Will UMNO dissenters flock to Mahathir’s new party to form a majority opposition bloc against Najib?
Umar Mukhtar
The assumption that traditional UMNO members are not comfortable joining the present opposition parties and would need to join a sort of UMNO-in-exile party temporarily until Prime Minister Najib Razak is ousted may be the only plausible reason for Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s latest initiative.
It underscores that this is a fight against a personality rather than disagreement with a party’s philosophy that have given rise to that personality. In other words, UMNO is okay. It is Najib that has lost the plot. How that character could have usurped the party hierarchy and be in control of the levers that have been primed to amass so much power seem to escape this lot.
In other words, it is alright even if the person is a near-dictator, as long as he is ‘our dictator’. And what defines ‘our dictator’? Ask Mahathir!
So the formation of Mahathir’s party is hoped to be a brief respite that should allow them to return to the fold once ‘our dictator’ has removed Najib. Mahathir must have done a survey and found out that the reason not many Sg. Besar and Kuala Kangsar UMNO dissenters heeded his call to vote Amanah at the last by-elections was because they were also UMNO totoks who would rather die than entertain the thought of befriending DAP?
And it’s never the possibility that nobody really listens to Mahathir the corrupt old dictator anymore. He is just out of it. After all, Mahathir is UMNO Baru and UMNO Baru is UMNO, no doubt about it. Its shelf life is equivalent to Mahathir’s age. It cannot re-invent itself. At least Mahathir had cardiac rejuvenation.
The assumption is also that since the Malay votes were always quite evenly divided between Barisan Nasional and the opposition nationwide, a five to ten percent shift following Mahathir’s formation of a new party would be enough, upon combining with the existing opposing votes, to oust BN from power.
That was the sort of thinking by Amanah before the by-elections and the result was disastrous for the opposition. Hence, this modification by Mahathir forming a new party.
After removing UMNO from power, either they will mop up the remnants or just take back UMNO. That was also the unspoken thinking behind Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s Semangat 46 and Anwar Ibrahim’s PKN. Everybody wanted the grand-prize – the non-thinking easily manipulated voters that make up the UMNO membership. And to get them is by teaching them to think and be discerning? What irony!
What this move by Mahathir does not reckon on is that out of the many that may not like Najib, there are plenty who don’t like Mahathir too. They will remain on the fence. In fact, if they had thought of voting for the present opposition, they now probably won’t because the opposition has embraced Mahathir. That should have been food for thought for Pakatan Harapan before they salivate at the prospect of having Mahathir as their leader.
In fact, it boggles the mind that when the opposition predicted that UMNO would eventually implode and when it did, the opposition would allow itself to be the temporary shelter for UMNO-lovers to save UMNO! Let it shrivel and die a natural death. But they hate Najib so much, and yet not so smart on how to overcome him that they resort to Mahathir to do it for them. Yes, Mahathir will do it for you, my foot! What idiots.
