The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 16)

By MT Webmaster Last updated Apr 30, 2015

As the late Tun Muhammad Ghazali Shafie was fond of saying, “The silence is deafening.” That is what people are saying about Najib as well: the silence is deafening. Sun Tzu, however, says: when your enemy attacks you retreat and when he rests you counterattack. Is Najib a student of Sun Tzu by any chance or is he making the same mistake as Pak Lah?

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

It was about nine years ago some time in June 2006 when I received a phone call from a very excited Ibrahim Ali who was practically shouting into the phone. He had just come out from a meeting with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and he could not wait to tell me about it.

Dr Mahathir wanted to launch a road show and travel the length and breadth of Malaysia and he wanted Ibrahim Ali to organise it. The purpose of this road show was to hold talks with the Umno grassroots, mainly to whack the then Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Dr Mahathir did not want this road show and talks organised by the party, meaning Umno. He wanted an independent NGO or organisation that had no affiliations to either the government or the opposition to host the talks.

Ibrahim Ali proposed a few NGOs and movements but Dr Mahathir rejected all of them. “Who then do you want, Tun?” Ibrahim Ali asked, and Dr Mahathir replied, “Malaysia Today.”

That was why Ibrahim Ali was excited and could not wait to phone me. He was puzzled as to why Dr Mahathir rejected all the proposals and counter-proposed Malaysia Today instead.

“Have you been meeting Tun?” Ibrahim Ali asked. I confirmed that I had been meeting him and Ibrahim Ali replied, “No wonder he proposed Malaysia Today. I was very surprised. I never expected Tun to mention your name.”

“So how?” Ibrahim Ali asked. “Do you agree? Tun does not want anyone else. He wants Malaysia Today. If you agree I will start planning.”

I told Ibrahim Ali that I agreed for Malaysia Today to be the platform for the launch of the road show that would eventually be held all over Malaysia, the objective being to whack the Prime Minister and hopefully trigger his downfall.

But it took three years before Pak Lah would fall. And even then he did not really fall. He resigned to make way for his Deputy, Najib Tun Razak, to take over.

Many believe if Pak Lah’s wife, Endon Mahmood, a.k.a. Kak Endon, had not died in October 2005 he would not have resigned. She was his strength and she would have stood beside him to fight Dr Mahathir. But with her gone Pak Lah did not have the fight in him any longer.

The 2006-2007 road show, followed by the March 2008 general election disaster, sapped Pak Lah’s will to fight. One year later he resigned and handed power to Najib after being advised to leave gracefully or face the risk of getting kicked out and maybe even face criminal charges as well.

The first in a series of events to push for Pak Lah’s resignation was held at the Kelab Century Paradise in Taman Melawati, Kuala Lumpur, at 9.30am on Saturday, 24th June 2006. At 9.30am tomorrow, Saturday, 25th April 2015, we are going to see history being repeated. Dr Mahathir will be giving his first talk in a series of talks at, yet again, the Kelab Century Paradise, now renamed the K-Klub.

It took almost three years from 24th June 2006 to 3rd April 2009 for Pak Lah to finally resign. Dr Mahathir cannot afford to wait another three years from tomorrow for Najib to also resign. It must be sooner than that, before the 2018 general election, assuming Najib decides to go for his full term of five years. If Najib decides to call for an early general election, say next year or 2017, then it is even more urgent that Najib has to go, and go soon.

Dr Mahathir, however, has admitted that it is not easy to oust a Prime Minister. They tried to oust him back in 1987, six years after he took over as Prime Minister, and they continued trying for another 15 years after that. But he still managed to hold on to power until mid-2002 when he decided on his own terms and in his own time to let go.

Let us see what happens at 9.30am tomorrow. I expect Dr Mahathir to launch a no holds barred, no quarters asked and none given attack on Najib. This will basically signal that there is no longer any compromise and it has now crossed the point of no return.

Najib no longer has anything to lose. It is a ‘kill or be killed’ situation. Najib is not just facing the opposition but also his own people in Umno and Barisan Nasional as well, led by the same man who ousted the previous Prime Minister.

Najib can, of course, just do nothing, remain silent, and just take the blows like Pak Lah did. Or he can fight back by counterattacking and by engaging Dr Mahathir in battle.

Sun Tzu says do not meet your enemy in his battlefield and on his terms. Instead, draw your enemy into your battlefield where you can control the situation. I suspect Najib will not go down to the ground to engage Dr Mahathir. Instead he will decide when and where to battle.

Najib will wait and see and will allow Dr Mahathir to run out of bullets. And then he will counterattack. The most potent issue, of course, is the controversy surrounding 1MDB. I wonder whether Najib has a bombshell which he is keeping close to his chest and which he will drop once Dr Mahathir stops to take a breath.

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 15)

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 14)

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 13)

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 12)

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 11)

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 10)

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 9)

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 8)

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 7)

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 6)

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 5)

The Umno, PKR and PAS internal strife (part 4)