Kelantan Malays will not hand over their state to Umno, not when they are comfortable and managing their own money.
(FMT) - Umno simply can’t manage differences in opinions except through animosity until death.
Take the Kelantan situation. Mustapa Mohamed (Kelantan Umno liaison chief) or Tok Pa is a good technocrat. He works hard. I’m confident Tok Pa is a good man.
But he does fail miserably in the personality department. Even the TNB lamp posts have better “personality”. As a politician, Tok Pa is colourless. We don’t know when he is angry and when he is happy.
I once asked Tok Pa if he knew the Kelantan dialect. If we listened to his conversation, it’s difficult to tell he’s from Kelantan. His face is expressionless.
He says he wants to seek Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s (Ku Li) advice, but it’s difficult to gauge his actual intention.
Is his offer to seek Ku Li’s counsel aimed at covering up Kelantan Umno’s carelessness in not inviting the most influential personality in Kelantan to its meetings?
The problem in Kelantan is that every Umno division leader thinks he’s a bigshot, at least until the election arrives.
Let’s take a look at Kelantan and Tok Pa’s declaration that Umno will wrest 23 seats in the coming general election. Is it an empty war cry?
I’ve just returned from Kelantan and let me tell you what we saw.
We saw a vigorous and energetic community. Progress and development were organic.
Organic progress in Kelantan
Organic in this instance means that the majority of the progress and development came through the people’s own effort and hard work, with minimal government encouragement and support.
The Kelantan government may have succeeded in only earning RM400 million to RM500 million a year – a small amount when compared to other states – but its citizen have disposal incomes.
The money is in their own hands. The biggest lesson here is that the best people to manage our money is we ourselves.
With money in their own hands, Kelantan citizens have moved ahead in their own personal development and progress.
The political lesson here is simply this – with economic autonomy, Kelantan citizens have wider options.
Now for me that is a huge sign that the Kelantanese doen’t need the politics of patronage which Umno is touting as essential for development.
The Kelantanese have long ago learnt that a government is merely a wadah (vessel) through which to achieve their objectives.
Having economic autonomy has empowered the rakyat in Kelantan to remain loyal to the ruling administration which was built on values, conviction and faith. It’s a call that people can relate to.
In this contex what is Umno struggling for? Not for the Malays surely because that struggle has been replaced by personal interest.
Umno is trumpeting his struggle for the “people’s welfare”’ when actually it is looking into securing the comfort of big corporates.
