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Saturday, 17-Jul-2004 10:49 PM Pak Lah, the incoming illegitimate Prime Minister of Malaysia The results are in. Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (Ku Li) succeeded in getting one nomination for President from his own Gua Musang division. But Acting Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah) managed to block nominations from 15 others thereby allowing Ku Li only one nomination thus far. Tomorrow, the balance of the Umno divisions throughout Malaysia, in particular the Sabah State divisions, will be holding their meetings. However, considering Ku Li failed to get his 15 nominations today, it is expected that the 50 or so nominations Ku Li is supposed to get tomorrow would not materialise after all. Sabah was supposed to deliver at least 15 nominations tomorrow with another 35 or so from West Malaysia. The Sabah divisions chose to hold their meetings on Sunday to allow Ku Li to get his first 15 or 20 nominations from West Malaysia. If Ku Li had succeeded in getting his 15 or 20 nominations today, then Sabah would have ‘jumped on the bandwagon’ and delivered 15 to 18 more. This means Ku Li needs another 20 to 25 more from the other West Malaysian divisions that are also due to meet tomorrow. The way Pak Lah did it was quite brilliant, though downright dirty, not to mention illegal. Those divisions that support Ku Li were actually split. The division chiefs understandably support Pak Lah because they had been summoned to Putrajaya about three months ago and instructed to ensure that their divisions nominate only Pak Lah for President and no one else. But the division chiefs could not control their members who were free to propose nominations for anyone else they so pleased. And these divisions that were split proposed nominations for both Pak Lah and Ku Li, which means they would then have to vote by show of hands. At all the divisions that met today, though, the division chiefs only allowed nominations for Pak Lah and they refused to allow any other nominations. This means, other than Gua Musang, all divisions nominated only one candidate for President, Pak Lah. The members of course stood up to protest and demanded that the chair read out all the nominations received. But their demands were not entertained and the protesting members were told the chair was only allowing the nomination for Pak Lah to be read out and no other nomination papers were going to be read. Expecting this was going to happen, and fearing that many division meetings may either be disrupted or end in fisticuffs, late last night Ku Li sent word to all his supporters not to retaliate or take an offensive stance. If this happens, Ku Li, instructed them, do not create any commotion but just watch and take note so that some form or action could be taken later. The same thing is expected to occur tomorrow and Ku Li’s people are currently listing down all those divisions that had actually proposed more than one nomination for President. The full list would probably be released later once all the division meetings are over. Pak Lah is now certain of winning the Umno Presidency uncontested. The question to now ask though, can he be regarded as a legitimate President, and therefore legitimate Prime Minister of Malaysia? The mind boggles that the Umno members would tolerate such blatant rigging of its party election. This matter does not concern Umno alone. Though the Umno members may be electing their own President, it is the concern of all Malaysians for whoever becomes the Umno President will automatically become the Prime Minister and all Malaysians would have to live with this illegitimate Prime Minister for years to come, just like how we had to live under the dark cloud of Dr Mahathir Mohamad for more than 22 years.
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