The UMNO Omertà

By MT Webmaster On Jan 14, 2019

KTemoc Konsiders

More than 10 years ago, during the tenure of PM AAB but towards its end, I penned that we might have underestimated AAB.

I then believed there was in Malaysia an unjustified dismissal of AAB as a weak and indecisive leader, one not in command nor control of UMNO. That impression was abetted by the regular vicious belittling of AAB by you-know-who, a man who didn’t take kindly to anyone who didn’t and don’t obey his dictateskuai-kuai, wakakaka.

That was unfortunately an incorrect and to an extent, dangerous perception of AAB, of which I too was equally guilty of.

Many merely considered him as an interim UMNO leader of limited tenure, but he served from 2003 to 2009, more than 6 years or approximately 1.5 parliamentary terms as PM of Malaysia, despite being sabotaged kau-kau by you-know-who and those ‘lil Napoleons in the civil service who had owed their dubious “loyalty” to their previous Boss.

I was not and still am not an expert on UMNO but as an interested observer I had then changed my mind about AAB as a PM after some reflection.

I reckoned AAB was a shrewd cunning person who said very little but achieved much for himself – maybe not enough to some of you but he in his humble quiet manner achieved the following important points:

Ending the previous regime’s economic legacy, where wealth was generated not by innovation and creativity, but rather by foreign investment, government contracts, and privatisation(termed by many Malaysians as ‘piratisation’, wakakaka);
Ending the profligate grandiose projects of his predecessor;
Highlighting agriculture & biotechnology in the 9th Malaysia Plan to generate wealth for many Malaysians, especially those in rural areas, but without losing its existing manufacturing base;
Making peace (on the prompting of Zaid Ibrahim) with Tun Salleh Abbas and the families of the sacked High Court Judges by you-know-who.

Step back into history and review his decision after the UMNO Constitutional crisis in 1988. Rather than (at that time) just dismiss his decision to remain in UMNO as typical of a passive bloke instead of recklessly joining the disastrous Ku Li’s Semangat 46, one should actually consider that as due to his brilliant strategic assessment.

Sitting there patiently in an unobtrusive manner he inched his way back into PM Mahathir’s favour and actually won one of UMNO’s Vice President positions.

That could only have come about as a result of his developing and consolidating a strong power base and factional alliances in UMNO. It must be all that more striking aand impressive when we consider he achieved such a power base after he came from a defeated and ostracised Team B, and worse, during a period of Anwar Ibrahim’s expanding influence and ascendancy in UMNO.

Yes, it highlighted AAB’s amazing political resurrection from political disaster in 1988 as a member of the ill-fated Team B (headed by Ku Li cum Musa Hitam) to become the Prime Minister of Malaysia in 2003, in a mere 10 years.

In an any language, it was an astonishing party career achievement unattained by Ku Li, Musa Hitam, or Anwar Ibrahim, wakakaka. And Mahathir’s obligatory or obligated protégé at that time, Najib Razak, had to wait kuai-kuai in the wing, as deputy to AAB.

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