Hence we are going to see a battle to decide not only the new Umno leadership but the direction Umno is to take over these next four or five years leading to the 14th General Election. Those who feel that Umno needs to appeal to the middle ground will back Najib. Those who feel that Najib has ‘sold out’ to the non-Malays will oppose him.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is attempting to keep the divide within Umno under wraps with his call that the top two posts in the party not be contested, said political analyst Khoo Kay Peng.

He said that after Barisan Nasional’s poor performance in the general election, Umno is undergoing a period of uncertainty and is currently mulling two options.

The options are whether to become more Malay-centric in its approach or to convert BN into a single party for all races.

“Mahathir is trying to keep the fight between the respective factions in support of either options within Umno’s walls.”

“If there is contest for the top posts, the battle may come out in the open and the party will become a target for its opponents,” said Khoo.

Yesterday, Mahathir backed the growing calls within Umno circles to leave Najib Tun Razak and Muhyiddin Yassin to remain party president and deputy president respectively.

He said the contest for the top two positions would split Umno, like what happened in 1987, when then Umno vice-president Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah challenged Mahathir for the presidency.

“Going by the democratic practice, we should have contests but Malaysians do not really understand the practice.”

“If they lose, they will quit the party and set up another, causing the Malays and Umno to split further, “ Mahathir was reported as saying.

Khoo said that at the end of the day, it did not matter who was helming Umno as the real decision makers in the party would be its supreme council members.

“The real focus should be on its supreme council as they will decide on which direction the party president will have to take.”

“So even if Najib wants to push forward his liberal ideas, his fate will be determined by the supreme council,” he said.

However as a democratic party, Khoo said Umno members should allow contest for all posts in the party.

“And Umno will see 150,000 of its delegates participating in the party election this time around,” he added.

Nottingham Malaysia University analyst Zaharom Nain said that it did not matter whether Najib or Muhyiddin led Umno as the right wing faction in the party is getting stronger.

“Would it really make much of a difference if it is Najib or Muhyiddin? Push comes to shove, aren’t they but mirror images of one other?”

“Indeed, bottom line is that the right-wing faction in Umno is getting stronger and both leaders are invariably constrained by this,” said Zaharom.

(READ MORE HERE)

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Students of history will know that the tussle between King Henry VIII and Rome was more than just about getting the Pope’s permission to divorce his Queen. That is the more popular notion, of course, because that sounds more ‘romantic’. But there are other more crucial factors to be considered in the reason behind England’s break from Rome.

The church throughout Europe was very rich. The church owned 20% of the land and the noblemen another 20%. And the serfs paid the church (and the nobles) heavy taxes to work this land — money that the church sent to Rome. Hence Rome was a source of ‘capital flight’ that for centuries had been ‘stealing’ the wealth of England.

Europe, England included, was perpetually involved in wars and this drained the treasury. It came to a stage that the state coffers had dried up and the only way the Crown could get its hands on more money was to raise taxes (which means, of course, tax the nobles) or confiscate the church’s property (which was exempted from taxes) and stop the outflow of wealth to Rome.

Henry VIII decided on the latter and overnight the King of England became the richest monarch in Europe (after hovering on the verge of bankruptcy). He, of course, had to burn the Catholic churches and kill all the Catholic priests in the process.

King Charles I, about 100 years later, faced the same financial crisis that Henry VIII faced — and for the same reason as well, wars. But there were no church properties to confiscate so be raised taxes (meaning the nobles now had to pay higher taxes).

This upset the nobles who protested (together with the rakyat, who the nobles transferred the increased taxes to) and this caused a split between the pro-monarchs and the anti-monarchs. Not long after that the English Civil War broke out and England became a Republic after the execution of the King.

Just like in the case of Henry VIII, the popular notion is that Charles and Parliament disagreed on issues involving Christianity. Hence it was a ‘Sunni-Shia’ conflict of sorts. However, money was very much the factor in all this with religion being the excuse to go to war.

And so on and so forth for all the other conflicts and revolutions throughout Europe as well over 100 years from the early 1800s to the early 1900s. At the end of the day, money was always the reason to go to war and to kill each other — with other factors being cited as the more ‘noble’ reason.

The point to all these stories is that what you see is not always what you get. You think you know the reason for what happened — or for what is going on — but you never really know what is ‘behind the scenes’.

So, what do you understand about what is currently going on in Umno? Is this about the recent general election on 5th May 2013? Is this about how poorly Najib Tun Razak performed compared to Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on 8th March 2008?

Actually, Umno is not concerned about the results of the recent general election — or at least they are not too concerned. They already knew back in 2012 that the best-case scenario was a win of 145 Parliament seats and the worst-case scenario was only 130 seats. Hence 133 seats is still within the ‘boundary’ although not as good as the 140 seats in 2008. And they won the states they expected to win and lost the states they expected to lose. So no big deal there as well.

So what is really going on in Umno then if this is not an aftershock to the 5th May 2013 general election? After all, Umno did increase its seats to 88 from just 79 in 2008. So it actually performed better by winning an additional nine seats.

What is going on in Umno is a power struggle between the rightists and the centrists. Umno is finally trying to decide whether it will move in the direction that Najib would like to bring it — that is, to be more liberal — or to move more towards the right — that is, to be more Malay-centric and nationalistic.

Najib represents the face of liberal Umno. And the ultra-Malays do not like that. These people feel that Najib wasted his time in trying too hard to become a Prime Minister for all Malaysians when the non-Malays want Umno dead anyway. And the voting pattern of the non-Malays, in particular the Chinese, in the recent general election proved that Najib was barking up the wrong tree.

These people are of the opinion that Najib should have focused on the Malays and should have spent more resources on the Malays rather than try to woo the non-Malays. And the voting pattern proved that there is no way Umno can woo the non-Malays, not even with money, budgets and promises of this, that and the other.

Even the Umno ‘running dogs’ such as MCA, MIC, Gerakan, PPP, etc., which used to be able to get a reasonable level of non-Malay support in the past, can no longer do so. And PSY and his ‘Gangnam Style’ could not do it as well.

The 5th May 2013 ‘wakeup call’ did wake Umno up. It is not that it did not. In fact, Umno already ‘woke up’ back in March 2008. It is just that they took a long time to stir out of bed after waking up. But now Umno has fully woken up to the fact that it needs to get its house in order.

But what do we mean by ‘getting its house in order’? Your interpretation of what that means may not be quite the same as Umno’s interpretation. To me, getting your house in order means more liberalism and democracy so that you can appeal to the ‘middle ground’. To the rightists in Umno, ‘getting its house in order’ would mean being more Malay-centric and nationalistic so that you can appeal to the rural and nationalist Malays.

Hence we are going to see a battle to decide not only the new Umno leadership but the direction Umno is to take over these next four or five years leading to the 14th General Election. Those who feel that Umno needs to appeal to the middle ground will back Najib. Those who feel that Najib has ‘sold out’ to the non-Malays will oppose him.

It does not matter whether Najib is going to be challenged or not in the party’s general assembly. Pak Lah was not challenged either. Pak Lah was not ousted during the general assembly. He was ousted after that. And that too will be when Najib is going to be ousted if he is ousted — after the general assembly.

And if Najib is ousted that is going to mean only one thing — and that is Umno is moving to the right and the liberals in Umno will no longer have a voice. And that can only bring Malaysia deeper into racial politics at the risk of exploding some time in the future to fulfill Lim Kit Siang’s prophecy of a time bomb ticking away in Malaysia.

 

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中間或右翼

因此，這場戰鬥不僅是關係到巫統領導層而已，它還會決定巫統在第14屆大選之前的未來四五年裏所選擇的方向。那些覺得巫統需要吸引中間派的將會支持納吉，而那些覺得納吉已經把自己“賣給了”非馬來人的則會反對他。

學過歷史的就會知道，英國亨利八世和羅馬之間的爭鬥不只是要教皇同意亨利和他的皇后離婚這麽簡單而已。這是目前比較流行的概念，因為這聽起來更為“浪漫”。但促使英國和羅馬絕交的背後還有其他更重要的因素。

整個歐洲的教會是非常富有的；教會擁有20％的土地和貴族另外20％。農奴必須支付教會（和貴族）重稅才能在這些土地耕種—-這些錢較后都會被送往羅馬。因此，羅馬是“資本外流”的來源而幾個世紀以來都在‘偷著‘英囯的財富。

當時的歐洲，包括英格蘭，都不停地在戰爭而使得國庫虛空。當時的國庫是虛空到皇室必須經由向貴族增收稅務或沒收教會的財產（之前是免繳稅的）以阻止財富外流到羅馬。

亨利八世決定向教會開刀，而他也在一夜間成為歐洲最富有的君主（在瀕臨破產的邊緣上徘徊多時後）。當然在這個過程中，他不得不把天主教教堂都燒光和殺死所有的天主教神父。

大約100年後查爾斯一世也因同樣的原因（戰爭）而面臨著同樣的金融危機。但問題是，他當時再也無法向教會開刀教會財產，所以他轉而向要貴族們加稅。

這把貴族們給惹毛了（人民也是，因爲貴族們把增多的稅務負擔轉嫁給人民），這引起了親君主群和反君主群的分裂。沒過多久，英國內戰爆發，而在國王被處決后英格蘭成為了共和國。

就像在亨利八世一樣，那流行的概念是查爾斯在基督教的問題上和國會發生了分歧。所以說，它就像是一個‘遜尼派和什葉派’式的衝突。然而，錢是最重要的因素，宗教只是個開戰的藉口而已。

從19世紀初至20世紀初這一百年以來整個歐洲都是面臨著各種不同的利益衝突和的革命。但到最後，錢總是去打仗並殺死對方的主要原因—當然它會被其他更爲‘高尚’的藉口給粉飾起來。

這些故事所要告訴你的是，你看到的不總是你會得到的。你以為你知道發生了什麼–或者是事情背後的原因–但你永遠不會知道真正的‘幕後’到底是什麼。

那麼，你知道到底巫統正在發生什麽事嗎？這牽扯到5月5日選舉嗎？這是因爲相比起來，納吉較阿都拉在08年的表現還差？

其實，巫統並不關心最近的大選結果–至少他們不會太在意。他們早在2012年就已經知道他們最好的情況是會贏得145個議會席位，最壞的情況是只有130個。因此，133個座位仍是在’邊界’，雖然不如2008年的140個席位那樣好。然而他們贏得了他們有望贏得的州屬，他們也失去了他們知道會失去的州屬，所以說那是沒什麼大不了的。

那麼，巫統到底是葫蘆裏賣什麽葯呢？畢竟，巫統的席位數確實增加從2008年的79個增至現在的88個。因此，實際上它是表現得更好的，它贏得了額外的九個席位。

巫統所發生的事情其實是右派和中間派之間的權力鬥爭。巫統終於有敢地嘗試是否要依據納吉的方向—那就是更開明的方向—前進， 或者是朝著右邊—那就是馬來中心民族主義—方向前進。

納吉代表的是巫統的開明派，而‘超級馬來人’是不喜歡這樣的。這些人認為納吉浪費著他的時間來嘗試成爲一位‘全民的首相’，問題是所有的非馬來人都要巫統滅亡。最近選舉裏非馬來人的投票方向，尤其是華人的，已證明納吉是吠錯了樹的。

這些人認為納吉應把精神集中在馬來人身上和把資源都投入給馬來人而不是要試圖討好非馬來人。投票模式也證明了，無論花上多少錢給出多少預算和承諾，巫統還是沒有辦法可以討好非馬來人的。

巫統的“走狗”如MIC馬華，民政黨，PPP等以前尚且還能得到一些非馬來人的支持，但此屆他們也已一面倒了。就連PSY和他的“騎馬舞”也無能爲力。

5月5日確實把巫統給喚醒了。事實上，早在08年3月巫統已經’醒了’。問題是儅他們醒起來后他們還賴床賴了很長的一段時間。但現在巫統已經是完全醒來了，它了解到它必須把房子給打掃乾淨了。

但我們所說的“把房子給打掃乾淨”到底是什麽呢？你的詮釋可能不是巫統的詮釋。對我來說，“把房子給打掃乾淨”意味著更為自主開明以便能更吸引‘中間派’的支持。但對巫統右派來講，“把房子給打掃乾淨”意味著更為馬來中心和注重民族主義以便能更吸引農村和民族主義的馬來人。

因此，這場戰鬥不僅是關係到巫統領導層而已，它還會決定巫統在未來的四五年裏，在第14屆大選之前的方向。那些覺得巫統需要吸引到中間派的將會支持納吉。那些覺得納吉已經把自己“賣給了”非馬來人的則會反對他。

納吉在黨大會裏會否受到挑戰是不重要的；當年伯拉也沒有受到挑戰。阿都拉不是在大會期間被推翻的，他是在過後才被趕下台的。而這也將是納吉被趕下台的方法（如果巫統要他下臺的話）—不會在大會裏，而是在大會後。

如果納吉被驅逐的話這也意味著只有一件事–那就是巫統是朝向右翼前進的而黨内的自由主義者將不再有發言權。這樣只會把馬來西亞推進更爲嚴重的种族政治風暴裏，而最後可能會如林吉祥預言般：這顆馬來西亞的定時炸彈很有可能在未來將被引爆。