The battle for Pemudadom

Each of the 191 UMNO divisions will send 4 delegates each to the PWTC. That will be in March 2009. their minds are pre-occupied with one thing. Who shall they select as their ketua pemuda?

Sakmongkol was talking with a few friends ( ex aduns /politicians and pemuda). They are asking Sakmongkol, who he thinks will become the next ketua pemuda.

Sakmongkol says he does not know who. His answer is as good and valid as theirs. This is not an exact science. But perhaps, if you can answer these questions, maybe you can make a good guess.

1. What is the age profile of Pemuda UMNO?
2. What is their professional profile?
3. What is their political vision?
4. what is their political IQ?

Now, if we can answer these questions truthfully, then maybe we can make an intelligent guess. Truthful because we have to get rid of our own prejudices. Sakmongkol says there haven’t been any sober analyses on the three contestants. Muhkriz Mahathir has his band of rabid supporters. They have adopted this all’s fair in love and war strategy. KJ has his team of fanatical writers. KJ has people like brother Jinggo who appears to be a street enforcer much like Lucca Brazzi to Don Corleone. KT has people all over who thinks WRITING about KT is a waste of time. To them time is money.

Most of the Pemuda delegates will be in their late 20’s and early 30’s. one does not expect the ranks to be filled with graduates capable of analysing complex issues. The level of mental sophistication that can be expected from such a smorgasbord of young people who make up the Pemuda delegates, is at best elementary. Most of them will be small time contractors, self employed and so forth. Sakmongkol is not confident they can articulate a vision on UMNO’s future or the future of the Malays. Sakmongkol is sorry to say, our young delegates will be more interested in BUDU ( the term made famous by Sakmongkol’s friend, the blogger Smalltalk). This will not be expanded by Sakmongkol.

Who will they look up to? They will look up to a leader who can touch base with them. Can relate to their garrulousness, their youthful exuberance, high spiritedness and partiality to having a good time, can capitalise on their youthful enthusiasm. By saying all these, we are not underestimating the ability of younger members to have a concern on what’s happening around them. They do, except they also realise, those issues can best be championed by the senior leaders of UMNO. As to their own leader, they will look for a leader who is as voluble as themselves,

So who will the ketua pemuda be?

Sakmongkol will not be tempted to go into a SWOT analysis like that done on KJ by one of his ardent supporters. That appeared so amateurish and yucky. Because for every positive things you can put in your SWOT analysis, there will always be an equally plausible rebuttal. So where will all end?

Who the ketua pemuda will be, won’t be decided by any management devices. Moreover, SWOT analysis is so faddish and has no relevance today. Sakmongkol suspects this fellow who came up with the SWOT analysis must be a very young fellow fresh out reading textbooks. Perhaps he/she is one of those people clutching the Economist magazine.

On the flip side, you cannot willed MUhkriz to win by adopting a scorched earth policy. A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area. In its modern usage the term is not limited to food stocks, and can include the destruction of shelter, transportation, communications and industrial resources. The practice may be carried out by an army in enemy territory, or its own home territory.

The French adopted a method known as chevauchée) it was a method in medieval warfare for weakening the enemy, focusing mainly on wreaking havoc, burning and pillaging enemy territory, in order to reduce the productivity of a region; as opposed to siege warfare or wars of conquest. The chevauchée could be used as a way of forcing an enemy to fight, or as a means of discrediting the enemy's government and detaching his subjects from their loyalty. This usually caused a massive flight of refugees to fortified towns and castles, which would be untouched by the chevauchée.

The most precious resource to KJ at the moment and indeed, more precious than all the money he has at the moment, is his moral credibility. The pictures widely distributed on the internet showing KJ enjoying time out at the opening of some exclusive watering hole somewhere in KL were intended to discredit the enemy (KJ) and detaching his supporters from their loyalty. They were calculated to cause massive flight of supporters from fortress KJ.

But were the assaults and siege on KJ’s morality issues, themselves morally justifiable? We will analyse the different operational methods and strategies employed by the warring factions, later.