URP- UMNO Recovery Plan-2

We Shall Return!

We need our champions. It will not be the effort of a single person. We need a team driven by the same goals. And we cannot confine our recovery efforts at the top alone. It needs a comprehensive overhaul of the entire UMNO organization.

Once again, this is where we differ from the thinking of Tengku Razaleigh. He is thinking it as sufficient only to effect changes in the top leadership. As they usually say in economics, that is necessary but not sufficient.

In the case of either Japan and Western Europe, they had leaders who championed the recoveries in both countries. Marshall for Europe and McArthur for Japan. But they also had massive investments, an effective, disciplined and determined political and civil administrations, the application of law and order and the most important ingredient, an entire people’s resolve.

Clearly, an organization on the brink of destruction, one that is savaged by cancerous spread throughout its whole body politic, requires a comprehensive treatment.

As such, superficial changes at the top can never be sufficient.

If UMNO is to resurge, the battles against cancerous growth must be won over and over again. To remove cancerous tumors require invasive surgery. They must be nipped in the bud. The Malay adage of ‘when one wants to shape the bamboo, one begins while it is still a shoot. That translates into the parallel of to prevent fire, you snuff it out while small. This calls for decisive leadership borne of resolute character. We need a Tun Mahathir-like leadership.

The champion leadership must summon the determination and dedication of all the UMNO division heads. The branches must liberate themselves from old and tired leadership. The divisions must carry out their own restructuring. The highest leadership structure of UMNO must carry out its own changes. All must be united to the goal of rebuilding UMNO to recapture peoples’ trust. The trust of which needs to be fortified, defended and expanded.

Call it the UMNO Rebuilding Plan or UMNO Recovery Plan. Europe had its ERP( European Recovery Plan) and UMNO needs to have its own URP- UMNO Recovery Plan.

The URP must set itself out to be:-

1. A response to the denial of reality leadership
2. Must see its goals being acted upon. We don’t want people mouthing yes, its necessary but not move from mental inertia
3. Brace itself for a hobbled passage towards implementation because changes will be challenged by vested interest groups.
4. Must feed on the greater resolve of the 3.5 million UMNO members

This recovery plan should not be viewed as a romantic journey back to the halcyon days. It’s a plan, willfully thought of, determined to be carried out in its intensity.

It is a plan based on self-interest, i.e. interest to see UMNO gets back on its feet. It must be able to restore confidence among the UMNO members inducing them to take risks.

The UMNO leadership must not delude itself that such a recovery plan has a long period of gestation. It is one providing a long term view of the future. It is not a short tem solution.

Finally, of course a disproportionate amount of time and efforts must first of all be applied to the top leadership, starting with the top posts in the party.

Why? Because its willingness to dissect itself can represent the symbol for UMNO as a whole to secure restoration. Renewal at the top will provide hope for UMNO as a whole.