Published January 19, 2009

MALAYSIA INSIGHT

Yet another loud wake-up call

The times they are a'changing - Umno downplays last Saturday's by-election drubbing at its own peril

By S JAYASANKARAN
KL CORRESPONDENT

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DEPUTY Prime Minister Najib Razak described the ruling National Front coalition's loss in the Kuala Terengganu by-election last Saturday as a 'setback' but said that it would do nothing to change the political landscape of the country.

He also said that the opposition's victory did not mean that its strength was growing nor did it portend a disastrous outing for the Front in the next general election. Mr Najib, 55, will be prime minister in March after the current incumbent Abdullah Ahmad Badawi steps down and, for his sake, we hope he is right.

On Saturday, Abdul Wahid Endut from the opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) beat off Wan Farid Salleh from the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) by a majority of 2,631 votes. Mr Wahid won a seat previously won by Umno by just 620 votes in a constituency that is almost 90 per cent ethnic Malay.

There are those, in Umno, who would argue that the contest was lost simply because Umno picked the wrong candidate - a person too closely identified with Mr Abdullah and his son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin, two people who aren't very popular right now. They will point at former premier Mahathir Mohamad who also attacked Mr Wan Farid for the same reasons - and Dr Mahathir still wields considerable influence.

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, a former finance minister and an elder statesman of Umno, puts it starkly: 'This was more than a referendum on the leadership,' he said in an immediate reaction to the results: 'It was a test of the relevance of Umno in its present form. If Umno is no longer relevant to the Malays, the BN (Barisan Nasional or the National Front) formula is dead. The Chinese will have no reason to support MCA and so on. The power-sharing consensual bargain on which our political system has been based since Independence is broken.'

'We are in uncharted waters with no one at the wheel,' the prince concluded.

Hyperbole? Alarmist? Actually, Tengku Razaleigh has always been reasonably consistent. Immediately after the March 8 general election last year, he warned that if Umno did not fundamentally change its ways, its culture of political patronage, all the baggage of having been in power since 1957, it would be repudiated by young voters who were sickened by the excess, the hubris.

`Mr Najib should know this better than most. He previously stressed the importance of the contest and the importance of blunting the opposition's momentum ahead of state elections in Sarawak which could be called this year.

Then, there is Umno's own elections in March, where all posts from deputy president downwards will be contested. If the party elects new leaders who aren't perceived to be clean, who are stridently chauvinistic, then the party that has governed this country for the longest time could be in trouble.

All it takes is perception. In short, Umno must not only change - it must be seen to have changed.