Can Umno make a comeback after wasting six years?

How do we take stock of democratisation six years after the fall of Umno? Allow me to offer a counter-intuitive one - the prospect of successful democratisation may largely depend on whether Umno can make a comeback.

Umno’s dominance since the 1970s grew on a 3-in-1 formula of Malay nationalism, authoritarianism, and patronage.

Many ethnic minority or liberal-leaning Malaysians saw themselves as the victims of Umno’s success. Malay nationalism devalues their citizenship, authoritarianism suppresses their rights, and patronage breeds corruption and damages the economy.

For them, a new Malaysia has to be the antithesis of Umno: no nationalism, no authoritarianism, and no patronage.

Hence, they were too happy to see Umno going down after 2018. They cheered for the exodus of Umno MPs and their Borneo allies. They defended the first Pakatan Harapan government’s discrimination against opposition MPs in constituency allocation.

However, as Umno gets weaker, the “New Malaysia” has also gotten weaker. Umno’s electoral share shifted to Bersatu and later to Perikatan Nasional, resulting in the two Green Waves.

Umno voters’ ranking of choices

In the first Green Wave in the 15th general election, about half of the new voters in the peninsula who turned up at the poll booths went for PN.

That merely suggested both Harapan and Umno’s weakness in attracting young Malay voters brought into the electoral rolls by automatic voter registration and Undi18.

The second Green Wave in the 2023 state polls showed a different but more frightening picture. The Madani government brought Harapan and Umno leaders together into the cabinet, but it failed to bring their voters together.

Not only did most Harapan candidates get little vote transfer from the Umno base, but even many Umno candidates failed to retain their support.

Even the Selangor Umno chief, who contested in a state constituency under PKR’s Selangor menteri besar’s parliamentary constituency, lost his fight narrowly.

The First-Past-The-Post electoral system is supposed to encourage voters into two groups because third forces stand no chance of winning. If Umno voters follow their leaders’ decisions, then Harapan-Umno would be a powerful combination.

However, the reality is the opposite: if Umno voters are forced to choose between a multiethnic Harapan-Umno bloc and a monoethnic PN bloc, most would choose the latter.

PN and its friends in Umno try to blame the Umno grassroots’ autonomous shift on DAP. It is true that the mutual enmity of DAP and BN supporters runs deep - not just Umno, look at MCA. But how much does that explain the Green Wave 2.0?

Imagine if DAP is merged into PKR, would this persuade PN-voting Umno voters to support Harapan-Umno candidates? Clearly, no. PN and the pro-PN faction in Umno would then claim that PKR is controlled by the Chinese.

The real issue is that Umno voters’ ranking of choices is as follows: a competitive Umno first, PN second, and others third. If Umno remains uncompetitive, its base will continue shifting to PN, the difference is only pace.

The outdated 3-in-1 formula

Umno leaders know very well that they need to stay in government to prevent the absorption of Umno by Bersatu or PAS. Being in government gives them incumbent advantages, the patronage factor in their old 3-in-1 formula.

For Umno Youth chief Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh, the party needs to revive its Malay nationalist credentials, the second element in the 3-in-1 formula.

The hosiery in Yiwu, China, which supplied 18,000 pairs of socks to Malaysia and got 14 pairs with the Allah-worded design eventually delivered to three KK Mart outlets, became his involuntary assistant to create a national storm.

If the opposition leaders face more selective prosecution or police harassment, many Umno leaders and members would welcome a return of authoritarianism - the third element in Umno’s 3-in-1 formula - to revive and worsen the unlevel playing field.

This is exactly where Umno’s existential crisis lies. Its 3-in-1 formula is out of date. After the Reformasi and Bersih waves and after 1MDB, if authoritarianism and patronage still work, they do not work for Umno anymore in attracting Malay support.

Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi tried to use allocations under his resource-rich Rural and Regional Development Ministry to fish vote in Terengganu in the 2023 state polls. And Terengganu retained PN with zero opposition.

Lastly, Umno cannot go too far on nationalism if it wants to stay in Anwar’s multiethnic government or hopes to join the next multiethnic government.

Akmal has in fact destroyed the electoral prospects of many of his colleagues in marginal constituencies.

If the fire on KK Mart does not bring in more Malay voters - if it would, PN would have jumped on the wagon and taken over - but would chase away Harapan voters, Umno is in a dire situation described by the Malay proverb “yang dikejar tak dapat, yang dikendong berciciran” (you don’t get what you chase after but lose what you already have).

A new 3-in-1 formula?

Umno’s survival and revival hinge on finding a new electoral formula to replace the unholy trinity of nationalism, authoritarianism, and patronage. It needs rebranding and repositioning.

To differentiate from Harapan and be appealing to the PN base, especially Bersatu’s, Umno needs not only keep but also reinvent its Malay nationalism, giving it a respectable flavour of conservatism and reviving the “a pair of safe hands” feel.

Instead of authoritarianism, it should sell professionalism, making use of the talents it groomed in the past and attracting smart young Malays who don’t trust or like both Harapan and PN.

Instead of patronage, it should perhaps sell integrity, which its staunch critics would dismiss as sheer impossibility. Umno has to prove them wrong.

Umno would not stand a chance amongst young voters if it is seen as substantially more corrupt than PN and Harapan. This requires institutional reforms that ensure Umno’s financial health like public funding for political parties.

Eventually, Umno might need even to push for electoral system change and local elections so that it can regain local footholds in PN and Harapan states.

Goodbye to Najib, victim narrative

However, none of the above is possible if Umno cannot come to terms with its defeat in GE14.

In backing former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s claim of innocence in the 1MDB scandal, Umno is denouncing the legitimacy of the historic election. That prevents the party from reconnecting with Malays who have voted against it in 2018, 2022, and 2023.

Umno should just disown Najib and move on. He was part of the old 3-in-1 that has no future.

In Korea, the main right-wing party (which changed its name many times) had produced four presidents who went to jail for corruption, and yet it has made three comebacks and is now back in power.

Unlike Najib, all four jailed ex-presidents apologised, got pardoned, and retired from politics.

Korean politics is not exactly a textbook example of democracy but Umno can learn from how its main right-wing party made one comeback after another.

Two days from now, on May 11, Umno will celebrate its 78th anniversary. I sincerely hope there will be soul-searching in in the party, especially among its new leaders on how to make a comeback from 2018, so that it can celebrate that in its centennial celebration 22 years later.

The party has already wasted six years and that is too long. - Mkini

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WONG CHIN HUAT is a political scientist at Sunway University and a member of Project Stability and Accountability for Malaysia (Projek Sama). He believes that politicians would inevitably compete on identity politics and patronage if they were not incentivised to compete on policy ideas.

This article is part of a series on the sixth anniversary of the watershed May 9, 2018 general election.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.