A Chimpanzee with a lethal weapon.

Whenever Zahid Hamidi speaks or expresses himself, I cringe. Does this man really have a PhD? Here is a man with wide legitimate coercive powers, behaving like a swashbuckler. I get the same recoil when watching how some soldiers in one African country gave an AK47 to their pet chimpanzee- the soldiers laughed at first at the chimpanzee, but soon scrambled to safety, when the ape started firing wildly with live ammunitions. God forbid- I am not comparing Zahid to that Chimp.

When I was in UMNO- my friends and I were in stitches recalling, what Zahid said when asked by a reporter after a supreme council meeting. Dato- how do you feel about Tan Sri Mohd bin Mohd Taib? (I think the occasion was the deliberation to decide on Mat Taib when he had married a Selangor princess then)  He turned on the press corps and said - come on lah- you people, relax lah-give him some humanity. You know, give him some humanity. What we wanted to say in Malay would have been ada sikit perasaan peri kemanusiaan lah.

I also now remember how one colleague related when Zahid wanted to practise speaking English with another friend while working in PUNB or PNB. (Working where I can’t remember) After speaking for a brief time Zahid said- mat, kita cakap melayu lah- penatlah cakap orang putih ini.

It’s perfectly ok, not to be proficient in the language. After all we are NOT English people. But I expect some finesse from a top leader in UMNO.

I have met and known Zahid for quite some time. He served as Najib’s political secretary when the latter was Defence Minister. His functions were primarily focused on cultivating political networks around the country. So that when Najib goes for a post in UMNO, Zahid will mobilise the political network. Otherwise, he played a wide field. He deals anything related to domestic politics which really meant dealing with UMNO divisions, UMNO people.

Although our encounters were limited to superficial exchanges, assessing Zahid from those encounters left me with the impression that Zahid has no scholarly qualities. Zahid’s paltriness did not seem to go away, even after we saw a new Zahid with the Doctor prefixed to his name. The man is still superficial. Either that or the advanced learning has not succeeded in cultivating the scholar in Zahid.

This man is simply incapable of refined analysis. A former high ranking officer who once served with Tun Ismail at the Home Ministry said- a man of Zahid’s calibre would not have qualified even to be a clerk with Tun Ismail. That was now clearly evidenced with Zahid’s shocking response to Umno Youth's threat to burn down the DAP headquarters last Thursday. Zahid, ever the intellectual bumpkin pretending he is clever, said of that is the price DAP must pay for allowing its members to utter derogatory words.

A minister aspiring to the highest office if possible, speaking like a common thug! A man responsible for the security and safety of the whole nation with wide coercive powers, speaking as though the only safety and security he is looking after is UMNO’s and not the nation’s.

Of course people can feel hurt and get offended – but that does not excuse lawless behaviour. And he is a minister who looks after lawful behaviour. If UMNO people felt offended, dont behave like a lynching mob in a frontier town, get Rayer to court. The Home Minister should be going after people who carried out criminal intimidation such as uttering to burn a building.

Now, Najib has a major problem in his hands. How to contain a senior minister who is loose in the head and becomes loose cannon. Zahid has inadvertently revealed how people in high office abused their power.

Zahd’s promise to provide RELA people with new uniforms should BN win Teluk Intan is clearly election bribery. Two, Zahid warned the Rela people to all vote for BN because in the last elections he knows the exact number of Rela people who did not vote for BN. how did he know unless, the Election Commission gave free access to UMNO ministers to check the ballot papers. That can only mean, we don’t have ballot secrecy and that voting is secret means nothing to a government bent on herding the people into the pen or worse- the slaughterhouse.

God forbid, I am not likening Zahid to the chimp in the video, ok.

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