Why Umno leaders are singing such a vile tune these days

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-s On Oct 8, 2013

(TMI) – A recent poll of 600 Umno party members and their supporters by the respected Merdeka Center has revealed a disturbing picture of a party contented with itself and angry with just about everyone else.

If Malaysians are offended by the vile garbage being spewed by the likes of Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam and other Umno politicians auditioning for the Umno party polls on October 19, there is more distressing news.

A recent poll of 600 Umno party members and their supporters by the respected Merdeka Center has revealed a disturbing picture of a party contented with itself and angry with just about everyone else.

A clutch of questions was asked to gauge the current perception about the ruling party by its own cadres.

In response, just under three-quarters of them said Umno should not give in too much to demands by non-Malays.

Nine out of 10 believed Umno should focus its energy on building up more support among Malays for the next general election.

And here is a real shocker. After all that has been written about the decrepit state of the party, the paucity of leaders with integrity and the hubris which resides in every pore of the party, only 17% of party members and supporters felt that the public was disgusted with Umno because its leaders had strayed from the original goals.

They basically think Umno is in good shape and only needs some tweaking here and there. And that tweaking is focused on generating more support from the Malays.

Two-thirds, or 67%, did not think that Umno is focusing too much on the Malay agenda. Only 16% felt that winning over non-Malays is Umno’s biggest challenge, believing that the priority should be getting older leaders to make way for younger ones and increasing support of Malays for the party.

In GE13, Umno/Barisan Nasional snagged 61.6% of the Malays, thanks primarily to the strategem of creating fear among Malays with the bogey that non-Malays are aiming to wrest political control of the country.

Since the general election, Umno politicians have unleashed two streams of rhetoric: that Malay voters should be rewarded for returning BN to power and that opposition supporters must be punished.

Every candidate for the Umno elections has tried to play the race card, knowing well that there is a ready and receptive audience among party delegates for the blame rhetoric.

It is much easier for the party – from the top to rank-and-file – to blame ungrateful Chinese or belligerent Christians for their dismal electoral performance than to focus on the real reasons for losing more parliamentary seats and the popular vote, compared to 2008.