UMNO's Closing Chapter?

THE PROBLEM WITH UMNO.

It is just like the ostrich. It buries its head in the ground. Instinct leads it to believe that predators do not spot him. It is oblivious to surrounding dangers. It believes the world functions, as it wants it to.

UMNO is just like that too. When it lost the five states plus the WP, all it did was asking state leaders to go around appeasing the Malays. It lost more than just five states. It got only 79 parliamentary seats. It lost 30. It managed to secure less than 2 million out of the 5.7 million Malay voters. It is inconceivable that UMNO forfeited 3.7 million Malay votes! Including 1.5 million UMNO members’ votes.

How did UMNO rationalise its losses?

It deluded itself by thinking that its willingness and readiness to listen flavoured with heavy doses of pompous humility, to the ground can endear itself to UMNO members.

In fact, UMNO members were more disgusted with the leadership’s condescension.

The chicanery reaches its highest point, when the PM ordered organised meet the grass root sessions in Kuala Lumpur hotels,, his official residence and so forth. Delegates were feted, put up at comfortable hotels and given money to spend, given gifts.

The parting conclusion made by a foreign commentator, is ominous.

But the most telling problem for the BN is its utter inability to reinvent itself and introduce meaningful reforms after its major setback in the March general election. They are still out of touch with reality or rather the people’s reality on the ground...

The leadership believes in its own hype. That’s the closing chapter.