The Changing of the guards

In the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) there is a separate way to adjudicate indiscretions carried out by the officer class. For an officer, the closest crime that can be committed falls into the category of conduct unbecoming of an Officer And A Gentleman or Article 133 of the UCMJ.

Officers include commissioned officers, or those holding appointed office in the US Military or cadets of any of the United States Military Academies and the like. An officer and a Gentleman by definition has moral, legal, and higher decision-making authority.

If found guilty, the tribunal discharges officers honourably.

How do you ask a sitting PM to go?

Everyone is clamouring for Pak Lah to go. He has already stated the he will. People are pushing him to do it earlier. He must not consider this. He must refuse this invitation. For even if he goes earlier, there is no guarantee that things under beneficiary-by-default Najib, will be all right.

Pak Lah too, as our leader has moral, legal, and higher decision-making authority. If he must leave, it must be done honourably.

If we bulldoze and stampede him into exiting the political office, then we ourselves become the same people we abhor. We must restraint ourselves from political savagery. We must discharge Pak Lah, just like an officer, honourably. If not our treatment of him becomes tainted.

The tribunal as it were, by which to judge Pak Lah will be extremely ill served if it is made up of the existing supreme council members each of whom has a vested interest to retain their post. They have shown themselves to be arrogant and alienated from ordinary UMNO members. They are directly responsible for creating the cesspool in which UMNO now, is mired. So, they have no locus standi to judge Pak Lah as they too are not blameless.

UMNO is never known for its finesse in etiquette. Most times it behaves like a country bumpkin with rough manners. It treats former leaders like a pariah. The great Tun Mahathir has been a victim. Lesser ex leaders are of course treated worse. They become forgotten and reduced to footnotes in history books. So, let us conduct ourselves becomingly.

I am urging caution. If we do a rush job, will there be a guarantee that his anointed successor, the equally inept and beleaguered Dato Najib can deliver? I have said that the best we can expect is another 4 years of more of the same as the previous 4 years- of directionless, listless and flaccid leadership.

Dato Najib is equally to blame for not speaking his mind when with the PM. I know of only one other person who has the guts to speak his mind. Alas, he is seen as too earthy and therefore not of vice president material.

This overzealousness to bump off Pak Lah smacks some sort of a putsch or coup de-tat by supporters of the DPM. Or by those attaching false and fat hopes on a person not deserving of such reverence. The urgency by which their scheme is to be executed appears like a desperate attempt to prevent other leaders coming to the fore. A leader of leaders who shall brood no nonsense from them.

Hoi- siapa lu orang takut huh?

We come back to the issue of being honourably discharged. The only way Pak lah can exit is through the UMNO general assembly. Lets not have any plea bargaining in chambers please. Or worse, like the fictional Star Chamber, supreme council members set themselves up as disillusioned judges and establish their own court to act as prosecutor , judge and executioner.

The most honourable way for Pak Lah to plan his discharge is to remove any impediments to real democracy in UMNO. That means the removal of the quota system.

How will that create an honourable exit for Pak lah and an equally honourable entry for the next leader?

That would widen the doors for other potential leaders severely handicapped by the mandatory minimum nomination requirements to emerge and constitute an honourable and truer reflection of the UMNO General Assembly.

That way, his exit will not be orchestrated by the few demanding a putsch but by a wider collegiate of delegates. A truer court dispensing honourable discharge. Rather than being discharged dishonourably by an equally dishonourable assemblage of rogues.

This is what the people and the UMNO delegates who are in tune with the rakyat want. They will find it abhorrent to have their residual rights to determine the leadership of UMNO be hijacked by a disparate group of politicians with differing agendas.

If that happens, I am sad to say, for UMNO, the writing is on the wall.