|
Tuesday, 13-Jul-2004 7:33 PM Ku Li has 68 nominations in his pocket: Pak Lah fights back dirty Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (Ku Li), Malaysia’s one-time Finance Minister and challenger to Dr Mahathir Mohamad for the Umno Presidency in the mid-1980s, recently announced that he is renewing his bid for the Presidency. And he might just make it. However, to be able to do so, he would first require at least 58 nominations from the 191 Umno divisions, the minimum number for him to qualify. At the moment, he has about 68 nominations in his pocket, ten more than what he needs and enough to demonstrate that he still has ‘bite’. The Umno Presidency, for all intents and purposes, is currently vacant after the resignation of Dr Mahathir as both the party President and Prime Minister of Malaysia late last year. Whoever wins the Umno Presidency would automatically become the Prime Minister of Malaysia as well. And that is why the Umno Presidency is so important and the most sought after post in Malaysia. Currently, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah) is the Acting President of Umno and therefore also the Acting Prime Minister of Malaysia. But no one elected him to that job. No doubt, as the Deputy President of Umno and Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, he would be the most logical person to succeed Dr Mahathir. However, nevertheless, he was never elected to office. Dr Mahathir handpicked him as the Deputy. And he is still only the Acting head. He is yet to win the Presidency in an election. Therefore, the Presidency is still vacant. No one, thus far, has been voted into the job. And, in this same context, the job of Prime Minister is still vacant as well, temporarily held by Pak Lah, and yet to be filled by any candidate voted into office. Pak Lah’s only advantage over Ku Li is that he is currently warming the Prime Minister’s seat. But that is all. As Acting Prime Minister he has not shown his mettle. In fact, compared to recently retired Dr Mahathir, Pak Lah pales by comparison. The only ‘feather in his cap’ worth talking about is his ‘impressive’ performance in the recently concluded 11th General Election in March this year. However, considering this recent general election is the most fraud-ridden in Malaysia’s entire history, his so-called impressive performance is more an albatross around Pak Lah’s neck rather than a feather in his cap. Ku Li makes a better Prime Minister than Pak Lah by far. Ku Li has been tested and has proven his worth in managing Malaysia’s economy, especially when the going gets tough. Pak Lah has not shown what he can do, and his tenure so far as Acting Prime Minister gives the impression that he does not know whether he is coming or going. The young in Malaysia have a phrase for this, “Pak Lah blur”, meaning confused as hell. Next year, Malaysia’s economy is expected to be under pressure. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. And that is how Ku Li manages things. For Pak Lah though, when the going gets tough, he will hand it to his son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, to sort out -- the 28-year old wet-behind-the-ears fresh out of school kid who is being acclaimed by the Umno-controlled media as the (sic) Lee Iaccoca of Malaysia. Pak Lah is running scared. He knows Ku Li has 68 nominations safely tucked in his pocket. And they are just biding their time waiting for the right time to spring these nominations out. So Pak Lah is not taking any chances. The old saying is: if you can’t beat then, join them. Pak Lah has given a new twist to the old saying: if you can’t beat them, cheat, threaten and frighten them. And that is exactly what Pak Lah is doing. One chap in Kuala Kerai, Kelantan, who was about to nominate Ku Li for President, was suddenly made a bankrupt. But getting declared a bankrupt is normal, you might say. Not if the bankruptcy papers were served on you midnight, a couple of hours before the division meeting the next morning. Since this unfortunate Ku Li intended nominator was declared a bankrupt, he could not legally attend the division meeting. So Ki Li was ‘robbed’ of one nomination. Then, a few others in Pahang who were about to nominate Ku Li at their division meetings were summoned by the Special Branch officers and interrogated for hours on end. Pak Lah, in fact, summoned all the state Special Branch heads and told them that the Special Branch must, at all costs, ‘persuade’ all those who were going to nominate Ku Li to change their mind and help them see the folly of their misguided ways. Pak Lah is breaking every rule in the book and is breaching Umno’s Code of Ethics like there is no tomorrow. He is panicking and he is not going to allow trivial issues such as abiding to the rules and respecting the law stand in his way. He wants to deny Ku Li his 68 nominations, whatever it takes to do this, and fair play is not something he is going to waste his time with. Pak Lah knows that if Ku Li gets his 68 nominations all is lost. Pak Lah might as well just give way like what one-time Deputy Prime Minister Ghaffar Baba did when Anwar Ibrahim challenged him for the post. It would be futile for Pak Lah to even consider contesting the post. Ku Li would make mince meat out of him. So, the only thing to do now -- by hook, crook, cajole, threats, intimidation and fraud -- is to deny Ku Li his nominations. Without the nominations, Ku Li cannot contest the seat. And, if he cannot contest, then he most surely cannot win. It is as easy as that. But all is not lost. There are still more than 120 divisions that have not held their meetings. And all Ku Li needs is half of this. But, even if Ku Li cannot get his mandatory 58 nominations -- say he gets some but not enough to qualify him to contest the Presidency -- the damage would have been done. The fact that Pak Lah did not get unanimous nominations from all 191 divisions will hurt him enough. The fact that there are some in Umno who do not want him will hurt him come three years from now when his deputy, Najib, decides to dislodge him from the top slot. It does not matter if Ku Li fails this time around. The very fact Ku Li set the trend of challenging the boss is good enough. This means Umno would accept the revived culture of contesting the Presidency, which was killed off by Dr Mahathir almost 20 years ago. And, three years from now, we can expect an even more exciting contest to emerge.
|
