Umno ignores Malay opinion about the party

BASTIEN Onn, a forty-something politician from Johor, returned from campaigning in Kemaman depressed yet hopeful at the same time.

He had gone knocking on doors and he could tell straight away that many Malays had made up their minds to go with PAS.

But at quite a number of houses, Bastien could sense that the local folk had not completely rejected Umno but were not going to vote for Umno.

“One elderly man told me Umno was a good party, but not anymore. Another said he is ready to come back to us but wants the party to change first. Although the Malays have turned against us, the prospect of them coming is there but I don’t know when.

“When I went to a mosque in Kampung Mok Chili which was built when Tan Sri Idris Jusoh was the mentri besar, I could tell that PAS supporters had taken over the mosque. They were civil but some turned away,” said Bastien, who is the deputy chief of the Segamat division.

Given the devastating outcome of the Kemaman by-election, many in Umno thought the leaders would act decisively to arrest the party’s decline at the supreme council meeting on Thursday evening.

Instead, what they got was news that Isham Jalil, a former aide of Datuk Seri Najib Razak, had been sacked with immediate effect and that all Umno MPs and assemblymen would continue to support Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

The sacking was not surprising because Isham, a supreme council member, has been a thorn in the side of Umno president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

The claim of loyalty among all Umno MPs and assemblymen was to stamp out rumours that some of them are planning to declare support for Perikatan Nasional.

Ahmad Zahid had been hinting on calling it a day. However, a former minister's aide said that until the day he actually lays down tools, Ahmad Zahid intends to show that he is in charge and they had better not mess with him.

Some noted that was probably why he took the unusual step of stressing that the deputy president and three vice-presidents attend the supreme council meeting.

“I think Zahid needed the visuals to signal that he is still the boss and they should not harbour hopes of taking over just yet,” said the above aide.

Moreover, his hints of retiring had failed to draw the anticipated pleas for him to stay on and must have hurt.

There has also been speculation that Datuk Seri Mohamed Hasan is “getting restless” after he was seen fraternising with Perikatan leaders on nomination day in Kemaman.

The Umno deputy president was also seen as growing too friendly with Bera MP Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Sembrong MP Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, two personalities who are not on the same page as the Umno president.

Ahmad Zahid had begun the supreme council meeting by confirming that he had prostate surgery and that he is well.

The meeting did discuss the Kemaman debacle but continued to blame the defeat on their white voters not emerging to vote, whereas the question they should be asking is why these voters refused to come out.

A positive outcome from the meeting was the appointment Johor Mentri Besar, Datuk Onn Hafiz and Datuk Rozi Mamat as the respective state chairmen of Johor and Terengganu.

“It’s about time, they are young leaders who represent the future of Umno,” said Bastien.

Political commentator Datuk Wan Shihab Wan Ismail said that Kemaman is a painful indication of how Umno is still bleeding as Malays abandon the party for PAS.

“It was a real humiliation and people were calling it a massacre on social media,” he said.

Wan Shihab said that generally, Umno members accept that they have to be part of the unity government because of the “titah Agong” or the wishes of the King.

But he said Umno will be crossing a red line if it insists on going into the next general election with Pakatan, by which time the “titah Agong” would no longer apply.

“I see the white voters turning grey if that happens,” said Wan Shihab.

PAS has extended an olive branch to Umno, which was immediately spurned because Ahmad Zahid is too deeply invested in PMX.

Had Umno continued with PAS in Muafakat Nasional several years ago, it would have been the big brother because it had more seats. But now, PAS is the single biggest party in Parliament with 48 seats and Umno would be the junior partner.

The more rational elements in Umno say that the party lost Kemaman by more than 27,000 votes in last year’s general election because of their president.

However, they pointed out that the bigger margin of defeat in Kemaman was because the Malays are not impressed with what the unity government has achieved to date.

“It will take time for us to convince our base about accepting DAP. The older Malays have not forgotten what DAP leaders said about the police, the civil service, the NEP (new economic policy) and about Umno.

“The younger generation see things differently but every time Lim Kit Siang opens his mouth, he makes the Malays angry. He needs to stop talking,” said Pahang state assembly Speaker Datuk Seri Sharkar Shamsudin.

Umno was once unsinkable like the Titanic until it hit the proverbial iceberg in 2018. By the general election of 2022, the damage was too great and the ship is sinking deeper.

“I am so sad for my party. We used to have more than 100 seats in Parliament, then it went down to about 80 and now we have only 28. We only needed Panadol back then, now we are in ICU.

“GE16 is a disaster waiting to happen if things do not improve for Umno,” said former Kapar division chief Datuk Faizal Abdullah.

The Umno Titanic could be at the bottom of the sea by then.