Umno’s last moderate

Saifuddin Abdullah faces the firing squad, but also his chance to realise his potential

Saifuddin Abdullah has long been the sore thumb that sticks out from Umno. He doesn’t indulge in communalistic rhetoric come election season, looks for chances to cooperate with the opposition, and regularly comes to the defence of the injured party when one of our inevitable racial flare-ups makes the news. He is always cordial and respectful of others. He is a model politician.

It’s a shame that he is an anachronism in his own party, a throwback to the Umno of Tunku Abdul Rahman and its all-encompassing embrace of Malaysians of all colours, and thus irrelevant to Umno Baru. That is why he is shunted into vanity projects like the Global Movement of Moderates (GMM), when he should be groomed to lead Umno into a bright future. But to his credit, he has made GMM a legitimate forum for discussion of ideas in an intellectual arena.

And now, Umno’s last moderate faces the firing squad for having the gall to have attended Pakatan Harapan’s roundtable discussion and the coalition’s launch – in his personal capacity too, one might add.

Branding and party rules and all that jazz are all well and good, but they really just sound like a convenient excuse to be rid of the one remaining voice of sanity in Umno Baru. After all, Saifuddin has weighed in negatively on some of the Najib administration’s recent decisions, and it must infuriate some quarters that there is still a holdout when it seems all the other Umno leaders are Najib’s made men.

So where does Saifuddin go if he is sacked? Well, the option seems to be to join an opposition party, likely Amanah or DAP, or to lead remaining Umno moderates into exile or to start a new party or NGO.

Now, the addition of Saifuddin to Amanah or DAP would be a win for either party. Amanah would gain an ally with a similar value system and principles, and one intimately familiar with Umno’s idiosyncrasies at that. Saifuddin’s credentials as a dyed-in-the-wool moderate will burnish the party’s credentials and further define the ideological split from PAS. DAP stands to gain more credibility among Malay voters, especially if Saifuddin is accorded the respect he deserves and is pushed as a prominent leader in the party. He could also perhaps rein in the more aggressive elements in DAP that have rubbed some Malay sensitivities the wrong way.

But more interesting is the third option, as that relies on the idea that there are others like Saifuddin and Anina Saaduddin within Umno who have not come to the fore merely because they have been silenced by their division leaders or fellow party members.

If there exist such elements in Umno, Saifuddin’s taking them with him will send a clear message to Najib that the “Moderate Malaysia” he likes to sell to gullible foreign powers does not exist within his own party and has, in fact, rejected him and his policies. But of course, such a scenario is largely speculative, even though such a show would reinvigorate the efforts to remove Najib.

Where does Umno’s last moderate go from here? Facing the firing squad could be his first step into political superstardom, and if Saifuddin is as good a politician as he is a moderate, he will be able to capitalise on public goodwill to rally the moderate voice. It would be such a shame, after all, to waste such a man on a party that does not value him.