On victory, consensual leadership and reversion to form
I was recently asked to answer some questions for an Australian news programme:
1. Barisan Nasional has won several apparent victories over the Opposition in the last few weeks, but you have been critical of some of these. Could you explain why?
It depends what you mean by victory, and victory for whom. What happened in Perak recently has all the appearance of a desperate and ill-conceived grab for power, with constitutional consequences that are still being played out.
Barisan Nasional’s loss of popular support is the real issue, so our task must be to regain support.
We really have lost support. March 8 was not a freak result. We have had two by-election losses, both of which were exacerbated by our own members abstaining, or voting for the Oppostion, to have that message drummed into the party leadership.
Victory would be to regain that support, and to translate those gains constitutionally into a stronger presence in the government. It would mean coming to terms with the true causes for our loss of support, and addressing those causes with real reform. Yet our leadership has done nothing of the kind over the last year. Instead we celebrate “victories” achieved by tricks and shortcuts liable to lose us even more ground with the Malaysian electorate.
These moves harm the long-term prospects of Umno, and especially those of Barisan Nasional. However, they may serve candidates trying to secure their standing within the party in view of upcoming party elections. Weak leaders will pass off pyrrhic victories for the real thing, rally party members in the opposite direction from reform, and march them farther from the expectations and values of the Malaysian electorate.
No party can survive long with leaders who are so ready to sacrifice its viability for short-term and short-sighted political interests.
2. Some commentators speak of the need for BN and, particularly, UMNO reform, in particular a return to a more negotiated style of government. How far would you say UMNO has strayed from this consensus building mode of government, and how far is such reform necessary?
Consensual leadership is BN’s value proposition, if you will. If we lose this, we might as well close shop.
The negotiated power-sharing model that BN practiced successfully in the past requires a genuine partnership among the leaders of the various parties. It takes far more strength and ability to negotiate a consensus than to carry decisions by numerical dominance alone. As the dominant partner of this coalition, Umno has a special responsibility of leadership in this process. It means we pick leaders with the ability and moral authority to mediate consensus and hold a moderate, pragmatic centre while maintaining an ethnic support base. This is something that cannot be done by weak or tainted leaders.
The consensus building mode of government requires leadership formed in a tradition in which the skills and relationships needed to govern in this manner are consciously handed on. But the party succession is now dominated by ethnic champions or party warlords with little else to qualify them to govern a plural society with a sophisticated, trade-oriented economy.
There is also a structural reason for the incipient breakdown of our consensual model. For the model to work, each of the major ethnic parties must credibly and reliably represent its ethnic base. This is no longer the case. MIC, MCA, and now possibly UMNO, have each lost the majority support of the ethnic communities they claim to represent. The very raison d’etre of the model, and perhaps even of these parties, is at stake.
Nevertheless we still need this model of consensus-based government, helmed by a Malay leadership imbued with a sense of duty to Malaysia in all its plurality, East and West. The country still needs capable, centrist leaders who are also real leaders of the Malay and Muslim community, able to anchor and partner a multiracial and multi-religious consensus for a progressive country. At the outset this means a solid commitment to the rule of law which alone guarantees our form of government by constitutional monarchy and the rights and freedoms of all Malaysians. Umno is failing to provide this leadership but this does not mean we don’t still need it, and need it desperately.
3. Last week, the three contenders for the post of UMNO Youth chief held a live debate. Do you think these representatives of the future leadership are likely to embrace any necessary change?
Their individual records on that score have not inspired hope. None of them has presented a consistent and principled orientation towards reform. Some views expressed in that debate actually called for reversion to bad old form rather than for reform. If the party continues on its present recourse, the question would be moot.
Dear All,
Yes, it appears that Tengku Razaleigh has brought forward a few valid and urgent points as well as issues which had bogged down Malaysia for the last couple of years. One of them was definitely the affirmative programme, NEP, which had nothing but enriched only selected few Malays. It was merely a programme to richess if you may and I certainly believe that the government would not be quite willing to do away with this sacred policy. Sacred to those who needed a pasport to richess. If you have been following the recent developments in the US auto industry, you will know that it is a matter of time before the Malaysian government would end up bailing Proton. There is no two way out of this issue. Short of shutting down the door for all car imports and forcing Malaysians to buy all Proton cars at high prices. Similarly, Malaysia had been bailed out from its own economic downturns through natural resources which has somewhat driven politicians’ minds to stop thinking. As one may say, if you are not put in a need position, your mind will shut off. This is exactly what is happening to our Malaysian leaders. At the point where world leaders are busy coming up with policies to save their respective countries from the vagaries of this financial melt down, Malaysian leaders are busy flying to England in search of a Queens Council to help them save a government won through illegal means in Perak as well as trying to hatch dirty ideas bringing down other Pakatan governments. It is indeed sad to note that the leaders are less worried of the economic situation.
Another good article.
But without action, these words will mean nothing, dear Tengku. We got your point, but UMNO doesn’t.
We need someone as you said:
“The country still needs capable, centrist leaders who are also real leaders of the Malay and Muslim community, able to anchor and partner a multiracial and multi-religious consensus for a progressive country.”
Are you the one, Tengku? I believe you are.
I know it is going to be hard to rise to the top. But this is the time for ordinary people to do extra ordinary things. Please do this one more time for the sake of this sinking nation.
Offer yourself in Parliament as the next-PM and ask for vote of confidence for you in Parliament.
My Dearest Tengku,
Now is the time to act, not pontificate!
As I suggested about two weeks ago, move with like minded UMNO members of parliament and take over the nearly defunct PPP and make it into a majority Malay party.
Then offer yourself as president of BN and viola, you are PM.
You have it within your power to become PM because Najib is going to become UMNO president. Najib is so unpopular that the BN will sink very fast if he becomes PM. Members of BN know this, so any alternative choice given will be taken.
The Merdaka poll suggested that 41% of Malaysians would accept Najib as PM. That is totally unbelievable. Malaysians are very friendly and non offensive so a large portion of those that said they would accept Najib would have done it out of politeness or fear, as most Malaysians are really fearful of upsetting the powers that be.
My own wide circle of friends of all backgrounds and races would show less than 5% reluctantly accepting Najib. That is a percentage similar to the average of a lot of internet polls of all sorts. So it is clear that not more than about 5% of Malaysians accept Najib to be PM.
I firmly believe that a two party system is best for Malaysia. My fear is that just when we are about to achieve that, Najib as PM will cause such utter and complete implosion of BN that we get left again with a one party system but PR this time.
My dearest Tengku, if you want to achieve anything at this time, you have 30 days – nothing more.
“…tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood……”
I’ve said it in the past in other blogs:
‘Gentleman politicians like KuLi is a very rare breed indeed but sad to say will never make it in the world of Malaysian ‘jungle politics’!’
I hope i’m proven wrong!
What makes a leader unpopular and fall is the circle of associates and ‘advisors’ surrounding him. The desperate take over of Perak state government is a clear example of bad advice by the wrong people. Those who fall back on common sense fare better than those who depend too much on their degrees & doctorate from renown institutions and label themselves as ‘think tank’…more like septic tank to me! Badawi’s think tank also known as ‘tingkat empat’ is on the way out but i’m not too sure the think tank of incoming PM is any better…well slightly better considering Baginda is out of sight!
Sir,
I am afraid that your insights and call for reason belong to an era long lost in Umno.Today, the exercise of power has degenerated into its most brutish and immoral form.Your lonely call will remain just that for it is lost in the cacophony of an NEP handicapped generation fed on ‘Ketuanan’ ideology. Sir, while there are a few who appreciate what you have said here, I can only see the futility of your words for those in UMNO cannot ‘hear’.
By allowing an immoral ideology to persist for so long, this nation has condemned itself into the mindless conundrum we see today; madness if you will.Sanity will not return until UMNO is brought to its knees. Perhaps it will take the pain of an economic tsunami to open the minds of a people who will not ’see’. The fact that we all go down together during this crisis will perhaps dawn on our people that a nation cannot be at ease and prosper by denying equal rights and opportunities to all born under the sun. Then again, perhaps….?
I have a dream ….that perhaps you will find the strength to free yourself from the UMNO be our ‘Obama’, for change we must before we are brought down to our knees. God bless you.
TR lost to DR M as the media was used so powerfully against TR, TR was pictured wearing a HAT bearing a cross. that was a dirty trick in politics n TR lost badly n never recovered n was out for a long time. its time to change n save malaysia as we are a durian republic now