Reading Lee Kuan Yew(2)

Reading Lee Kuan Yew (2).

In the previous article I touched the following matters:-

• the emerging trend of voting
  
• The Malay predominance in politics
  
• Young, urban and unconventional voters.
  

MM Lee's meeting with Haji Hadi, leader of the PMIP was instructive in its implications. The younger generation are rooting in for the opposition. They are educated, urbanised and net-workers. They read between the lines and therefore, in the famous words of an English judge, not mere riders on the Clapham Omnibus. They will prove to be the biggest problem that UMNO faces.

There is a huge generational gap projected by the present UMNO leadership. The exclusion of the Ketua Pemuda, despite the rancorous reception his victory received, is sending negative signals. You want to include the younger generation, yet the spokesman for the young, who could attract the interest of the younger generation, is ignored. If you don't have that 'x' factor identifiable with the young, you cannot be the leader of the Pemuda UMNO. To me it's that simple. It's that ability to flow with the aggressive juices, taming their restlessness with how things are, sharing their inclinations, talking their lingo. These requirements would exclude the dour and bland characters. They also want a spokesman able to muster intellectual aggression.

It's for the good of UMNO. The younger generation needs a rallying figure. We can't go on justifying the exclusion of the ketua Pemuda who won his position within the boundaries of UMNOesque legitimacy, on grounds, of the oft repeated verbal remarks- that if we ask the man on the street, 70-80% of them will reject KJ. If we now use the same logic, and further accept it as legitimising our rejection of the Ketua Pemuda, where will such empirical findings leave UMNO?

If you were to ask 10 people on the street, 8 out of 10 say, they want to kick UMNO down the drain. Do we then take steps to reject UMNO because 80-90% has spoken against UMNO?

No, what we do is take remedial actions and consolidate. UMNO must be seen as an integral whole before it speaks of One this and One that.

The PM and UMNO president must not be seen vacillating on this point. You either include the Ketua Pemuda or explain clearly the reasons for his exclusion.

I have seen this trend directly. It was during the by elections of Bukit Gantang. The Pemuda UMNO was effectively excluded from playing the field. The Ketua Pemuda was even warned not to come. Now, if you could do that to your own, what impression does that behaviour give to lesser beings?

Not that, their involvement could have altered the outcome, but it would have created a presence. I have mentioned this in my article on that by election. When young people went in droves to listen to Nik Aziz, Theresa Kok and to Anwar Ibrahim, that didn't look good on UMNO. When young people who are more suitably categorised as kutus were handing out leaflets by the ketua pemdua PAS, that meant, the younger generation identified with PAS. Whether they believed in the principles of PAS was another matter. What they showed, was they were anti UMNO.

When Dr Mahathir was talking at a mass meeting in Taiping, his audience profile was revealing. The majority of those sitting in front were election workers from outside Perak. Most of them are in the saluran 1 and 2- which are for older voters. UMNO doesn't have a hold on the future- so how can they claim the future?

What's happening in UMNO that is perceived by the younger generation? This is what they see: UMNO is not paying serious attention improving the incentives for young men and women to join the government. This is because, in reality it is still caught in this idea that the government knows best. In the politics of UMNO, that is translated into the leaders know best and by leaders, we mean the elite few.

Hence, leadership succession issues mean simply that- UMNO politics is knotted to the idea, that the incubator of UMNO leaders is the old boy and family network. You enshrined the principles that we elect and select leaders based on who they are- titled persons, sons and daughters of previous leaders who are assumed to inherit the genetic attributes, holders of hereditary positions. Here we go again subscribing to the ethos of ascriptve norms. UMNO should reject these and uphold the ethos of achieved norms- we elect leaders because of their accomplishments and merits.

UMNO must face this fact which Lee Kuan Yew observed way back in 1966. The second generation of UMNOniks are basically careerists. They see UMNO as a means for personal aggrandizements, to secure contracts which they subsequently sub-contract to others; they see UMNO as means to go up the ladder for positions. They are not idealists.

They have turned out to be these because of our natural economic progression. In the early years, political leaders were more idealistic and their place in politics was naturally determined.

Now, we have class F contractors, big time contractors, businessmen of the type we mentioned above becoming UMNO leaders at various branches and divisions. The ideals that motivate these people are obviously more materialistic that idealistic. We end up having a political philosophy coloured predominantly by crass economic interests.

UMNO must face the fact that the second generation are careerists. They look for opportunities to advance themselves, for the immediate families. Their priorities are different. When this happens, the best and more able will direct themselves to securing career opportunities in the private sector.

What do we have? Trouble for UMNO because the second best careerists, not able to compete in the open market, will now dominate UMNO politics. What happens to UMNO when it's dominated by second best careerists? Its leadership quality suffers and the ethos of second-best careerists predominates- loudmouthed, uncouth, and haughty and so forth.

In other words, UMNO makes itself expensive on the wrong terms. In a world where there are substitutes to UMNO, becoming more expensive motivates other people to consume the less expensive but equally good product.