The Canon is out

Ku Li has declared publicly his intention to “clean” UMNO by challenging Pak Lah. This charismatic leader who challenged Tun Dr M in 1987 is doing it again. He ended up with Semangat 46 which in the end faltered because its foundation or cause of struggle was never defined. He maybe 71 but seeing things in disarray at the moment may have prompted him to act rather than just wait and see things crumbling. He knows Pak Lah ‘s position is dodgy , and with the increasing number of enemies he is making by day ; you’d never know the kind of support that Ku Li can get. Radzi was his stalwart soldier in Team B and I am sure Radzi still wants to be a relevant factor in UMNO. Lets see if Musa would join him again !I’m sure there’ll be lots of silent supporters out there who will come out and voice their dissatisfaction against Pak Lah. Rais Yatim , the then Deputy President of Semangat 46 is really quiet since his promotion to Foreign Affairs .As for Tun Dr M , He’ll just be applauding to see the current scenario.

( from NST )

KOTA BARU, Wed 19 March 2008 :

MP for Gua Musang Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has made public his intent to challenge Umno president Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for the presidency. He has offered himself to lead Umno to “heal the party”, which he described to be “in a bad way.”

While acknowledging that his advancing age might be used against him, the 71-year-old former Finance Minister, who held the Gua Musang parliamentary seat since 1969, expressed willingness to take up the challenge if he was given the opportunity.
Tengku Razaleigh, who challenged but lost to then Umno president Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad in the 1987 party elections, said he was “young” then and ever ready to challenge anyone with his ideas.

“I still have ideas, I am still brave because I am independent and I don’t depend on anyone. If my service is still needed and my strength can still be used, I am offering myself to work for the rakyat,” he told a press conference here today. “Even though I am old but I am still strong. If there are enough nominations for me to contest in the Umno election, I will give my service if I am needed.”
The Gua Musang Umno division chief, who described Umno’s defeat in the recent general election as the most painful and horrible moment in his political career, said he would call for a special meeting in his division tomorrow to discuss his proposal for the party to hold a special meeting to discuss the defeat.

Tengku Razaleigh had recently distributed letters to all Umno divisions and branch heads, urging them to utilise a section in the party’s constitution to call for a special Umno EGM on May 11, the party’s anniversary, to discuss the dismal polls performance. He felt the meeting should be held before the annual general meeting in August to “avoid confusion.”
“I felt the general assembly has to deal with lots of issues, so let us have this special meeting to discuss the election results. I hope the other Umno divisions will consider this. This can be done according to the party’s constitution and it is an abnormal thing. We need to discuss this defeat. Haven’t the Umno members realise we’ve lost five states? Are they still sleeping?”
On the desire of the five opposition-led state government’s desire to do away the National Economic Policy, Tengku Razaleigh said the topic was questioned because some quarters tasked with implementing the policy had “abused their powers to the point of raising ire of both commoners and Umno members.”
“The discrimination should not have happened as the NEP was a trust for the rakyat,” he said. “The policy is not meant solely for a group of people but the rakyat should view its overall objective which is to bring unity to the country. I support the policy in principle but I feel that it should be continued to remain as it was formulated back then.”

UMNO LEADERSHIP DILEMMA – PART 2

The new cabinet announced on the 18th of March gave different impact to different groups. BY calibre , it is difficult to critisize the cabinet at the moment because it is a known well fact that the team now are hard working. Even alternative leaders  chose to wait for this team to be in action before opening their mouth.  The appointments of Zaid Ibrahim and Shahrir Samad showed how serious Pak Lah is in having the “brave” ones working with him in federal matters. It is a serious image enhancement exercise and having them on board is spot on for damage control.

Pak Lah is certainly trying to clean up the mess ; a bit late but better than never. Those seen as controversial were kicked out ; and few did not know it was coming. Rafidah and Radzi were shocked and expressed their dissappointments openly . Tengku Adnan was a surprise inclusion for the polls but his exit from the cabinet showed how close he was to be  kicked out indefinitely. Rafidah decided not to resign as the Wanita chief and that is a sign that she will retaliate. She never gives up things easily and is this a signal for more trouble to come ?

Pak Lah stern stance after the dissapointing polls revealed his weakness more and more. The refusal of the Terengganu and Perlis royals to accept his choice for Menteri Besar was a big blow for his ego. The episode was a direct insult to Pak Lah really. PEMUDA UMNO  did not suspend Mukhriz as how it was expected to ; Pak Lah holds the autonomy power to sack Mukhriz indefinitely and by not doing it his grip over UMNO is faltering. The refusal of Anifah and Tengku Azlan to accept the deputy minister’s post challenged Pak Lah’s leadership. Radzi , The Secretary General calls it the day and said he can’t work with Pak Lah anymore. Rafidah , the Wanita chief was very sarcarstic in her PC today. Everybody is showing their protest to Pak Lah but still the denial syndrome remains.

All the signals and body language is for Pak Lah to go. Of course , statements are out by all factions to pledge their loyalty to the Prime Minister. However , do remember history during Tun Hussein Onn’s “official” dismissal , Ghafar Baba’s tenure as DPM and just moments before Anwar’s dismissal in 1998. Politics will remain be as how it has been shaped to be.  The only argument why he should stay as PM and UMNO president for now maybe because there is nobody else who can take over at the moment. Transfer of power to the obvious ones in line is somehow not an alternative. The vacuum is evident and UMNO as an entity needs to rethink and reorganize .

Starting point

I am really happy that there are people out there reading my blog . Not only that , because oftheir concern for Malaysia ; there were kind enough to leave comments for discussion ! Thank you.. thank you… As you can see I will not sensor nor filter the comments .Its time to  trash out our thoughts. Its time we practice what we’ve been preaching for years about democracy yeah ? Everybody is entitled to their own opinion ; but lets talk facts and argue intelligently ; not based on emotion and for ego’s sake.

I applaud my enthusiastic Malaysians… *smile*