Mahathir may turn up at Umno General Assembly

It almost became a certainty that Mahathir would turn up after Umno Deputy President Muhyiddin Yassin made a very presidential and prime ministerial speech on Tuesday.

KUALA LUMPUR: The political grapevine has it that former Umno President and Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, may grace the Umno General Assembly on Thursday after all with his presence. It’s not because Umno President Najib Abdul Razak sent emissaries to plead with the “wily old man”. In fact, Mahathir did reportedly tell these emissaries that he doesn’t see any point in attending the meet if his words and advice don’t carry any respect.

The atmosphere is expected to be “electric”, for want of a better term. It’s not known how many more Umno general assemblies that Mahathir, pushing 90, can attend.

Earlier, there had been intense speculation that Mahathir may skip this year’s meet to express his displeasure with Najib over his failure to provide firm leadership and a lack of sense of direction.

“Mahathir has been particularly upset that the country has degenerated into extreme levels of polarisation and Najib, like the Emperor Nero, fiddles while Rome burns,” said an insider who requested anonymity.

The turnaround in Mahathir’s stance on the Umno meet this year was first read when he failed to turn up at the Perkasa convention on Sunday, said other Umno insiders close to the former party leader. He had been expected to deliver the keynote address at the NGO’s meet.

It almost became a certainty that Mahathir would turn up after Umno Deputy President Muhyiddin Yassin stepped up on Tuesday and made a very presidential and prime ministerial speech at the Wanita, Youth and Puteri general assemblies when he took the bull by the horns, according to the insiders.

“Mahathir could not have said it better than what Muhyiddin did,” conceded another insider. “The tipping point came when Muhyiddin said in English, ‘if change doesn’t come, we have to engineer the change’.”

“The battle lines have been drawn. Now, it’s up to Najib. Either he shapes up, or ships out.”

Muhyiddin, he pointed out, struck terror in the hearts of the warlords including in Selangor and gave hope to those left out in the political cloud. “There’s a sense of excitement in the air, as if something is at last happening, that something big will happen soon.”

The bottomline is that the country can no longer afford to be in a sense of draft. Najib’s pre-occupation with the big picture is not bringing the people, especially the young, any closer to the ruling party.