A New Thinking for a New Leadership

What is uppermost in the minds of our top leadership? Politics is the overwhelming and overriding preoccupation. Undoubtedly it is the UMNO leadership elections. The federal government is facing some critical buy by-elections.

DS Najib is unchallenged as the new UMNO President. The assembly in March 2009 will give him the endorsement thus legitimizing his position as UMNO president.

Naturally, he too will be occupied with politics. There are two things where he must direct his mind and resources. These are:-

(a) The politics of UMNO and

(b) The economy.

Both are intertwined.

As regards to the politics of UMNO, he must direct his mind and resources to carry out the changes he has declared. He must now talk the walk as the cliché goes. We have heard that too often, if UMNO does not change, it will go the Golkar way, the LDP route, and suffers the Indian Congress Party fate.

Everyone also knows that changes demand more than just talking about it. One aspirant for the Ketua Pemuda post has even made Dare to Change as his campaign battle cry. That sounded more like a self help book rather than a serious invitation to UMNO crowd. Thus far, he has shown no changes nor does he offer a menu of the changes he wants. Indeed he has remained bashful about articulating his ideas. The way he is conducting himself demurely at that, seems to indicate his weak leadership constitution.

DS Najib cannot compound his own ambivalent constitution with more wishy-washy leadership material playing the leading roles.

All he did was calling for the UMNO president and Prime Minister to go way. And then now, he says patronizingly to not mistreat the outgoing PM. Well, one swallow does not make an Indian summer.

I say this in a matter of fact way; although Mukhriz may a personable fellow- he is not right for Ketua Pemuda.

Leaders are made of sterner stuff. Mukhriz hasn't got the Bismarkian trait of his father. If they are not, then they must surround themselves with people of that constitution. This leads us to Najib.

The whole country will be watching whether DS Najib will do the right things. That by the way is what a leader must do. He must do the right things. We are very familiar with the expression the function of a leader is to lead.

So the first thing, DS Najib must do is to stop playing to the gallery. He must stop being all things to all people. He has an irritating tendency to do this. If he has 10 people, he wants to please very single one. He cannot. He has to recognize this fact.

In his parliamentary seat of Pekan, even though he won with a big majority, there will always be around 10,000 who will not vote for him for whatever reasons fancy them. It has been that since the time of Tun Razak but Tun Razak did not lose sleep over that. But Najib suffers insomnia if that happens. So to get rid of that political insomnia, he must stop being all things to all people.

That kind of behavior pattern suggests an ingrained ambivalence in his personality. It suggests he does not have the resolve to carry out unpopular actions. He must be decisive and must acquire the ability to not be sidetracked with criticisms. He must have a trait of a Mahathir and the attitude of a Hussein Onn's willingness to take the right action rather than being pissed on his grave.

He must stop pandering to wishes of the many UMNO warlords. This country is not composed of only UMNO warlords, UMNO contractors and UMNO businessmen. DS Najib is UMNO leader for all Malaysians.

The first order of things is to acquire a ruthless streak. By that I mean he must be assertive and decisive. He must clear his Augean stables- get rid of deadwood political leaders. Those who have contested and lost, he must jettison. The MB's who lost elections and states must be assigned to the bottom rung of the leadership ladder. They have had their day. Ministers who have not been performing and who can be liabilities to Najib must be pensioned off. These include Najib's journeymen during his stint as Ketua Pemuda long time ago. If Nazri Aziz, Rafidah Aziz,Azalina are burdensome to him, he must let go of them. And he mustn't be hesitant to mete out the same treatment to MCA, MIC and other component party leaders. Those who have lost the trust of their own communities should not be accommodated and pampered once again. Najib should cut his losses.

He must surround himself with capable advisors. By these I mean not those advisors in awe of him, mere myrmidons and sycophantic panderers who hallelujah him all the time like uncritical zombies. He must have advisors who are willing to risk talking candidly with candor and upfront with everything. He will need a constant dose of reality checks.

He must seek counsel from previous leaders. Pak Lah must be treated with decorum. I have said this a long time ago in my article An Honorable Exit Nonetheless.

Of course he must engage TDM who will definitely be his biggest critic. He must be prepared to put up good reasoning with TDM. TDM just can't be ignored. Part of making peace with TDM will entail sacrificing some of the more strident and vitriolic voices in UMNO. One such person is Nazri Aziz. And most of all Dato Najib must show he is made of sterner stuff. Otherwise TDM's perception of DS Najib being of weak constitution becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

He must conduct himself to the business of leadership. That involves the paramount mission of to first of all, LEAD. By ensuring the right people are there. In the next article I will write who can be Najib's ketua pemuda and the reasons there in.

The other burning issue is the economy. Unless DS Najib can devote an overwhelming time to managing the economy, he should relinquish the Finance Ministry. TDM did that during Tun Daim's time. He put a capable person there. Tengku Razaleigh managed the country's finance and economy for a long time. The PM at that time wasn't obsessed at keeping the finance ministry.

Minding the kitty requires a person with serious constitution. When DS Najib took time off to present the CEO of TNB with whatever award of the year thing, what did that show? It shows he has got the time to take time off from the serious affair of managing the country's economy at these trying times. He has got 3-4 hours to while away from minding the economy. That presenting award thing could be done by the other finance minister. In the new administration is there a need to have a second finance minister?