All charged up in Umno

Last year, delegates were still referring to him as Tun Mahathir yang disayangi (our beloved Tun Mahathir), appealing to him to halt the attacks and not cause a split. But Dr Mahathir’s alliance with DAP earlier this year changed everything, it is seen as the ultimate betrayal and this year was about bringing an end to their ties with him. There were loud “boos” when Dr Mahathir’s name was mentioned by Hishammuddin.

Joceline Tan, The Star

THE Umno general assembly started with a lot things to prove.

But by the time the three Wanita, Youth and Puteri wings wrapped up their respective assemblies on Wednesday, it was crystal clear that Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has a firm hold on the party.

He is quite unshakeable, stronger than when his great nemesis Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was when fighting off his own adversaries. That is the thing about being challenged in politics, the winner often goes on to become stronger.

And where Umno politics is concerned, the presidency cannot be rocked when the three wings are carrying him.

The leaders of the wings made it very clear that they are not with those who have joined the opposition and that they are standing by their party and president.

Najib has lost a deputy president and vice-president but he is now flanked by two arch loyalists – his long-time comrade Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and his cousin Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein. One is the Home Minister and the other is the Defence Minister, so you get the picture.

Dr Ahmad Zahid spoke at length of his loyalty to Najib while Hishammuddin stressed that Umno is an armada with only one captain.

The seating arrangement this year also spoke volumes – Dr Ahmad Zahid was seated next to Najib. Last year, Najib and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin were adjacent to each other but their seats were two metres apart which, politically speaking, was wider than the Straits of Malacca.

This general assembly has been a contrast to that of last year when the air was hostile, volatile and confusing.

“Umno will look stronger after this. It has sent the signal that the house is in order, the enemy is outside and that they are one family,” said political commentator Dr Azmi Omar.

On top of that, Umno is in one mind about the man once considered the greatest Prime Minister the country ever had but who is now deemed an outright enemy of Umno.

Who would have imagined that anyone in Umno could take on Dr Mahathir and survive?

Muhyiddin and Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal, on the other hand, were spared of attacks. The party did not wish to hurt those who used to be associated with them.

“It’s very strategic, their sacking caused ripples but Pagoh did not fall apart. It’s water under the bridge. You attack them, you make them big again,” said Dr Azmi.

Najib, in his closing remarks, dwelt again on the contributions of the wings, singling out Datuk Seri Shahrizat Jalil and Khairy Jamaluddin for special mention.

Everyone could see how Shahrizat has gone from strength to strength after surviving the NFC or National Feedlot Corporation scandal. No one in her wing comes close to her grasp of what the Wanita members want and how to articulate their concerns and aspirations.

She is the women most suited to oversee the transition of the women’s wing from a largely rural and housewives base to a modern and mixed cohort that includes well educated professionals.

The three-finger hand sign signifying her wing’s demand for women to fill 30% of decision-making posts in GLCs, government and politics has caught on in the party.

During her winding-up speech, she reminded Khairy not to neglect the women’s view in the TN50 dialogue. The Youth chief, right on cue as usual, gave her the three finger sign.

But Khairy had another big moment on the last day. The Umno president who had asked him and his wing to strive to be khayra ummah or the best of the generation, referred to him as an “Umno warrior”.

It was both a recognition of Khairy and a challenge for him to set the bar high.

The Youth and Sports Minister is entering an exciting phase in his political career, and from the way the delegates responded to his speech, he is arguably the most compelling Umno politician his party has seen in decades.

Khairy explained that Umno Youth supports the president not out of blind loyalty but because the president has responded positively to the wing’s initiatives, accepting many of the wing’s suggestions as government policy.

The big boss had given him a lot of face and Khairy reciprocated with a show of support. He delivered a fierce and skilful winding-up speech that was an all-out pledge of support for Najib.

He drew laughter when he said that when he won the Youth leadership in 2009, he was cold-storaged but boi boi, the nickname for Mukhriz, lost and was made a deputy minister. But he stayed loyal to the president.

The TN50 vision project mooted by Najib during his Budget speech has captured the imagination of many in Umno.

It is still an idea, an abstraction, but the fact that the Prime Minister is thinking so far ahead means that the Umno-led government is confident of being around till then.

Dr Mahathir is probably hurt that Umno members have turned against him after all he has done for the country.

But the sentiment in Umno is that he would not have achieved greatness had they not stood by him through one political crisis after another and through all those economic scandals.

Last year, delegates were still referring to him as Tun Mahathir yang disayangi (our beloved Tun Mahathir), appealing to him to halt the attacks and not cause a split.

But Dr Mahathir’s alliance with DAP earlier this year changed everything, it is seen as the ultimate betrayal and this year was about bringing an end to their ties with him. There were loud “boos” when Dr Mahathir’s name was mentioned by Hishammuddin.

The infamous video of the man known as the “DAP Superman” or Hew Kuan Yau was played on the screen towards the close of Najib’s winding-up speech.

Hew, a regular DAP ceramah speaker, is known for his ultra Chinese right-wing views and the video was about his “Malay screw Malay” remarks made during the Sarawak election when he asked Sarawakians to vote in a Malay DAP candidate so that he can attack Umno. It also showed him asking DAP members to accept Dr Mahathir so that the party could use him to topple Najib.

Most of the delegates had never heard of him but what he said clearly shocked them because he epitomised their worst fears of DAP. It drove home what the Umno leaders have been telling them the past few days, that they must choose between an Umno-led government and a DAP-led government.

Najib was in a relaxed and confident mood throughout the assembly. When he stopped by the media centre on Friday, The Star’s general assembly team chief Razak Ahmad presented him with a framed picture of his interview with the paper.

When one of the reporters asked whether he read the report, he quipped: “Yes I did, and you put me with Castro.”

Everyone burst out laughing as he pointed to a picture of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro in the top left-hand corner of the front-page story.

The problems in the party have subsided. Umno is at its most stable since Dr Mahathir began his attacks and party leaders seem to be speaking in one voice.

What more could a president ask for? Well, Najib is asking the party to do what it takes to win the general election.

Everyone had turned up for the opening day dressed in royal blue to signal their intention to start a blue wave in the general election. The closing day was a sea of red as Najib beat the war drums.

Umno general assemblies are unabashedly about Malay and national interests, and some of the loudest cheers were when the leaders acknowledged the role that the military and police play in maintaining peace and order.

The plight and persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar was an emotional issue for the delegates who gave their total commitment to the cause and voiced approval for Najib to join PAS president Datuk Seri Hadi Awang at a rally in Titiwangsa today in support of the Rohingya.

They are coming together for a good cause but it is going to be seen as a show of force by two of the biggest Malay-Muslim political bodies in the country and it will only fuel more talk of an Umno-PAS electoral pact.

Moreover, this year saw so many calls of Takbir! and Allah! ring out at the assembly, a practice that is associated with PAS gatherings.

Delegates went home after the last assembly with a crisis on their hands. This time they went home confident that the party is intact and with a clear idea of who the real enemy is.

Or as supreme council member Datuk Rahman Dahlan tweeted: “Perfect ending to Umno general assembly. Solidarity.”