionless. He has been inconsistent and indecisive with his policies.

Though Najib is not as weak as his predecessor, he has nothing better to offer – no good leadership traits and no political and economic models on nation-building.

Umno members, from top to bottom, are very concerned about the party’s future.

What they hear are only hollow slogans and rhetoric such as the 1Malaysia concept, transformation plan, financial painkillers like BR1M, KR1M, TR1M and other crap that play on the mindsets of the people.

In a nutshell these are just Najib’s psychological propaganda to compensate for his inability to perform.

Any sincere leader who under-performs should switch to team leadership or resign.

Najib did neither. Instead he teamed up with his spouse, Rosmah Mansor. He gave more political clout to Rosmah who is neither an elected MP nor a cabinet minister than the delegates.

She has travelled all over the country and overseas acting as if she is the de facto premier overshadowing the cabinet ministers and extends her sphere of influence over their ministries and their respective departments and agencies.

She even went overboard by getting entangled personally with a number of nasty wrongdoings that threatened the credibility of the government and the party.

Najib must go

The party elite groups are so alarmed by the power wielded and abused by Rosmah and condoned by her husband.

Never in the history of Malaysian politics has the wife of a premier wielded so much personal control over the affairs of the government.

Hence the Umno elite groups believe the only way to save their party is to plot for Najib and company’s downfall before the polls.

The anti–Najib movement appears to have the upper hand as of late.

Many people believe Rosmah is allegedly using Malay black magic to put her husband firmly under her thumb.

For certain charms to be effective the practitioner must physically be close to her victim.

As reported in the news media, she very often accompanied the PM in overseas trips, to ensure the spell is not broken.

In the three years plus since Najib became the premier, Rosmah has allegedly enriched herself with businesses worth billions of ringgit through government contracts awarded to companies connected with her.

Many within Umno believe Najib and his spouse are the main liabilities that would bring the downfall of Umno.

Now it is a choice of either saving Umno or Najib.

Awang Abdillah is a political analyst, writer and FMT columnist.