It’s not the system but those who practise it, says Dr M
(Malaysian Mirror) – Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Umno has made the right decision in abolishing the quota system to elect its leaders.
He said the system works on the precept that if anyone is truly qualified to be a leader he would surely have a good number of nominations from the divisions.
For instance, anyone aspiring to be the president has to have at least 60 nominations. The ‘rotten’ ones, including those intending to be president, will not get the required number of nominations.
“The unfortunate thing is that the president, who is also the prime minister, has great control over the party. “By some specific means, the president can force the divisions to only nominate him.
“His challenger will not only be unable to get the 60 divisions but will also be seen as being fit to only get nominated by just his own division,” Dr Mahathir said on Thursday in his blog, chedet.co.cc.
He was commenting on the recent Umno supreme council decision to abolish the quota system in the party elections and also to increase the number of delegates to the party's general assembly.
Curbing money politics
Many quarters, in responding to the announcement, said they were confident a revised system would curb money politics in the party
Dr Mahathir, Umno president from 1981 to 2003, said the system had failed to provide a sense of independence for the divisions and the members to act according to their actual desire.
“Therefore, it is right that this s
ystem has to be scrapped,” he said.
“I pray that after this, any abuse of power by the president can be stopped and any challenger will be able to contest.
“But at the moment, there does not seem to be any decision as to how a person is to be nominated,” he said.
Amend party constitution
The idea of abolishing the nomination quota system by amending the party constitution had been voiced by party president Najib Abdul Razak even before the party's supreme council decided on the proposal, aimed at making the party elections more transparent, open and democratic.
The amendments would be made at the special Umno general assembly on Oct 13.
“I pray that after this, any abuse of power by the president can be stopped and any challenger will be able to contest.
“But at the moment, there does not seem to be any decision as to how a person is to be nominated,” he said.
Dr Mahathir said in the final analysis it does not matter what system Umno prefers to use in electing its leaders as long as those practicing the system are clean.
Systems have flaws
“The truth is, no system is without its flaws. But whether the system is effective or not would depend on those who practise it.
“If it happens that the practitioners, at all levels can be easily bribed, whatever system used will not bring the desired good results,” he said.
Tracing events that led to the quota system in the party, he said it started in 1986 when (former deputy president) Musa Hitam persuaded (former vice-president) Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah to contest the presidency.
“As usual, the Umno divisions started to hold their meetings, where they decided on their nominees. Only 20% (of the divisions) nominated Tengku Razaleigh.
“However, at the general assembly, Tengku Razaleigh obtained about 50% of votes from the delegates.
“How this discrepancy came about between the divisions and their delegates at the assembly, only God knows,” Dr Mahathir said.
Subsequently, he added, the court ruled Umno to be an illegal party (due to the existence of unregistered branches).
But despite the party being later revived, many members and leaders defected to form a new splinter party.
“This clearly showed that a contest for the highest posts could lead to a breakup and could weaken the party,” Dr Mahathir said, adding that the Umno supreme council later met and agreed that such a situation could happen again in the furture.
“The supreme council decided that to prevent delegates from contradicting the consensus of their respective divisions, anyone nominated by the division would get 10 bonus votes.”
Unfortunately, said Dr Mahathir, when Anwar Ibrahim later challenged the late Ghaffar Baba for the deputy president’s post, he got such a huge number of nominations that just the bonus points could defeat Ghafar.
Forced to withdraw
“Ghafar was forced to withdraw from the contest and Anwar rose to become deputy president and deputy prime minister.”
Dr Mahathir said ‘there is something not right’ about using bonus points. “It looks like there is a way to manipulate the divisions until the delegates lose their voting rights altogether. It is clear the bonus system can be abused.”
He said the supreme council later amended its election rules to replace the bonus points with a quota system.
