Kadir Jasin's KKA Picks Hishamuddin Hussein Onn

Yes someone else's Blogpost can become a news item by itself. In this case Dato Scribe Abdul Kadir Jasin's latest blog "Shout And Hopefully We Are Heard".

Kadir has been having his round of "meeting of minds" with the not exactly the hoi polloi in the country. From his latest blog he has recently spoken with :

• a prince of the Selangor royal household
• a former Umno minister
• an ex-diplomat
• a leader of the Malay Chamber of Commerce.
• two former Umno MPs (from Pahang and a buddy of the PM)
• the Kelantan MB (Datuk) Ahmad Yakob
• an ex-Finance Minister 
• two young Malay businessmen 
• Puteri Umno information divisional chiefs from Johor and Melaka.

Kadir says that  "At the princely Yemeni dinner, a question was posed: If Mohd Najib has to go (or he throws in the towel), who could or would take over?   The response wasn’t spontaneous. I took a bit of head scratching among the balding participants before Muhyiddin Mohd Yassin’s name was mentioned. That was partly because Muhyiddin had purportedly said he was not interested in the job and that he was tired.

Going by hierarchy, Muhyiddin is the successor. He is Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Umno President. But like Mohd Najib, he was not elected by members. He was merely endorsed by the Umno Supreme Council.


The most senior democratically elected Umno leader is Ahmad Zahid Hamidi who won most votes as Vice President in last year’s party election. But most KKA delegates think he is not the favoured successor. That honour belongs to Hishammuddin Hussein, the third-ranking VP, and Mohd Najib’s cousin."

This question has been bandied about for some time. If Najib goes, who shall replace him? The question was unthinkable because there seemed to be no successor. But reading Kadir's Blog it seems that the question has now moved from unthinkable to thinkable. And Hishamuddin Hussein Onn is now part of the "thinkable".

There will be a varied reaction to Hishamuddin's name as a possible successor to Muhyiddin Yassin - should Muhyiddin retire.

But it has to be one step at a time. Who will retire first? Muhyiddin or Najib? Going by all the gossip, I think it is Muhyiddin who will retire first. Najib will remain in place for a while. So if at all Hishamuddin has to step up, it will be to replace Muhyiddin and not to replace Najib. 

So one more question pops up. If so when will Muhyiddin retire? "Mid term" has also been gossiped about. By the next UMNO Assembly in 2016?

So will Najib lead BN into the next GE14 in 2018 with his cousin Hishamuddin at his side?