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Sakmongkol ak 47

ariff.sabri@gmail.com

Tuesday 28 October 2008

The Power of the Loo

The future leaders of UMNO are decided in the toilets of PWTC.

Sakmongkol would like to begin this short essay, by quoting what has been erroneously attributed to the Duke of Wellington. Many of us will remember, that he was supposed to have said:-

"The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton"

He of course never said it because when this quotation first appeared he was already dead. He attended Eton for a very brief period and never liked Eton. But the saying is too juicy to dispute and so it remains till today.

As to the leadership in UMNO, sakmongkol is borrowing what the Duke said. Sakmongkol says this;

The future leaders of UMNO and to a large extent, leaders of Malaysia are determined in the toilets of PWTC.

The reasons why, will be clear in a short while.

The present party elections from Pemuda to Bahagian, perhaps Wanita too and later Puteri, are already infested with money politics. In Kelantan you have branch heads driving around in brand new kancils as rewards and inducements for campaigning for certain personalities. In Maran, youth delegates were openly asked, how many lorries of money do you want. In Pekan, sakmongkol’s friends were openly told by youth delegates, no grease, no nomination. its simple as that.

Nominations are up for grabs if the price is right. Youth delegates to divisional meetings have a lower price threshold at the moment. Those 4 delegates to the national youth general assembly will have a higher price threshold. They are already counting money. It’s a rich man’s world out there.

By all reckoning, this year’s battle for supremacy for the youth head’s post will be the most expensive. Large sums of money will be flowing to grease delegates. Everyone are guilty of this gangrenous culture.

The most protracted battle will take place between the three contenders in the youth wing. They are Mukhriz Mahathir, Khairy Jamaluddin and Khir Toyo.

Yesterday, there was an interview over tv. It was a mini forum, moderated by a university kebangsaan lecturer, Agus Salim. The two guests invited were Saifudin Nasution of PKR and Khir Toyo. The theme of the discussion was deciding the future leadership of the Malays.

Saifudin offered the now commonly heard tirade against money politics. He urged the Malays to choose leaders based on meritorious qualities, competency, character and so forth.

Khir was able to meekly counter and unconvincingly at that too, by saying, in the final analysis, notwithstanding the prevalence of money flow, delegates will ultimately choose leaders based on what Saifudin opined. In other words, khir was admitting that, money politics have reached epidemic levels. No point of dignifying the accusation by denying it.

But given that, all other things being equal, where everybody plays the same game, delegates will choose leaders based on merits.

What twisted logic. That will only mean, that in future, UMNO is a club for deep pocketed candidates. And club rules apply.

And so on to march 2009. delegates will converge at PWTC. Operatives and the storm troopers will scour the rooms of the hotels in Kuala Lumpur sizing up delegates. Come the final day, each will receive their sedekah, the UMNO way. At the 11th hour, in the toilets of PWTC, large sums of money exchanged hands, in return for the promise to vote for certain candidates. The victorious candidates will then declare piously, that UMNO must re-invent itself.

Eton has been referred to as "the chief nurse of England's statesmen" and is often described as the most famous public school in the world. UMNO is the largest political party and can also claim to be the chief nurse of Malaysia’s leaders.

But while the Duke of Wellington is often quoted as saying that "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, sakmomgkol is rephrasing the duke by saying, The future leaders of UMNO and to a large extent, leaders of Malaysia are determined in the toilets of PWTC.

ILLIUS ME PAENITET, DUX, SORRY ABOUT THAT CHIEF!

9 comments:

Anonymous,  28 October 2008 at 22:04  

Hey
Hmmmmm nothing else happens in the toilets, I hope....
But they have hotel rooms for that.
Life must be tough ever since they abolished the RM500 note....and RM1000 too....RM50, wow....No wonder you need truck loads....
It's quite sad that people vote based on $$$$.
All things being equal, maybe merit will prevail.
Having said that, UMNO shouldn't feel too bad. In the US, corruption just has been legalised via LoBBY Groups. :)

de minimis 28 October 2008 at 22:04  

Bro Sak

Hardhitting. No holds barred. The truth doth hurt. Ouch! I suspect this is the same modus operandi, with minor variations, for the other BN parties too. What a way to elect the future PM and his key Cabinet members.

Anonymous,  28 October 2008 at 22:10  

oh great sakmongkol. suprising revealation. no wonder so many people in the toilet during that day. furthermore nobody notice it as the baju melayu pockets are hidden behind the samping. what about the puteris? where do they hide their envelopes.. mmmmm

gondol

Unknown 28 October 2008 at 22:11  

power and wealth is a potent mix

when politics is funded by businessmen

integrity has diminished in value

sad state of affairs

Anonymous,  28 October 2008 at 22:24  

Our national fruit shouldn't be the durian.

Perhaps they will consider the humble tomato. It cures incontinence and reduces the need to take leaks in tight cubicles. Other attributes are purely coincidental.

If it's so widespread, they might as well make it mainstay - haven't they heard of electronic transfer?

The disciplinary committee is toothless, so why worry?

MAH - mana ada harapan?

Mat Cendana 28 October 2008 at 23:01  

This is something that I've been wondering: Have you ever worked with a newspaper before, seriously? You see, I'm amazed by how prolific you are; being able to come up with these posts regularly and maintaining a certain standard.

Oh, it's not too difficult if you simply pick a news item, write a few lines of comments (which is a valid post too, since "blogs can be anything") and wait for the others to comment - I can probably come up with at least five posts myself despite not being too knowledgeable when it comes to politics if I do it this way. But in your case here, these are all "fully created by yourself"! Even an old hand like Ahmad A. Talib at his "Pahit Manis" blog doesn't do this every day - in your case, it could even be more than two daily!

Then there's the question of your title here - this is the work of a professional sub-editor too! Newspapers would love to have you as a political columnist. But then, this particular area is jealously guarded - they'd allow only "vetted people" to have this huge readership.

Anyway, the first paragraph is excellent - the connections between "loo", Duke of Wellington's battle, plus the PWTC loos; of which I'm sure insiders like you know something about. BTW this is the kind that makes your blog a cut above those written by other politicians - I'd have the feeling "they're not telling everything".

Now that you've mentioned that purported quote, I'm also now wondering how many there must be right now that are NOT by the aforementioned persons.

I'm also discouraged by your mentioning of money politics. If this is still being carried out blatantly despite all the noise and complaints about it, then I'd say Pakatan Rakyat leaders are rubbing their hands in glee - Umno looks likely to be doomed.

Well, since these people - the grassroots LEADERS - are like this, don't expect people like me to have any feelings of attachment for it in the near future. Yes, it's true that I as an individual am *almost totally insignificant. However, there are more like me - A LOT MORE.

[*I say "almost" because of one thing - I have two blogs. Yes, they in Cendana Blues: Addicted to Politics and Recovery from Addiction aren't exactly "of CheDet.com hits rate", but "a few people" do read them. Might as well try take advantage of the traffic here to self-promote my blogs:-) ]

Ariff Sabri 28 October 2008 at 23:21  

hello mc,
i have never worked in newspapers before. if you must know, my first and last job was with shell malaysia. orang minyak.
yes, pwtc is UMNO's waterLOO

Anonymous,  28 October 2008 at 23:57  

shame on u..talk about revealing somethin that public should know.. do u know who u are?

Mat Cendana 29 October 2008 at 00:27  

@walla
Electronic transfers? Cannot... for the simple reason of "evidence".

@fitnah
Hi, not to "kacau daun", but I can't totally understand what you're trying to say here. And I really dislike ambiguity.

Especially with this one: "talk about revealing somethin that public should know." It doesn't tie in with the previous or proceeding sentence.

And the last one - Will you PLEASE elaborate instead of keeping people like me in suspense?

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