Zahid brings baggage, not unity

 

From Ibrahim M Ahmad

Umno insiders did not take too kindly to comments made by deputy president Mohamad Hasan and others in the party hinting at a concerted effort to block challengers for the party’s top post.

“If possible, at this stage where we are still recovering from our losses (at GE15), the president’s post should be uncontested,” Mohamad, popularly known as Tok Mat, told reporters after his speech on the opening day of the party’s general assembly on Wednesday night.

The president’s loyalists, including Supreme Council member Puad Zarkashi, Wanita chief Noraini Ahmad, Puteri leader Zahida Zarik Khan and division leaders, have been chiming in agreement.

The prospect of Ahmad Zahid Hamidi retaining the presidency for another term will concern many within the party.

With Zahid at its helm, the party will not be able to shake off the perception that it is tainted by corruption, something which has already cost Umno dearly at two general elections.

Led by Najib Razak, the party suffered a crushing defeat to Pakatan Harapan (PH) at the 2018 general election after it failed to address the mammoth 1MDB scandal which eventually saw Najib go to jail.

Already associated with that scandal due to his close working and personal relationship with Najib at the time, Zahid became embroiled in his own corruption scandal soon after PH came to power.

He was eventually charged in the High Court, and is currently facing 47 counts of criminal breach of trust, corruption and money laundering involving RM31 million in funds belonging to his Yayasan Akalbudi.

With his defence already called and the case scheduled to resume from next week until May 18, the trial is bound to attract unnecessary publicity for the party and subject it to even further embarrassment.

Delegates hearing Tok Mat’s speech and comments on Wednesday would have found it particularly jarring that he would call for unity under the highly divisive Zahid.

As president, Zahid has been at the heart of a deep rift in the party over the last three years, when he was constantly at loggerheads with ninth prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, leader of the rival faction in the party.

That disunity played its part in Umno’s crushing defeat at GE15 last November, after Zahid omitted several candidates aligned to Ismail from the nominations list.

Several, like Shahidan Kassim and Ismail Abd Muttalib, went on to win seats for Perikatan Nasional (PN) at the expense of Umno.

Another, Khairy Jamaluddin, was hung out to dry by Zahid and Tok Mat. A vocal critic of Zahid, Khairy was yanked out of his three-term Rembau seat and assigned at the eleventh hour to Sungai Buloh, a PH stronghold.

To his credit, he came within a whisker of winning the seat by being critical of Zahid’s presidency and calling for change in the party. It is a theme he has carried on championing in the lead up to the general assembly.

Even post-GE15, Zahid’s divisiveness has shown no sign of abating.

Prior to the formation of the unity government, several elected Umno and Barisan Nasional members of Parliament defied him by lending their support to PN’s Muhyiddin Yassin as prime minister.

Even as recently as yesterday, Zahid showed no sign of offering them an olive branch to ensure the party was united moving forward.

Instead, he chose to drive the wedge even deeper. In preliminary remarks delivered to the general assembly yesterday, Zahid called out ten of them, most notably Hishammuddin Hussein, branding them traitors to Umno’s cause.

That was after the Umno president oversaw one of his charges, Bung Moktar Radin, create chaos in Sabah by attempting to overthrow its chief minister Hajiji Noor.

That exercise has now caused a split within Sabah Umno after five of the party’s 17 assemblymen stood their ground by supporting Hajiji.

Bung has since distanced them from the party, saying that the two who now sit in Hajiji’s revamped state Cabinet do not have the sanction of the party.

Until now, Zahid has refused to reprimand Bung or distance himself from the stunt the Sabah Umno chief tried to pull last week, leaving many in the party disillusioned. That, they say, suggests that Zahid must have been behind Bung’s attempted coup from the outset.

All that suggests that cries by Zahid and his apologists for Umno to unite behind him are hollow. To many, Zahid does not bring unity, only baggage and empty rhetoric.

Above all, with more than 50 days having passed since the party’s chastening defeat at GE15, Zahid has yet to put forward anything resembling a plan capable of turning Umno’s fortunes around.

At the end of the day, by preventing a challenge to the party’s top post, delegates are preventing prospective challengers from coming forward with different plans comprising real reforms and ideas capable of giving Umno hope of recapturing lost votes.

Umno and Malaysia have seen enough of Zahid and Tok Mat to know what they are capable of. It was under their leadership that the party saw its representation in Parliament drop from 54 MPs in 2018 to a mere 26 in 2022.

On that score, political convention dictates that they should step aside and allow fresh faces with new ideas to lead the party.

Umno in 2023 needs a leader capable of executing a turnaround.

To identify such a leader, Umno must discard once and for all the politics of self-interest and put its faith and trust in the democratic process by allowing for elections at every level, especially for the post of party president. - FMT

Ibrahim M Ahmad is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.