The Chairman Speaks or Squeeks?

It was Winston Churchill in 1941 who said: We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.
Ku Din may have wished he had all the tools. Unfortunately he does not. Tengku Ahmad Rithaudeen is chairman of the UMNO Disciplinary Board. It looks into complaints about breaches in discipline and campaign ethics. It has been most preoccupied with complaints about money politics. Ku Din has also said that the majority of complaints were not able to be resolved. Perhaps only 10% of the complaints ever get to see the light of day.
The Disciplinary Board is more renowned for its failures than successes. Even its success in getting the biggest name thus far, that of Tan Sri Isa Samad was tainted with accusations of selective persecution. Isa Samad, the story goes, was a victim of political assassination.
In that sense, Ku Din can also be said to be a tired and beaten man. He is frustrated. The political will is there, the execution is absent. The tools by which he can enforce discipline and rules are not there.
I am not sure whether the board members who are mostly drawn from retired politicians have the technical expertise to carry out forensic investigations into complaints. Hence, Ku Din was more than willing to let the reconstituted MACC carry out investigations. The Board is also more satisfied to play the role of a final arbiter.
The board’s move to have the investigation part done by the MACC should be regarded as a complementary role sharing. Instead it is looked upon a sign admitting ineffectiveness. It wasn’t accepted supportively. The UMNO shock troopers are descending upon a few of Ku Din’s efforts like packs of wolves. 50 people were reported to stage a protest of sorts airing their objections at MACC. They want UMNO’s internal problems to be sorted out according to UMNO ways. And so we ask, what is the UMNO way?
They are asking Ku Din who is regarded as senile to desist trampling their rights. And pray tell what this right is? Is it the right to demand money for votes? Is it the right to sell votes for money? Or is it the right to accept corruption as a way of life?
It has to come out at last, UMNO people think different set of laws apply on them. If that line of thinking is pushed to the extreme, then one day, we shall see demands by UMNO people that Malay problems are dealt with the Malay way. And what is that? We have a different set of laws as opposed to the common law?
The more sinister implication is, in UMNO corruption is acceptable. It is allowed within UMNO and that is why common law against corruption are not applicable within UMNO.
The issues raised by Ku Din’s opinions are not given fair hearing;
(1) The abolition of Putera and Puteri wings
(2) The dismantling of Wanita and Pemuda wings
(3) The abolition of quota system
(4) The issue of money politics.
Instead our attention is diverted to questioning the wisdom of Ku Din’s scrap the puteri and pemuda wings. We are silent on the quota system and we are applying all sorts of qualifying tests on money politics. Sidetracking and the art of political obfuscation are at play here.
Ku Din’s Board may have gotten all but unqualified political will. The UMNO president and the entire MKT must put all their weight behind the crusade against money politics. Instead it seems to be succumbing to pressures from the very transgressors which the powers of the board want to weed out.
The crusade against money politics has taken a secondary role. The focus is now to denounce Ku Din for mentioning the unmentionable; disbanding the puteri and puetra wings.
His opinions are taken over-seriously by Puteri and Putera. They have submitted letters of protest even though, Najib has already said, that won’t happen. If Najib and other UMNO leaders have already said No! to Ku Din’s remarks, why the overkill? Allowing that to pass would imply the putera and puteri are sleeping. The actions were just advertisement of their weakening relevance. We haven’t seen letters and protest decrying money politics.
Their enthusiastic vehemence against just an idea from an old UMNO guard should also be matched with the same vigour with regards to abhorrence to money politics. Ku din’s opinions are the fabled Don Quixote’s dragons, while the real menace of money politics and what they do to the erosion of trust in UMNO is taken lightly. Hence all and sundry in UMNO pretend that money politics in UMNO has not reached alarming proportions. So, dream on you UMNO people.
But let us take a closer look at Ku Din’s suggestions.
Having been freed from that responsibilities, has allowed Ku Din a freer turf. He can for example, let fly a few trial balloons. I believe he has done that recently. He may be testing waters. Doing that has also reinvigorated tired UMNO minds. The otherwise inert minds of Muhyiddin, Hishamuddin, Noraini, Rafidah, and Azeez Raheem suddenly sprang into action.
The balloons I am referring relates to Ku Din’s thinking out-loud on several aspects regarding UMNO. He has given some thoughts on UMNO’s organisational structure. Perhaps he says, maybe it is our organisational structure that breeds money politics. Accordingly, he has proposed the following. Abolish the Putera and Puteri wings. He has also suggested that UMNO do away with the Youth and Wanita wings.
Ku Din has his reasons. He believes, having too many sub-organisations increases also the avenue of money politics. He proposes to amputate the wings. We disband them and absorb them into one UMNO. He thinks a consolidated UMNO is a better deterrent to money politics.
His calls for the abolition may in fact be a call of desperation and hopelessness. Ku Din is merely expressing what the general public has accepted, UMNO is almost beyond redemption. Denying that money politics has so ravaged UMNO, strengthens the idea that its business as usual in UMNO. I am afraid that optimism is misplaced.
There is a chink in Ku Din’s opinions. Let us offer a counter argument. It may expose the weakness in Ku Din’s trial balloon. As an illustration, let us suppose with all the wings of UMNO plus their parent body, we find 100 cases of corruption. Since there are 5 separate units under UMNO, we further assume that each has committed 20 cases of money politics. These 20 cases are carried out by elements within each unit.
Now, as Tengku Din says, we abolish the 4 wings and allow only the parent body, i.e. UMNO to exist. What do we have? We have a situation where all those who committed money politics offenses in the now defunct units, are co-opted into the main body. What happens then? That will mean the number of those who have committed the wrongs remains the same at 100. Except, they now exist under the principal organisation. By default, they regroup in another area. They become concentrated and therefore stronger.
Therefore, disbanding the Wanita, Pemuda, Puteri and Putera does not remove the corrupting elements. What the proposal does is to eliminate the organisational units hosting the cancerous elements. Disbanding the various sub units, gives Tengku Din the false promise that with the demise of these units, the cancerous elements are extinguished. I am not going to entertain the plebeian analogy of ‘if we clip the wings, how can it fly?’ UMNO is not an animal sunny.
For that reason, we are thankful Tengku Din is not a medical doctor. For, what he actually proposes is to transplant defective and degenerative hearts, kidneys, liver and other such organs into an already equally ravaged body. The cancerous elements will infect the larger body and will hasten its death. Then, there exists a real danger of allowing the cancerous elements to prosper within a more spacious body.