Umno’s insincerity

By Jacqueline Ann Surin (The Nut Graph)

HOW will we know if Umno is really going to keep its promise to reform?

Quite simply, really. Similar to how we would measure a friend or partner's sincerity, all it requires for us to make an educated guess about Umno's reforms is to watch what the party is saying and doing. Indeed, in order for Umno members and non-members to trust that Umno will reform, as leader upon leader has avowed will happen, the party must not just speak the right words. It must also match action to those words.

Alas, on at least a few occasions over the past few days, Umno has clearly demonstrated it is failing in both areas.

Disgusting media

The irony was not lost on the media on the night of 24 March 2009 when Umno deputy president Datuk Seri Najib Razak called on the party to not "regard the new media as our enemy." In opening the Wanita, Youth and Puteri assemblies, the incoming party president asked the wings' delegates to understand the importance and power of the new media.

But this was a bit too much to swallow, especially since the party leadership had already decided to bar six online news sites from covering the nation's most important political party assembly. And if Najib's exhortation needed anymore dissonance from what the party really thinks and does, just hours before Najib's speech, these six online media were called "irresponsible" and "disgusting" in their reporting.

Those remarks were made by no less than Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, who decided that the new media should not be allowed to cover the Umno general assembly.

Dissonance

What is striking to me, though, is how disparate Tengku Adnan's judgement was compared with  that of upcoming Umno leaders who have agreed to grant interviews to the new media. In the case of The Nut Graph, for example, both Youth chief aspirants Khairy Jamaluddin and Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir agreed to do interviews with us because they assessed that we were fair and responsible.

One interviewee described us as "friendly", while the aide of another sent me the following SMS after I had requested for an interview with his boss: "He had said ok. Your 'small website' is classy, credible, devoted to accuracy."

Indeed, newly-elected Umno Youth chief Khairy himself has since openly disagreed with the party leadership's decision.

Read more at: http://www.thenutgraph.com/umnos-insincerity