UMNO IS FINISHED: BECAUSE OF NAJIB, EVEN FOUNDING MEMBERS NO LONGER SUPPORT THE PARTY

As a child, whenever I visited my late grandfather, I often gazed at the Umno membership certificate hanging on the wall of his wooden house.

A village chief in the district of Kuala Lipis, Pahang, my grandfather might have been among the founding members of the political party in the village.

Based on the history of Malay warriors' resistance against the British residency system in the state, I guess my grandfather most likely joined Umno for its anti-colonialism struggle in the years before Merdeka.

In addition, there was also a picture of my grandfather with Najib Razak taken at the Kampung Mela train station in the early 1980s, when the latter was the menteri besar of Pahang.

Before the 1990s, the people in Pahang or Pahangites seldom joined other political parties, including PAS.

Umno was seen as the only political organisation championing the Malays and defending the Malay rulers.

Today, if my grandfather was still alive – he passed on in the early 1990s – I'm not sure whether he would still support Umno or Najib.

To the best of my knowledge, none of his children are registered members of the party.

In Temerloh for example, there are other respected leaders such as Saifuddin Abdullah (Umno) and Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man (PAS).

Raub, on the other hand, has seen the rise of Mohd Ariff Sabri (DAP), whereas in Kuantan, there's Fuziah Salleh (PKR).

As a matter of fact, Najib's popularity in Pekan was severely tested during the general election in 1999.

At that time, he was only able to obtain 13,148 votes against PAS candidate, Ramli Mohamed, with 12,907 votes.

However, after working hard to change his fortunes, Najib managed to garner a majority of 22,922 votes in the 2004 general election.

In GE13, Fariz Musa from PKR managed to get 15,665 votes against Najib’s 51,287 votes.

Hence, it was a landslide victory with a majority of 35,613 votes for the prime minister.

In February 2015 however, news portal Selangorku reported of Independent Pollster Merdeka Centre’s revelation that Malaysians' acceptance of Najib had declined to 44 per cent, compared to 48 per cent in October 2014.

The survey also indicated that the level of acceptance of Najib-led Barisan Nasional (BN) remained at 38 per cent.

"If you look back at 1999, it was a very strange situation. The majority votes for me plunged, I think, to 214 votes,” Najib was quoted as saying in a news report in 2010, titled “PRU 1999: Saya mangsa konflik Mahathir-Anwar".

"Life in politics can be short if you are seen to be in the wrong group," he said in the The Malaysian Insider report.

My late grandfather Ahmad Bek died at the age of 77. Although a loyal Umno supporter, he was never actively involved in politics.

His village house which I visited as a child has long been abandoned. The Umno certificate exhibited on the wall of the house may have turned to dust.

In addition, my memory of the small village in Kuala Lipis is also getting increasingly blurred.

But that to me, is not the real tragedy.

Because the real tragedy is when Umno no longer enjoys support, even among its original members. - http://www.theantdaily.com/