The UMNO Elections: The Prime Minister Blinks

["M.G.G. Pillai" <pillai@mgg.pc.my>]

Less than a score of UMNO divisions have held their meetings and want
the Prime Minister and Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as their
president and deputy president.  A hundred percent choice.  But there is
another 150 meetings more to be held, about half completed by the
weekend.  The newspapes and the media are certain that the Hermit of
Langgak Golf has been flattened by the Mahathirian steamrollers that
many believe he is now the Chicken of Langgak Golf.  But the Prime
Minister's waking thoughts these days are on him.  It is not the Prime
Minister's re-election as UMNO president that captures the UMNO, and the
country's, imagination as Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah coming into the fray.
Despite his careful planning to be returned unopposed, even to make
Tengku Razaleigh challenge Dato' Seri Abdullah if he must contest, he
behaves as an overconfident Goliath confronting a shrewd, calculative
David. And blinked.  After the UMNO Supreme Council meeting on Monday,
he wondered aloud to reporters if Tengku Razaleigh should not declare
early if he is a candidate.  Mind you, no one else is required to.  Why
did he not then ask Tengku Razaleigh to declare his position at the
Supreme Council meeting on Monday?  Why? 

     The UMNO oligarchy dissembles at the prospect of the Hermit
entering the fray.  First, UMNO members were told to ignore the Hermit
since he had made clear his disinterest in the elections.  But Tengku
Razaleigh has not ruled out from contesting.  The three mentris besar
thought they did the Prime Minister a favour by wanting Tengku Razaleigh
as a vice president.  UMNO's contempt for that is one nomination out of
nearly 20.  Tengku Razaleigh holds a press conference at noon today to
announce, according to The Sun, if he is a candidate for any post.  For
his political survival, it has to be the UMNO presidency, not, as the
oligarchy hopes, the deputy presidency.  He had had a crack at the UMNO
presidency once -- in 1987 -- a traumatic contest following which the
High Court declared UMNO illegal.  Sheer political skulduggery ruled
then, and sobre minds lay the blame for that not on the Hermit but on He
Who Thinks He Is Lord Of All He Surveys.  For thirteen years, the Prime
Minister tried, without success, to destroy the Hermit.  And is as
nervous now as in 1987.  What frightens the Prime Minister is that
despite the intervention of the institutions of state, no dirt is found
to stick.  An attempt to destroy him in Kelantan failed when has handed
the poisoned chalice to recover the state from PAS in the November
elections.  He took it but his return as the sole National Front (and
UMNO) MP underlined that the state organisation had rotted before he
took over.  Besides, UMNO lost Trengganu with no MPs, a bigger loss than
Kelantan.  The Prime Minister worries the two states would rally around
the Hermit, and with it the likelihood of others in constituencies the
opposition won and those who believe he has outlived his usefulness.

     So, it does not matter what Tengku Razaleigh has to say at this
press conference today.  He speaks from a position of strength.  He
knows it.  UMNO knows it.  The country knows it.  Whether Tengku
Razaleigh would get the 50 nominations to be a candidate for the
president or the 30 for the deputy presidency is not the issue any more. 
The rules are constantly fine-tuned sto that he could not.  He told me a
fortnight ago he would wait until this weekend to decide if he is a
candidate.  The party elders led by the former deputy prime minister,
Tun Ghafar Baba, and supporters of He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost,
a substantial minority in UMNO, want him to stand for the presidency,
with the distinct threat of no support if he went for any other
position.  However remotely, he is sucked into a position he cannot now
desert.  He is, willy nilly, the choice of the Malay cultural ground,
which is without a leader since 1987.  The Prime Minister knows that. 
UMNO knows that.  The Prime Minister's desire that the Tengku declare
his candidacy, even if the rules do not until after nominations closed,
underscored his nervousness.  But would what happens at the press
conference help matters?  

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my