Gerakan’s season of discontent

(The Malaysian Insider) KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 — In his repeated threats to quit Gerakan, Huan Cheng Guan has unintentionally drawn attention to the growing disquiet and restlessness among members eager for reforms and who are feeling frustrated with Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN).

While many members are feeling disheartened with the party's inability to change since it lost power in Penang last year after holding the government for 39 years, they are not exactly falling behind the vice-president either.

A number of central committee members told The Malaysian Insider that since last October's party polls, it has been "business as usual" which has resulted in members and supporters fading away.

"The grassroots are not seeing any change, so many of them are not even turning up for activities," one Klang Valley-based leader said.

Even in the run up to last year's general assembly, where Huan was the only person elected to the top leadership not aligned to president Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon, delegates had expressed a desire for Gerakan to back out of an Umno-dominated BN.

Koh himself admitted that 60 per cent of members wanted to leave BN but delegates believe that it is a far larger majority who want out.

One leader pointed out that the leadership was still acting unilaterally.

After the central working committee decided last Friday to suspend Huan for three years, 23 ordinary central committee members joined them for a Saturday morning meeting, but Huan's suspension was hardly discussed.

However, Huan is not seen as a symbol of reform by the party.

The former Batu Kawan MP claims he has thousands of supporters in mainland Penang, but other grassroots leaders are reluctant to back Huan in his current fight against the suspension.

Many see him as part of the status quo. Huan currently holds two administrative positions in Parliament despite losing in the last general election.

Thanks to his relationship with influential Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing, the backbenchers' chief, Huan is a special officer in the chief whip's office and also executive secretary of the backbenchers' club.

Huan's agitation was also sparked by the minor issue of unhappiness with the selection of branch-level coordinators for Penang BN and suggests a tussle for political patronage, which is the kind of politics that members want to do away with.

It symbolises the powerlessness that Gerakan members feel within BN where the party is still reliant on more influential figures in the coalition.

They are under no illusion that it is possible to push for change without the express permission of Umno.

Even the appointment of Koh as a minister in the Prime Minister's Department is not seen as a move to give Gerakan a say in policy-making but merely to ensure the loyalty of Gerakan to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

It fulfils the former Penang chief minister's ambition to be a federal minister which he attempted to engineer by moving from a state to a parliamentary seat in last year's general election.

But he was foiled by the wipe-out Gerakan suffered in Penang.

Today, Koh is hard at work trying to introduce key performance indicators (KPI) for ministers and top-ranking officers in the government.

But a portion of the grassroots feel that Koh's prioritising of government matters has been to the detriment of the party.

"Being in the Cabinet does not help the party reform. Some might say it has the opposite effect as the president should concentrate on strengthening the party," a central committee member said.

The keener observers in the party wonder how it is that Khairy Jamaluddin was told to concentrate on strengthening Umno Youth instead of becoming a minister while Gerakan, which is in a more precarious position, has its No. 1 given a senatorship just to install him into the Cabinet.

But Najib has at least given Gerakan members still loyal to the cause a glimmer of hope.

The BN chief recently told reporters that democratic reforms in Umno are on track and vice-president Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein has been meeting state-level leaders to push for direct elections by members for party president as well elections rather than appointments for state chiefs.

Najib said that the proposal, which requires constitutional amendments, should be ready to be voted on in this year's general assembly.

It will pave the way for members of other BN components to ask for the same.

In Gerakan, it may mean at least fixing the political patronage which led to the Huan fiasco.

But the question is whether this pace of reforms will be enough and in time to save Gerakan.