Tenang. Buck up please.

A few days ago, I was optimistic of BN chances. It can win Tenang I opined. As days go by, my optimism is reduced. Chua Soi lek is not making many inroads into Chinese voters. He remains a discredited figure and his party, the MCA labeled an Uncle Tom to UMNO. Where does he get the basis to make the audacious claim that BN will win big the next time around?

As a diversion let me say this. The natives in Sabah are not going to take things lying down any longer. Revolt seems to be in the air in Sarawak too, prompting Taib Mahmud to use the charm of his sister to push Najib through Rosmah, to carry out concurrent general elections. Sarawak has 31 parliamentary seats. Taib Mahmud is telling Najib unless the opposition's focus is divided by having national elections, Sarawak may lose a large number of those 31 seats. If that happens, the overall majority of BN will be greatly reduced and may even result in the exit of BN as government. Najib is mindful of this and he doesn't want to lose Putrajaya.

So, how come Chua Soi Lek dare make an audacious claim? Probably, his claim is more of a nervous outburst. MCA is about to become a political appendix.

There is so much negativity surrounding BN that such a claim can only arise out of a moment of hallucination. The UMNO machinery is not primed. UMNO local foot soldiers are not giving their all out. The soft approach isn't working in Tenang. The Tenang UMNO boys are out of sync.

Tenang is not Galas. There the soft strategy worked precisely, because it was the culture cultivated by Tengku Razaleigh. In Tenang, you can't change the force of habit overnight.

What's the habit? UMNO Labis is more accustomed to the boisterous and noisy way of campaigning. Intimidation, shouting matches here and there, jeering here and there. You know UMNO Johor and Johoreans in general- humility and understated style are not their way. Johore- the first modern state, its King uses sword while the other Malay rulers use kerises. He gets to stab first. They play with sailboats, other Malay brethren play gasing. So how can you contain the Johore over exuberance? You can't. By forcing them to take the soft approach, you nullify and dull their senses.

The soft approach seems to be out of sync. The ANAK gathering at one FELDA scheme was heckled by the Pemuda UMNO under its ketua Pemuda Labis. They thought they scored points there, but their black-shirt style of harassment serves to reinforce UMNO's detachment from reality.

You will need to reorganize UMNO for new purposes. For now, hope for the best that the recipient's mindset hasn't changed that far. The UMNO machinery seems at ease with the soft approach. If they are unaccustomed, better to stick to the old methods.

And have you seen Ghani Osman?

Now, Ghani Osman was my lecturer in Welfare Economics at University Malaya. If he is still the person he was then, then Ghani will project the image of a diffident person, portraying the bewildered look. Perhaps he doesn't know how to handle a by election such as in Tenang. This is a very hard indictment on an UMNO leader, but I have to tell it as it is. Ghani may be a good person. But he is wanting as a field general.