The Diva Rumble

Rafidah and Shahrizat?

I am not a hypocrite. That were the words uttered by Rafidah. She said them when she lost the ketua wanita post to Siti Zaharah. She refused to shake hands with the victor. She can be very spiteful and venomous. She will be acerbic after this. Rafidah is the Bung Mokhtar of Wanita. She believes she is God’s gift to wanita.

Rafidah, as we all know is a feisty lady. She is utterly confident of herself. She was a lecturer in economics at the university of Malaya. She left lecturedom when she joined politics. She is best remembered as our trade minister. The ministry is not divided as it is now. As a minster, she made our country proud. She is willing to stand heads and shoulders (not the shampoo) with other leaders. She can be tough as nails.

But she is also a very stubborn leader. This may be her own undoing. It can also be her Achilles heel. She may have been invincible. But she has a weakness. It is her stubbornness and headstrong quality. She does not change her mind easily. She is unmoveable. It is unlikely that she will back down from a fight.

We can say the same of the current face off in wanita. Shahrizat will challenge her for the post of wanita leader. She has taken Shahrizat under her wings. She has groomed her. So she must be hugely disappointed that her protégé is going against her. So she says, let us meet in the ring.

With Rafidah, we can be certain there will no Marquess of Queensberry rules. She will use bare knuckles. Even knuckle dusters.

But Rafidah must realise, that Shahrizat has no choice. She is facing a challenge from kamilia Ibrahim. Rafidah could have averted the action taken by kamilia, had she interceded. She could have stopped kamilia.

Rafidah would have none of that. She says the wanita leadership has agreed on a transition plan. In june 2009, she says she will hand over the wanita leadership to Shahrizat. The question from many people, why in June 2009? The UMNO elections will be held in March 2009. even the prime minister is handing over leadership to DS najib. By March 2009, DS Najib will be the new PM. Why couldn’t Rafidah time her own handing of power to be the same as the PM? what are her motives?

The principal motive, is she wants to be offered a cabinet post. She wants to leave government as a minister who retired not fired. Rafidah is a perfectionist. She wants completion and proper closing of her life. She will leave when she wants to.

People are saying, by refusing to synchronise her handing over, more harm will be created. Shahrizat is being challenged by kamilia. What if Shahrizat loses? Then the promise made by Rafidah to Shahrizat cannot be honoured. Being given a promise, Shahrizat rightly thinks the wanita leadership is hers. She may well reason out, if Rafidah wants to hand over the leadership, it doesn’t make a difference, if they do it sooner. Shahrizat can then focus in strengthening the wanita movement. She will be aided by Kamilia.

To Rafidah, anyone going against her is almost like blasphemy. It is the greatest of sin. I have written this and Rafidah is also saying the same thing. Whether she’s the acting ketua wanita or not, she will be the leader nevertheless.

Her decision to finally take up the cudgel, will bare all the latent antagonism within wanita UMNO. Rafidah will be fiendish. She will go all out with guns blazing. The anak mamee from Penang must counter Rafidah’s onslaughts with equal vehemence. With Rafiudah, she has to be in a take no prisoners mode.

To the wanita delegates think- you don’t vote for Rafidah, doesn’t make any difference. She has said she wants to leave. hasten her departure. if Rafidah actually said that if she wins, she will lead wanita for another 3 years, what does that mean? It means, really, she did not want to leave in the first place.

A pity there will be no hair pulling, clothes stripping, brawl in the mud folks! This is a Fatwa.